Art Of Fighting Anthology

4:29pm Thursday 7th February 2008

Art Of Fighting Anthology

Ignition Entertainment

Playstation 2

£12:99

Out: Friday 8th February

Originally released in 1992, Art of Fighting was the first title in the NEOGEO '100 Mega Shock' series, and set new standards within the fighting genre. With the introduction of the then new Spirit Gauge, Super Special Moves, use of the 'zoom in/zoom out' function and battle damage to the characters faces, the AOF series soon built a solid fan base which is still going strong today.

The Anthology contains Art of Fighting, Art of Fighting 2 and the first appearance of Art of Fighting 3: The Path of the Warrior away from the original NEOGEO platform. The success of these titles has seen many of its characters cross over into SNK's other major fighting franchise King of Fighters.

A spin-off from the popular Fatal Fury series, Art of Fighting focuses on Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia, two long-time friends who team up to save Ryo's sister Yuri from a dark organization. Events unfold over the course of all three games, concluding with Art of Fighting 3: The Path of the Warrior.

The story does have ambition behind it, and the fighting itself quite solid playable fayre(disounting the first Art Of Fighting which feels a little unresponsive in comparison to the rest). The controls are very Street fighter-esque but then all quality beat em ups tend to take on that standard control method (down to forward + punch=firebal etc) and fighting fans of all genres will find this easy to pick up and play.

The graphics are arcade perfect (arcade perfect from 1992 though) but you would never buy a retro 2d beat em up looking for outstanding visuals the graphics are good but dont expect beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds using 8 billion colours. The animation on the characters is very good and the way the faces contort as they take a beating is a nice touch.

Overall this is a solid retro arcade beat em up title that while I dont think it will convert non fans of 2d beat em ups its a great package for those of us that love em, retailing at £12:99 it represents great value too, get the game, get some beers in, get some mates round and kick some butt. Recomended.

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