Art of Fighting Anthology

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Reviewing compilation packs is always a tricky thing. Do you score the pack based on the quality of its best game, or should the worst game bring the score back down? What about the way the package is put together? Should it get bonus points for pretty menus and bonus material, or is that all superfluous in the grand scheme of things? The Art of Fighting Anthology, a collection of SNK's Art of Fighting trilogy, brought all those questions to my mind while playing it, and I hopefully came up with the right answers.

The Art of Fighting games were originally released on the Neo Geo during the 1990s. Set in the same game universe as Fatal Fury, the series was something of a prequel to the Fatal Fury games, in fact. The first game offered two different single player paths to choose from (those of Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia), as well as six additional characters to pick from for two player matches. The storyline in the game, for what it's worth, involves Ryo and Robert trying to track down Ryo's sister Yuri, kidnapped by the imaginatively named Mr Big. Of course, the plot in a fighting game is really beside the point, as it's merely a mechanism used to try to explain why you're kicking people in the face.

The action itself in the game is controlled just like pretty much every fighting game you've played, though there are some neat touches to the Art of Fighting games which could and perhaps should be more commonplace throughout the genre. Firstly, you have your standard punch and kick buttons, as well as a throw button. The 4th button action is the taunt which, if successful, will reduce your opponent's Spirit bar. The Spirit level is used to power your special attacks and reduces every time you use a power. It's a gameplay mechanic which forces you to fight a bit more strategically and not simply try to spam your way to victory with fireballs and the like. The game was also one of the first in the genre to feature super attacks, something now commonplace in games like Street Fighter. Not only did the game feature the super attack, but you had to earn the attack by completing one of the bonus rounds, something which gives the rounds a bit more meaning than simply another way to earn extra points.

Another cool feature is the scaling effect in the game. Games like Street Fighter always kept the fighters a certain distance apart from each other, and while you could move around the stage, you were always limited to being a certain distance away from your opponent. The Art of Fighting games do away with this by using graphical scaling, whereby the camera will pull back from the action giving you a wider view as you move further and further apart. This allows for more tactical manoeuvring and a chance to catch some respite if you're taking a beating.

The second Art of Fighting game is similar in many ways to the original game, though this time all of the characters are playable from the start, and you have more to pick from. This time the challenge is to win the "King of Fighters" tournament, organised by Geese Howard, the villain from the Fatal Fury games. And challenge is certainly the right word here. This game has been notorious for its brutal A.I. and I was wondering just how tough it could be. I prepared myself for tough fights, and found that even on the easy difficulty the computer opponents could be stupidly tough at times, to the point where it's not really fun. I do like a challenge, I took on Ninja Gaiden and won, but I do like to feel the fight is fair, and that's not something I could always say about Art of Fighting 2. It's worthwhile playing it just to see how bad it can be at times, but don't go into it expecting to walk over it unless you really are some kind of fighting game expert.

This brings us nicely onto Art of Fighting 3, or Path of the Warrior as it's also known. This game really delivers on the potential shown in the earlier two games. The controls are much tighter and everything flows much better as a result. With a brand new cast to pick from (bar the inclusions of Ryo and Robert), you certainly feel like you're playing something that is a step ahead of the previous games. The difficulty has been dropped a bit as well, to the point where the game can be challenging but not to the point of wanting to drive your controller through the screen.

Of course, with a compilation set, one thing many of us look out for is the presentation of the package, and unfortunately that's one area where the collection lets us down. The game menu is functional at best, and there are no real extras for players to spend their time reading. To some this might not be a big problem, but having a good amount of bonus material can never hurt and it would be welcomed by those players who want to know more about the history of the games without having to go hunting for it.

And now I arrive back at the questions I posed at the start – just how do I judge this Anthology? The first two games are fun for a short while, with the third game being a very enjoyable fighter. It's not up there with Street Fighter, and it's been surpassed by so many of the modern day fighting games, but for old school violence it's a very enjoyable romp. Add in a friend for some beat downs and you'll no doubt have a lot of fun with the game. And considering that the cost of the game is so low, it's hard not to recommend this to people just for nostalgia's sake. Just remember how old the games are when you start playing them, and you'll have a blast.

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By David Pitchforth