Art of Fighting

aka: ACA NeoGeo: Art of Fighting, AkeAka NeoGeo: Ryūko no Ken, Ryūko no Ken
Moby ID: 13035
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Description official descriptions

Yuri Sakazaki has been kidnapped! Her big brother Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia, his best friend, go search for her on the streets of South Town. As they go deeper and deeper they will find clues as to who ordered the kidnapping, the Sakazaki family's relation to the mob, and a person from their past.

The gameplay differs from most fighting games. In this game, you have a Spirit meter. A Spirit meter is in the game and will decrease as you perform special moves. It can be recharged, but doing so leaves you open to attack. When your health is almost gone, you can perform a secret combination that will unleash a deadly attack on your opponent - provided you have a full Spirit meter.

The arcade version doesn't allow you to play as Mr. Big and the elusive Mr. Karate.

Spellings

  • アケアカNEOGEO 龍虎の拳 - Japanese PS4 / Switch spelling
  • 龍虎の拳 - Japanese spelling
  • 용호의 권 - Korean spelling

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Credits (Arcade version)

40 People (39 developers, 1 thanks) · View all

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 68% (based on 36 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 57 ratings with 1 reviews)

A Game of Give and Take...

The Good
Art of Fighting is a very solid fighting game today and for its time. The main thing players will notice about this port of the Neo-Geo arcade unit is the story mode.

Rather than using another boring "Evil World Tournament" angle used for almost any fighting game, players get to focus on a more different story. This story involves the kidnapping of the Ryo Sakazai's sister Yuri Sakazai. In the story mode players can choose between Ryo Sakazai or his best friend Robert Garcia as you go from venue to venue in Southtown searching for her. Each person you defeat will give you information to the next person who may know something, a very solid way to progress a story for the time. This leads up to the final boss, the final win, and the "congratulation's" screen of approval. Between fights in story mode, players get to take part in a choice of several bonus games. Each game will increase the player's attributes upon successful completion and will give you instructions on how to perform a special move.

The soundtrack and background music to the game is particularly great and memorable. Each fight as particularly catchy tune and players will yearn for a CD Soundtrack of the game (the track during Mr. Big's fight is a great song in particular). Every song helps to give each fight a unique feel but it all fits together well enough to make it all feel like one big environment.

The Bad
Aside from a great soundtrack and better than average story, the Art of Fighting is a very basic game. There are very few fighters to choose from, few options to tweak, even fewer environments, and a story that can be completed in the course of an afternoon.

The fighters themselves are nothing special. Aside from Ryu the stereotypical karate good guy man, you have a guy with a wife-beater shirt and head band (Mickey), a bartender (King-- whose a girl, get it?), a dude in camo (John, who comes off as a big fat rip off of Guile from Street Fighters), and a fat guy in a vest (with no shirt, a disgusting sight if I saw one). While this helps the game retain a small semblance of realism, in turn this handicaps this title when compared to the vivid cascade of characters in titles like Street Fighters, Mortal Kombat, and Fatal Fury.

The game's controls are not as good compared to these titles as well. Executing throws is harder than in other titles, along with doing special moves do to the game's poor recognition of your button presses aside from basic moves. Rather than an effective block button, the primary means of defense is jumping back and ricocheting off of walls. The spirit meter seems to have little effect on the game as well, which is a pain due to the fact that the game dedicates an entire button to it as well.

The Bottom Line
Art of Fighting is a game of give and take. By giving you a more realistic story mode, it takes away several over the top characters and settings. In exchange for some of the best fighting game songs you will hear on the SNES, you trade in air-tight controls for less than perfect controls instead. While for some these may be too much to give up, others will not mind the trade off and will be satisfied with this title. The question for players when comes to playing this game are what they consider to be important qualities of a good fighting game and what they are willing to over look while playing one.

SNES · by Lawnmower Man (137) · 2009

Trivia

Continuity

According to SNK's original timeline, the events that happen in this game take place ten years before Fatal Fury; however, when the The King of Fighters series was created, both timelines were merged, even though the backstories for both series remained mostly the same.

Innovations

Not only did Art of Fighting have the honor of being the first fighting that introduced the 'camera zoom' - where the camera zooms in whenever the fighters are close together, and zooms out when the fighters move away from each other - but it also was the first to utilize a 'spirit meter'. Every time a fighter executes a special move, the spirit meter is depleted accordingly, and the more powerful the special move, the more it depletes. When this meter is empty, special moves can no longer be executed.

Title translation

The Japanese title, Ryūko no Ken, translates to "Dragon and Tiger Fist".

Informatiion also contributed by B14ck W01f

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Foxhack.

PlayStation 3 added by Charly2.0. Neo Geo CD added by Corn Popper. PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch added by mars_rulez. Arcade added by 666gonzo666. Android, iPad, iPhone added by Rik Hideto. PS Vita, Antstream, PSP added by firefang9212. Xbox One added by Sciere. TurboGrafx CD added by Freeman. Wii added by gamewarrior. Neo Geo added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Katakis | カタキス, chirinea, Patrick Bregger, Rik Hideto, Victor Vance.

Game added April 28, 2004. Last modified February 23, 2024.