I didn’t think the people of Southtown were this difficult to deal with…literally.
Overview
Near the ending of the first chapter in the Art of Fighting saga, Ryo and Robert not only rescue Yuri, but also come to find out that the mysterious Mr. Karate is none other then Takuma Sakazaki, long lost father of Yuri and Ryo. The plot thickens as Takuma reveals to them detail after detail of how he was force into doing the dirty work for Mr. Big and the unknown higher power.
Ryo and crew now must continue their quest to reach deep into the root of Southdown and flush out all the evil feces that remains. Put up your dukes, people! We are going to crush some bones!
Graphics 8/10
Thankfully, SNK realize that they needed to differ some of their fighters from looking too much of a rip-off from ‘that other 2D fighting game’, they gave everybody stylish makeovers for many of the crews’ looks or specials. I must say that Crawley and Micky look a lot more threatening with their new look. Let’s face it: they were butt ugly in the first one. I like that they kept the bruising and swelling on the face in the game to add some unique realistic features you would see in many real life fights. The animation of the fighters are big and the zoom in/zoom out segments are clearer and don’t look so broken down that badly when going full screen to showcase the whole stage.
The stages are lively and located in some great surreal places for their corresponding fighter. Robert’s mansion is luxurious to watch and Mr. Big’s warehouse hideout fits his criminal criteria. I do wonder why a ninja like Eiji chose to fight on an airplane landing strip or why King wants to do battle in front of a fortune teller’s tent at a carnival. The verbal before/ after round scenes are cool and the ending credits skits are humorous at times. Fans of SNK’s misspelling and ‘what the hell?’ wordings of engrish will not be disappointed. For you perverted freaks out there, yes, King’s shirt gets shredded when the final hit on her is a special, but now Yuri has enter the elite shirt losing team as well.
Gameplay/Controls 7/10
Now, we venture into what made Art of Fighting 2 became infamously known for: the difficulty. It was bad enough that the fighting and beating people in number one wasn’t your typical walk in a park, but the second installment blows away everything the first version handed to you by the computer controlled AI. You could not have believed how many times my friends and I were stop dead in our tracks by just the first opponent a few times.
Then to read and hear of the horror stories from other players who tried this on how incredible hard this game was. I’m guessing whoever tested out this sequel didn’t really care to tell the SNK party to tweak the intelligence factor down a bit and only wanted to get paid. What really pisses me off is how most super moves for most fighters basically come out of nowhere and they couldn’t be avoidable or blocked so you’re pretty get slap in face because you got nowhere else to go. It sucks when it happens when you have a good amount of life, nearly finishing your opponent off. Then, to have the computer return with a comeback that will make you cuss out loud.
Everybody from AOF1, except poor Todo, returns with beating up people in their objective. New to the game is two Sakazaki family members: Yuri, the damsel in distress, has fully train herself to not become another victim, and Takuma, who reenters the AOF realm with no mask and displays his own set of moves that he did not show as Mr. Karate. Also new is Eiji, a skillful ninja, hell-bent as the rival of the Sakazaki family, and Temjin…a Mongolian wrestler whose also a school principle (I’m not making this up, people).
The controls improve for the better. The movements with the joystick and the execution the special moves are much easier to get right on and not as clunky. Too bad, they didn’t fix the essence of the actual fighting, still stiff somewhat. Pressing the button harder to do strong commands will become a nuisance once you play the game plenty of times. The chi meter system is still really a problem of trying to reclaim some of it back. In a smart move, all the selectable fighters got remix work done on their moves. Each person now has a super move, but most of them were not easy to adapt to.), all bonus rounds are available for all comers, and now they all have the same actions, meaning Mr. Big could finally do something he couldn’t do in the first Art of Fighting…jump in the air. Oh, and taunting your opponent still rules.
Sound/Music 8/10
The sound bites within the game are bearable and pretty interesting to listen as it’s not that cheesy. The hitting attacks won’t make you think physical strikes, but I can’t point my finger as to what it sounds like. Voice acting is simple to understand and diverse so I can actually remember how all the fighters talk. The crowd chanting, in some stages, will feel right at home and puts a decent element to the action.
Musically, I’m surprise the entire soundtrack is nowhere near as crappy as I was predicting. Some songs revolve heavily around the electric guitar strums or big beats to get your blood pumping for whatever happens. I even founded myself taking in by Micky’s theme, an ode to the American boxing movie “Rocky.” Lee’s Chinatown theme seem to go in and out of sounding like anything oriental, but Yuri’s theme is funny to listen to when you see where is fighting and strangely, I don’t mind.
Replay Value 6/10
A person of very little patience could easily find this game not as fun whatsoever. Experience players might like the ultra hardness, but that’s why we have option of changing difficulty levels. Go max it out at eight if you want the challenge, average players like me shouldn’t be trying to cling for my dear life at level four. I wouldn’t mind if it was entertaining hard, but I only found it incredibly frustrating instead.
Normally, all games would give you a simple freebie and then have the game become harder as you progress. That’s not the case here. You want to make it to your second opponent? You had to earn it or, at least, figure out the enemy’s attack pattern. If somehow, you make it to the very end (without losing tons of quarters); you might even get to face a younger Geese Howard, who just as crazy in beating your head in record timing as the others were.
The single player mode, which tells of the warrior’s path around Southtown, make for some pretty cool storytelling, but the AI might push you away from playing it several more times. The two player mode is okay. Just remember this Art of Fighting still somewhat suffer the same traits of the first, so the gravity isn’t as accurate at it should be. Luckily, there is a good cast of people to select that are intriguing to play.
Overall 7/10
While a bigger change of good, Art of Fighting 2 still left room for more improvement. The computer’s idea of having overzealous fighting behavior might provoke players to either want the challenge of no holds barred or scare off the fans who actually want a decent shot with beating a few fighters. When it all said and done, SNK accomplish what they wanted and got people interested in the game one way or another. Anytime you see it playable, enter in and give it a chance.
- By Mr. Boombada
