"I got all my sisters with me..."

Ryo Sakazaki has a problem. Despite spending most of his life training as a martial artist, he has no common sense whatsoever. Of course, having your little sister kidnapped by a bunch of mobsters doesn't exactly make for rational thinking. Instead of going to the police (you know, the sensible thing to do), he's decided to follow the criminals into Southtown and save his sister single-handedly. Apparently, Ryo believes that he has mastered his martial arts and can *****-slap anything that gets in his way. Thankfully, his generic rich friend/rival Robert has decided to tag along to keep him from getting slaughtered. Armed with nothing more than a handful of combat techniques, our heroes venture forth into the seedy underworld of the city.

However, the mobsters of Southtown are a far cry from the Tommy Gun-toting crime lords and gangtas from our time. Instead, Ryo and Robert will have to face a gauntlet of super-powered thugs and enforcers. Aside from an utterly cliched masked martial arts master, you'll have to defeat a stick-wielding businessman, an androgynous bouncer, a clawed assassin, an Air Force instructor, a disgraced boxer, and a morbidly obese drunkard. Veterans of Street Fighter II will note the similarities between the characters of their beloved game and this motley crew of baddies. Despite having highly stylized character designs akin to Ryu, Guile, Vega, Balrog, and Sagat, these guys boast more than enough high-flying kicks, charged punches, and devastating projectiles, to be unique. If Ryo and Robert (SNK made the mistake of only allowing these two to be playable in Story Mode) manage to kick all their asses, and endure a few easy minigames, they'll be led to a final showdown against a truly fearsome warrior and Ryo's (hopefully) unharmed sister.

Getting to that point, however, will be quite an undertaking. Unlike the honorable warriors of Street Fighter II, the villains of Southtown are more than willing to dish out overpowered attacks and unavoidable combos. In order to combat them, Ryo and Robert come packing an arsenal of special attacks in addition their array of punches and kicks. Using a control scheme all too familiar to Street Fighter fans, you'll be able to push different buttons and rotate the control stick in certain directions to fling energy balls, go flying across the room in an epic aerial kick combo, and punish your foes with a flurry of fists. While such concepts have been around since the original Street Fighter, Art of Fighting takes things a step further by implementing an energy gauge to limit your special attacks. If you don't have enough energy behind your attacks, your most brutal assaults will do minimal damage and the projectiles will fade before they even leave our heroes' fists. The trick is learning how to distance your character from his foe and give yourself enough time to recharge.

If you've played any 2D fighter from the last ten years or so, charging up combo attacks should be a familiar concept to you. While Art of Fighting can be credited with this addition to the fighting genre, it is marred by a few nasty flaws. Since the game came out in the infancy of the fighting game era, the pathetically slow–paced combat can be forgiven. The hit detection, however, is another story; you'll find that your attacks will occasionally pass through their intended targets. The issue is compounded by the abysmal framerates and choppy attack animations; While the enemies have fairly limited movesets, they can be hard to predict when they can suddenly shift from their standing position to a jump, kick, and full-blown attack combo. Accordingly, the combat feels clunky and unbalanced leaving you little options in terms of strategy.

The game tries to distract you from its shortcomings by making the game as visually appealing as possible. Though Ryo looks like a Street Fighter reject, you'll be able to make out the creases in his orange uniform and his wild mane of blonde hair. Other characters are just as detailed, offering visions of denim-clad brawlers, sleek business suits, oversized muscles, and faces contorted in agony. The game even includes an ever-shifting camera that'll zoom in as the characters get closer, allowing you to view the spattering blood and gradual bruising after enough punches hit their marks. Such a concept greatly improves the background scenery as well; while many of the stages are heavily pixilated, the zoomed camera will reveal fighting dojos covered with wooden decorations and flaming torches, gritty city streets, and a full-stocked bar with glowing neon signs and the shadows of spinning fans over a dirty linoleum floor. While the voice acting and Oriental-themed music is of B-Kung Fu movie quality, Art of Fighting is certainly impressive considering its age.

For their first attempt at taking on Capcom's famous fighting series, SNK did a decent job. Art of Fighting introduces us to a cast of characters that, despite their similarities to those of Street Fighter II, have interesting backgrounds that make for a coherent storyline. The game isn't about becoming a champion of international fighting, but a young warrior's struggle to save his family from certain death. The wide variety of moves and energy gauge-based system makes for a fairly interesting experience. Sadly, the questionable hit detection, slow pacing, and jumbled animations hamper the game from being as balanced and fun as its rival. But Art of Fighting was the start of something new for the fighting game genre, and that's got to count for something.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/11/07