Art of Fighting 2

"Brains? We don’t need no stinkin’ brains!"

OPENING STATEMENT
This is the first game that I have both imported and reviewed that was never released in the United States for good reason. Art of Fighting 2 is a completely mindless tournament fighter, in case you could not tell by my synopsis. Art of Fighting 2 is also by far and away the most disappointing game ever released by SNK. Perhaps the heads of the company were playing this game when they decided to stop developing for the American market.

GAMEPLAY--2
How did SNK destroy a tournament fighter, their big money maker. How they did is a mystery to me, but if they did certainly is not. Art of Fighting 2 is not the place to go for the intricate strategies of King of Fighters. It is a mindless game, a button mashers paradise. Kind of like the Bahamas for the rest of the general population.

There is nothing even special in the roster of characters. Ryo is an exact Ken, of Street Fighter fame, clone, right down to his outfit and the color of his hair. Lee is an excellent replica of the Tekken series’s famed fighter, Eddy Gordo. Yuri seems to be a totally wussed-down version of my favorite Street Fighter character, Chun Li. And I thought that Namco and made Nina and Anna overly useless.

You can basically come across any move in Art of Fighting 2 by randomly pressing buttons for long enough. That is the easiest way to win, so you might as well stick with it. Sadly, Art of Fighting 2 even butchers the famous King of Fighter’s button layout, a feat that I never would have dreamed possible.

GRAPHICS--4
Surely with the gameplay so horrible, the graphics would at least be impressive, right? Wrong. These graphics are almost as horrible as the gameplay. The contour lines in the characters clothing make all of their clothes look like they are made out of ceramic or hard plastic. The character animation is decent, but it really makes all of the characters look like marionettes. The attacks just look like generic punches and kicks. Most certainly nothing special here.

MUSIC--2
SOUND--3
And look out folks! Art of Fighting 2 continues its hot streak! The music is oddly horrible, even for a tournament fighting game by SNK. SNK is not known for its epic numbers. But Art of Fighting 2 makes the King of Fighters noise sound like the music for Suikoden II. The song is basically a beat, kept going by a snare drum, with a few lines of flute music thrown in for good measure. The end result is a grainy sound disaster that sounds like it hearkens from the glory days of the Nintendo. Not a good thing for a fifth generation Super Nintendo game, as the Super Nintendo’s sound capabilities are far superior to that of the Nintendo Entertainment System.

The sound effects are not much better. Half of the time, a sound effect does not even happen when the fighters collide. And now, this is not because of the strength of the hit. Some of my character’s weakest hits have received a deafening boom, while a blow that Lennox Lewis would be proud of goes unnoticed. Worse still, when a sound effect does happen, it is not a good one. Punch the wall with your fist. That is a pretty close equivalent to what the punch sound effects sound like in Art of Fighting 2.

CONTROL--7
At least SNK did not ruin the control. If they had, this truly would have been a game of even greater ridicule. Art of Fighting 2 controls a bit sluggishly, but compared to the rest of the game, it is perfect beyond belief. There is a button for heavy kicks and punches, and a button for light kicks and punches. The ‘L’ and ‘R’ buttons seem to carry out attacks, but I am not sure of what to call those attacks. Perhaps ‘Flukes’ because they so rarely hit the opponent.

FUN--2
Do not make me laugh. The extent of this category should just need to state the obvious, and just say the numerical rating, but I suppose I will delve further into the issue of Art of Fighting 2’s lack of fun. First of all, the mode selection is laughable. It is versus the computer or versus another player. What is the point of this? You cannot even advance through the Versus Computer Mode like you do in Street Fighter, or even in Mortal Kombat’s tournament ladder. You can just choose your character, and the computer’s character, and play one match.

CHALLENGE--MEDIUM TO HIGH
Sadly, even though I call Art of Fighting 2 a button mashers paradise, it is still a fairly difficult tournament fighting game. And, no, thinking up an elaborate strategy will do no good. I tested this, and I actually fared better against the computer randomly pressing buttons than with a strategy I had worked up with Lee.

REPLAY VALUE--LOW
First of all, you will never play the Versus Computer Mode, because there is no incentive to play it. It is just a fighting match, with no strings attached. Also, you will never play the Versus Player Two Mode, because none of your friends and/or family members will be desperate enough to play you in Art of Fighting 2 again.

PROS
*Controls well.
*Would be a decent second generation NES game.
*Fans of the Street Fighter series’s Ken will like Ryo.

CONS
*Oh, where to begin?
*I could make better music using an empty root beer bottle.
*Even button mashers will get tired of button mashing.

CLOSING STATEMENT
Due to the fact that I had to import Art of Fighting 2, I just bought my first seventy dollar dust collector, straight from Japan. Art of Fighting 2 would fare far better as an arcade game, than a Super Nintendo game. SNK should be disappointed in themselves. At least they were kind enough to the rest of the world to let Japan and the Super Famicom suffer for the entire world.

OVERALL--2

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 11/22/00, Updated 07/18/01