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Review: Art of Fighting 2 |
I must really love my post here. It’s a cold Sunday afternoon, I feel sick, and I’ve been forcing myself to play Art of Fighting 2. Yuck.
Yeah, yeah it was made a long time ago. But by 1994, Capcom had made Streetfighter 2: Turbo - a prime example of perfect control, exemplary design and tried and tested playability.
It’s a shame really, because AOF2 is so full of neat little touches and innovations. Getting hit in the face causes visible wounds, such as cuts, bruises and black eyes, or the loss of mask or sunglasses. There is a choice of 3 bonus stages after every 3 fights: one involves pushing a button at the right time to knock down a tree, one is a 30 second mini-Final Fight-type game, and the third involve doing a super move and getting it to hit a target.
The neat thing is - each bonus stage earns you something, one enlarges your life bar, one your “spirit” bar and one allows you to use your super in fights.
The sprites are huge, and fairly well animated at times, the backgrounds vary from stupid…to average with a smooth zoom effect working when you move apart and close in.
The pre-match dialogue is wonderfully tacky and badly-translated. I particularly liked Johns’ speech to King: “You’re a woman, you should be in the kitchen.” Heh heh. Just kidding.
The music is simplistic, with a mix of jazz, techno and ..um…crap. There’s a fair bit of speech, but it is really muffled…King sounds really weird, and I still don’t know what John is saying. Mmmfmmf mfff?
What lets it down, and I mean really lets it down is the control. It’s *terrible* - there’s absolutely no feeling of weight, or gravity. The characters jump too high, and in an odd shape. Kicks and punches are slow to come out, and don’t feel like they connect - trying to execute a flying kick is a nightmare. You get knocked over by almost every attack, and this really disrupts any flow this game has remaining.
The sprites *are* big, but fill up too much of the screen, leaving you feeling crowded, and pressured, with little room to manouvre.
The CPU is cheap as hell - it can throw you whenever it wants, and is extremely hard to beat, even on the easiest level, demonstrating an almost psychic ability to hit you out of attacks. OK, so I’m bitter about losing to the first charaqcter 7 times in a row, but that doesn’t change things. In fact, what about this “learning curve” fighters are supposed to have? Where’s the incentive to keep playing? If I had’ve played this in an arcade…I would have walked out after one game, and maybe kicked the manager in the kneecaps on the way out.
Considering what Capcom were producing at this time - it seems idiotic now that such bad play design could have been accepted and used.
There’s also the staple AOF “spirit” bar - that limits the use of special moves, and has to be recharged manually. Theoretically it’s a good strategic idea, but in practice it’s awful - as close combat results in you losing, so you will find yourself fireballing repeatedly from a distance, or using one move over and over again to kill an opponent *cough* Mr. Big *cough*. Blah.
Character design varies. It’s interesting to see some of the ‘King of Fighters’ guys and gals how they used to be - it was the first ever (fighting) appearance of Yuri, Takuma and Eiji, and the second for Ryo, Robert, King and Mr. Big. As for Jack, John, Temjin, Lee and Micky?…..Oh dear, no doubt all working in McDonalds now.
Sadly, I can’t tell you about the endings….because every time I beat Mr. Big, I accessed a special stage…where Geese “Fatal Fury” Howard was waiting to kick my ass. And, if you pardon my French…he is *FUCKING* IMPOSSIBLE. We’re talking 4-second KOs, a super that does 80% damage, insane priority on all moves….damn….
I hated this at first, but after spending a couple of hours (sob) on it….I feel cheated. It had so much potential. The clever little touches could have made it a great game, but the slow, unresponsive game engine stops it achieving such a status. Rats.
Interestingly enough, this was released the same year as “King of Fighters 94” — I’m assuming SNK worked mainly on that, and their retarded brother who they kept up in the attic was sidelined to do AOF2. What a shame.
