"The art of making an average game terrible..."

The original Art of Fighting was a first generation fighting game developed by arcade staple, SNK. Because of the then newness of the genre, SNK took a lot of liberties in experimenting with different gameplay techniques and graphical effects. It did fairly well in arcades, and while not as engrossing as Street Fighter 2 or Fatal Fury 2, it was fun to pop a few quarters to give it a go every once in a while. The game's cult popularity made a 16 bit translation inevitable. Here we have the Genesis version, a miserable little cart that makes the attempt at playing Neo Geo.

Graphics: While not absolutely terrible, this game can't compete with the SNES version let alone the Neo one. The graphics are both blurry and washed out. The characters are small and have lost a lot of animation. The bonus stages and between round cinemas look decent though. Of course, the one effect in the arcade version that made the game so appealing, the zooming. It doesn't seem like it now, but Art of Fighting's zooming in and out was an awesome graphical innovation that was never done before and a neat gameplay gimmick to extend the play field. If the graphics had a little more work put into them, this wouldn't be too much of a problem. But the omission of the zooming makes everything seem so ungodly bland.

Music/Sound: Though the Genesis has horrible sound capabilities, the soundtrack seems so rushed. The music sounds tiny and muffled. The sound effects in comparision are loud and headache inducing.

Gameplay: The arcade game was by no means an A quality fighting game. There are only two selectable characters in the one player game. There are three control buttons: A for punch, B for kick and C for hard attack/triangle jump and D for taunt/spirit recharge. You have a health bar and a spirit bar. The spirit bar diminishes when your character executes a special move; as the bar decreases so does the power of your specials, and when gone, you lose the ability to perform special attacks. This system, though innovative, was executed poorly in that charging your spirit made you completely vulnerable to enemy attacks. The game also has a weak combo system and uses a heavy reliance on waiting for your opponent to be vulnerable, not necessarily countering. This system was cheap and severely flawed and never really worked out until the third installment. There's also bonus rounds that let you increase your health or spirit or gain a new super cheap super move in victory.

The Genesis version requires a six button pad. With the three button pad you'll get a punch, kick and taunt/spirit recharge, but no heavy attack. Even with a six button pad and joystick, this version is completely unresponsive. Special moves are a nightmare to pull off because they require slow controller motions. I always felt while playing this game that just hitting an opponent was a matter of luck rather then skill. The game's CPU is also ridiculously hard. With all these flaws you'll be throwing your Genesis pad in absolute frustration.

Overall: If your interested in some really old school fighting, and haven't played Art of Fighting yet, I suggest you pick up the SNES version. Art of Fighting Genesis is a chore to play through, ugly to look at and frustrating to listen to. The only people who should get this game are SNK completests and to them I give them one warning...keep this version in its box and stick with the AES cart or CD rom.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 09/08/04