Despite its resemblance to Capcom's wildly successful Street Fighter 2, Art of Fighting fails on so many levels it's almost painful to play. The first problem is its sparse Single-player Mode. Two characters just weren't enough to keep me interested. Adding insult to injury, these two players are so similar, it's like having 1.5 characters selectable in the Single-player Mode. Would it have been that much trouble to add some flimsy "king of the world" story excuse so the other six characters could become single-player playable?After getting over stingy character choice, you might be somewhat impressed by the graphics. While there are some negatives, overall, the graphics are quite acceptable. Character sprites are large and backgrounds are diverse. The character's faces even turn black and blue when beaten up a bit. The negative aspect is character animation. There isn't much there, and what is there can look very odd. Robert Garcia's walking animation looks so unrealistic, it's almost laughable.
Art of Fighting's fighting system is standard fare: characters have three or so special techniques in addition to the regular punch and kick attacks. The "chi bar," however, is an innovation that adds some strategic depth to fights. Special techniques must be conserved and used at opportune times, forcing you to rely on standard techniques more than on other fighters. Unfortunately, with only one button each for punching and kicking and a shallow fighting system, it still turns out to be a disappointing experience. Unresponsive controls just makes it that much more difficult to bear.
In an attempt to be more inventive than Street Fighter 2, the between-level bonus games have more of an effect than just dumping numbers into your high score. Each of the three bonus games improves the player's character in one aspect, if successfully completed.
With its innovative chi bar idea, Art of Fighting could have been groundbreaking, but because the game was released a year after Street Fighter 2, it's been completely overshadowed. Art of Fighting doesn't do itself any favors by copying Street Fighter 2 characters and moves. Ryo and Robert have similar moves to Ken and Ryu from Street Fighter 2, and the Art of Fighting character John bears an eerie resemblance to Street Fighter 2's Guile in background design and regular moves. Overall, Art of Fighting is an uninspired game that comes across as a quick cash-in attempt.
Interesting use of scaling, but poor character animations.
Sound
Lots of sound clips during Story Mode, but fight clips get repetitive.
Enjoyment
Unresponsive controls ruin any enjoyment.
Replay Value
Only two playable characters in Single-player Mode?
Documentation
The game sometimes teaches a character's special techniques during the Story Mode.
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