Art of Fighting 2

"Tiger vs. Dragon... And I'm not talking about Ryu and Sagat"

Art of Fighting 2 for the Super Famicom is not a bad game at all... To tell the truth, I never enjoyed the Art of Fighting series, but the second game is easily the best one. On with the review...

Gameplay - You can choose Ryo Sakazaki, Robert Garcia, King, Yuri Sakazaki, Takuma Sakasaki, Eiji Kisaragi, Jack Turner, Lee Pai Long, John Crowley, Mickey Rogers, Mr. Big and Temjin.
Have you ever played any of the AoF games? You have two bars: a ki bar and the regular energy bar. Every time you pull a special move, the ki bar is reduced. You must hold the punch or kick button to recharge it. You use four buttons: kick (hold for strong, tap for weak... Same as Game Boy or NeoGeo Pocket fighters), punch (again: hold for strong, tap for weak), throw (self explanatory, I think) and provoke (if you provoke your enemy, you low his/her ki bar). If you jump against a wall and press the throw button, you bounce from it. If you are with your energy bar low, you can use a desperate move which will do MAJOR damage on your enemy. I didn't understand the other review about this game, since it has a great 1 player mode. You choose one of the above and fight against all the other ones. Between three fights you play a bonus game. Cut down a tree with a punch to raise the ki bar, knock down some bad guys to raise the energy bar or use your super blow (also known as ''Super Death Blow'') to be able to use it during the game. Oh, and you wouldn't guess who is the secret character... Let's just say that this character killer the father of a certain Terry Bogard. To reach him, breeze through the game without losing any round. The only problem is that the characters are somewhat unbalanced. Ryo, Takuma and Robert are too strong compared with anyone else. I'd give it an 9.

Story - Remember AoF 1? Yuri was kidnapped by Mr. Big and Mr. Karate (the last boss) was actually Ryo and Yuri's father. Now, about this game... Sorry, guys, but I don't know Japanese... Gomen. I know that Ryo and Robert (the tiger and the dragon, which in the Chinese mithology are deadly enemies) are friends but rivals in fights (just like Ryu and Ken). Robert is the son of an Italian millionaire. Ryo is your average Japanese fighter. Both of them were trained by Takuma in the Kyokugen Karate style. Yuri, Robert's girlfriend and Ryo's sister, learns how to fight to avoid being kidnapped just like Princess Toadstool (at least so I think). Eiji is a cool ninja of the Kisaragi clan which is rival to the Sakazaki family. John is a military, Jack is a fat man who loves heavy metal (not as much as I do, I guess), Temjin is a ridiculous character (I can't understand why they put this pathetic thing in such a great game... I love SNK's character design, but this one...), Lee is a Chinese old man who wears a tiger mask to fight. King is the owner of a bar, and she is French. I've read somewhere that she has a crush on Ryo. Mickey Rogers is a boxer. Mr. Big is a henchman of Geese Howard (of the Fatal Fury series, and also the secret character of this game).

Graphics - They can't match the NeoGeo, of course, but they're very good. The fighters are big and quite well animated. Did anyone noticed that Robert looks like Antonio Banderas? Also try to use a super blow in the end of the second round on one of the girls... Their shirts will tear apart revealing their bras... In the arcade version, this worked on anyone, but who wanted to see Temjin's belly??? Not me! Also on the arcade version certain blows would put a bruise on the fighter or something else (John's glasses would fall, or Eiji's mask). Again, I'd give it a 9.

Music - I love this game's music. All the tracks are VERY good. Ryo's theme is very Japanese, and so is Takuma's. Jack's theme is a great rock. Robert's theme is something that resembles blues. Also we can hear the classic Geese's theme if you happen to fight him. The music is excelent, really. Oh, and the music really sounds better in the SNES than in the Arcade and even in the NeoGeo CD. I wonder why since the CD is so much better for handling music. They exceeded themselves here. Easily a 10!

Sound - Classic fighting stuff. The voices are somewhat bad, something that doesn't happen in the SNES Street Fighters. It sounds like a Genesis fighter. Better luck next time: 5!

Replayability - Well, a fighter is always a fighter regarding replayability. Personally, this is one of my favorite fighters on the Super NES, if not my favorite (together with SF2 Turbo). Featuring great control, great graphics and great music (unfortunatelly not so great sound), this is an excellent game to play again and again. Sounds like an 8 to me.

To buy or to rent? - Good luck to find it, since it wasn't released in the US. If you find, though, you should buy it. This is WAY better than Art of Fighting 1.

Overall - A great fighter. Grab it if you can. My final avaliation is a 9.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/01, Updated 01/08/01