Art of Fighting

1992 was a big year for fighting games. After the runaway success of Capcom's Street Fighter 2 and SNK's own success with Fatal Fury in 1991, it was only a matter of time before SNK entered the arena with another original title to combat the Street Fighter 2 juggernaut. Even in the second year of the burgeoning fighting game market there were multiple contenders for Art of Fighting to deal with. In Japan, ADK's World Heroes (also on Neo-Geo), released just two months prior and was quite popular in that territory. In the West, though, we had our own fighting game juggernaut for Art of Fighting to contend with. I'm of course talking about the runaway success of Midway's gory Mortal Kombat. 

Despite being a bit lost in the shuffle of the slew of Street Fighter 2 clones, Art of Fighting was one of the few games that, like Mortal Kombat, didn't lean on the mechanics of Street Fighter 2 to create a compelling experience. Rather, Art of Fighting stands as one of the most original and influential fighting games to date; introducing many mechanics, systems, and sprite effects that are still in use over 30 years later. Art of Fighting is still beloved today in SNK and Neo-Geo fan circles. Let's dive in and see what all the fuss is about. 

Like Fatal Fury before it, Art of Fighting is part of SNK's South Town Cannon. The events in this series take place a decade prior to the events in Fatal Fury, around the early 1980's, making it the first game canonically in the general SNK cannon until 1997's Last Blade which takes place in the 1860's during Japan's Bakumatsu Age. In 1995 SNK created a parallel timeline for the King of Fighters universe so the characters from Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting appear to be around the same age. You can discover more about that timeline in the King of Fighters 95 overview.

Art of Fighting is more or less a single-player affair with some two-player action thrown in for good measure - much like Fatal Fury. The story follows the series protagonist Ryo Sakazaki and his best friend Robert Garcia as they search for the missing Yuri Sakazaki - Ryo's sister and Robert's girlfriend. Their search leads them through the streets of South Town, fighting informants for information and taking part in various bonus games that can increase their skills (more on that later). At the end of their search they discover that the local crime lord Mr. Big is holding Yuri captive at an old factory and the final showdown between the two BFFs and Mr. Big begins...that is until Mr. Karate shows up and challenges Ryo to dual after Mr. Big is defeated. Series fans already know that Mr. Karate is actually Ryo's father Takuma - but we'll learn more about that in the Art of Fighting 2 review. 

As Ryo and Robert travel across South Town, they have the ability to increase their stats and even learn a super move - the first such comeback mechanic in fighting games. The bonus area allows the player to choose one of three activities that will either increase your spirit gauge (explained below), your overall power, or learn the Haoh-shotoken desperation move. While you can beat the game just fine without any of these buffs, these light RPG elements are a welcome addition to the single player campaign that helps set Art of Fighting apart from other contemporary fighting games of the day. 

Art of Fighting is comprised of eight playable characters and two unplayable bosses. In the story mode, though, you can only choose from Ryo and Robert. The game does have a dedicated versus mode, so all eight characters are playable. Generally, the cast from the Art of Fighting games are largely forgotten in fighting game history aside from Robert Garcia, the Sakazaki family, and a few other unique characters thanks to their appearance in the wildly popular King of Fighters series. 

In order to stand tall (literally) against the growing crowd of fighting games in arcades in the early 1990's, SNK knew their new fighter had to stand out. Using the sprite pushing power of the Neo-Geo to full advantage, coupled with the massive 102 mega bit cartridge (about 13 mega bytes) at the time, Art of Fighting introduced the largest player sprites of any game character the world had ever seen. Each character is at least as tall as half the screen, with most being 3/4 the height of the screen. These highly detailed, colorful, and hand-drawn characters really pop off the screen and drew the attention of eager arcade goers wanting the next big thing. The animation is a bit lacking in overall fluidity, but that's most likely due to the sheer size of the sprites taking up a majority of the memory real estate. Still, that's more of a nit-pick than anything else as the characters' important key-frames of animation are strong enough to compensate and the sprites look excellent in motion.

Traditionally, 2D fighting games keep the characters locked in a 4:3 box with the screen scrolling a bit to the left or right of the arena depending on the relative placement of the sprites. Always the innovator, SNK used the sprite scaling technology baked into the Neo-Geo hardware to pan the camera away from the center of the action while scaling out the background and scaling down the character sprite sizes. At full scale you can see almost the entire stage layout. While there were other pieces of arcade hardware better at sprite scaling than the Neo-Geo, this effect had not yet been seen in the fighting game genre and it was a real show stopper. This scaling effect was not only adopted by many other SNK games, but it is now a genre staple that other developers still use in their fighting games today! I can't overstate how important this mechanic is to the genre and the fuss it created when people first took notice. 

Not only are the sprites and scaling effects impressive, SNK took the graphical effects even further by adding in real-time damage to characters as each round progresses. The more damage the characters take, the more cuts, scrapes, bruises, and bumps show on their sprite. Further, if a character is defeated in a certain way their upper body clothes will be ripped away revealing even more damage. Suffice to say, despite its age, the art direction of Art of Fighting holds its own even 30 years later. This is one handsome game.

Compared even to Fatal Fury 2, which released a couple months later, Art of Fighting has a simple button set-up: A punches, B kicks, C is heavy attack/throw, and D is taunt. You can throw by pressing forward or back plus C, otherwise you'll produce your characters strongest normal attack. All characters have at least three special moves done by inputting a series of controller motions similar to Street Fighter 2 or Fatal Fury. While special moves are cumbersome to pull off compared to modern fighting games, they are much more consistent to perform than what we found in Fatal Fury the year prior.

Unique to the Art of Fighting series, the spirit gauge mechanic dictates your special move usage. Each special move you use takes a chunk out of your spirit gauge, and moves will decrease in size, speed, power, and range as the gauge depletes. You can hold down any attack button to power-up and refill your gauge, but watch out! Opponent taunts will deplete a large chunk of your gauge! While there are fans and detractors to this mechanic, it prevents the fireball wars from Street Fighter 2 and makes you think more critically about every move you make as you carefully balance your attacks. While the spirit gauge is another first for the genre, not many other games adopted this mechanic outright. Still, you can see traces of it throughout the decades influencing many games up to and including the Drive Meter mechanic in 2023's Street Fighter 6 from Capcom.

Like most early fighting games, there isn't a purposefully designed combo system here, but certain moves can interrupt other move's frames to create simple two-in-ones. This is the exception rather than the rule, making Art of Fighting more about well placed normal attacks and careful use of specials rather than trying to create impressive, multi-hit strings. 

In addition to the bevy of attack options, SNK added in innovative mobility mechanics that would be a staple part of the genre moving forward. While this innovation is little more than forward and backward dashes performed by a double press on the control stick in either direction, in 1992 this was a big deal as no other fighting game had anything like this. This simple addition makes the battle tempo in Art of Fighting much faster than other competitors' games from the era. 

One final mechanic that will go on to influence just about every other fighting game in its wake is the desperation move (read: super move). This is the first comeback mechanic in the genre where you gamble on a high-risk, hard to execute move, but receive a big payoff if the move connects. This mechanic can turn the tide of battle around instantly in your favor. While subsequent fighting games have these moves available from the get go (usually tied to a secondary meter or other mechanic), Art of Fighting only allows you access to these devastating moves after completing a mini-game in the aforementioned Bonus Areas you'll find scattered around South Town. Just make sure to have a full spirit gauge if you want to use a desperation move as they will drain the entire bar. 

The general gameplay in Art of Fighting is fast, and it still feels great to play over 30 years later due to SNK's much better implementation player feedback cues than what we found in Fatal Fury. If you're a modern fighting game player, you would describe this as the "game feel." Unlike Fatal Fury which feels a little squishy by comparison, each hit in Art of Fighting feels excellent to the player due to layered sound effects, sprite shaking effects on impact, and special effects that spark and fly when a sprite's hit-box connects with another. Sadly, like most early SNK fighting games, the AI controlled opponents are ridiculously hard. Although I would say this first release is much more forgiving than its sequel, the AI is still pull your hair out hard on normal difficulty and above.

In addition to all the other innovative mechanics and graphic effects on display, the Music is great. SNK's sound team's signature style continued to evolve with this release, and I consider Art of Fighting's soundtrack to be marginally better than Fatal Fury. The iconic first stage music in the Todo dojo has gone on to be synonymous with the Art of Fighting characters and the theme has received many variations and remixes across the storied King of Fighters series. Sound effects are also well designed with a hollow "POOOOWWWWWW" when you land a hard blow that has also become a series staple. Voice work is good overall, but it is easily the weakest in the series when compared to later entries.

Art of Fighting is a true classic that is still great fun over 30 years later. The compelling story, characters, and art direction are solid, and the gameplay is fast and fluid. I wouldn't say it holds up as well as Street Fighter 2, but certainly more than most other fighters of this era, including the first Fatal Fury. 

Thankfully, if you're looking to play Art of Fighting on real hardware you'll be glad to find out that it is one of the cheapest games you can get on AES, MVS, or CD - with the AES version being the most expensive at roughly $80-100 for a good condition Japanese copy and around $250 for a US release. MVS carts can be had for as little as $25, though. Art of Fighting has seen plenty of ports over the years in various releases and compilation packs. Modern gamers can pick it up for $8 on Hamster's brilliant Arcade Archives release on most consoles and digital storefronts. 

Art of Fighting saw a number of ports to home consoles of the day like the Nintendo's Super Famicom/Nintendo and Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis. These 16-bit ports are of course highly compromised, but both games represent a fair approximation of the source material with strengths and weaknesses for each version. The SNES port includes some rudimentary scaling effects, which is nice, but the backgrounds took a big hit in accuracy. Graphically, the Mega Drive port is much more in line with the original, but it lacks scaling completely. Like most classic ports, though, there isn't really a reason to revisit these versions in the modern era due to the Neo-Geo originals being widely available across emulation solutions and various compilation packs like the Art of Fighting Anthology on Playstation 2 physically and digitally on the Playstation 4/5. The 16-bit ports are more or less curios to check out, but I don't recommend them as a meaningful way to play this game unless you have some nostalgia for those releases.

While I wouldn't call Art of Fighting an "essential" first purchase if you're just getting into Neo-Geo collecting, it should definitely be on your list as the legacy of this game still caries significant weight today. The second game, which to me is the better of the two, is actually cheaper on AES and I highly recommend getting it first. Still, Art of Fighting is a fantastic relic of the by-gone days of the early 1990's arcade scene. As one of the most influential titles in the entire fighting game genre, though, there is a fair amount of historical significance to owning a copy of this truly groundbreaking game.