Art of Fighting

INFO POUNDER






The first Art of Fighting game hits arcades in 1992, an SNK title to conquer Capcom's extremely popular Street Fighter II. The game arrives in a period which greets a rather desperate SNK, as their previous effort to rival with Capcom, Fatal Fury, did not exactly manage to blow notable amount of pepper under the mighty organ Street Fighter II could, and still can call it's rather robust nose. With Art of Fighting though, SNK managed to create and ruthlessly deliver a highly successful output, one to introduce both fresh, well implemented ideas and the biggest sprites you ever saw to date by the day.

Enjoy and Read on!



Art of Fighting is the first game to rely on the character designs of Shinkiro, the artist with Za Mad Skillz, Brada'! who creates an excessive amount of designs for consecutive SNK games, though he will be employed by Capcom later on. Art of Fighting boosts truly hilarious presentation values via giving you the absolutely classic "B-ninja-action" mood and the hihgly sophisticated plot arch. OK, let's call it moderate instead, still hilarious, nevertheless. Noticed the subtitle yet? Indeed, an Info-Pounder. That is exactly what Art of Fighting is: the protagonists do gain blatant recognition that someone superclose to them has been kidnapped, so there is little left to do than choosing your warrior, then beating the hoile crap out of every single person whom are aware of 1. either of the kidnapper's identity, or 2. of someone who knows the identity of the kidnapper. It will shock you considerably that there are quite a few characters you need to tear through before you could do battle with the enemy who is aware of the Final Boss's identity.

A highly usual criticism towards Art of Fighting is that the game's story mode offers but two selectable characters, a deficit which, I think, is acceptable considering the plot arch, but the main problem I do see about the matter is that the game exhibits incapacity to give you the chance to play everything out of it even in single player. Let me explain: in Versus mode, players can select all of the eight characters and as such, surely do battle via any lineup the output can introduce, but you won't ever have the chance to control Jack's monumental ass to destruct an AI controlled Ryo Sakazaki. I think an even simple implementation of "1 Player Skirmish" would have been a must, regardless how I dislike "would have beens".



The system is rather fluid, combining nicely utilized base methods with ideas no one ever saw before. As for the base methods, Art of Fighting partly relies on a control scheme reminiscent to the system utilized by the majority of the first five Samurai Shodown games. The effort gives you a Punch, a Kick, a Throw and a Taunt button. While smashing the respective attack buttons together you can invoke an Uppercut Punch or a Low Kick to the shins, the Strong variants of the basic punches and kicks will be invoked by the Throw button once you simply declared what kind of maneuver - punch or kick - you plan to currently rely on. As this might sound a little bit confusing at first, let us clarify this for good: if you are close to your opponent and press the Throw button - a throw will occur. You might need to move towards your enemy at the same time to accomplish a throw. If you throw a punch - SIC! - or a kick THEN press the Throw button from the distance, then either a Strong Kick or Strong Punch occurs, depending on what maneuver you just buffered to the button. I truly hope now your confusion is either totally absent or complete. Blocking happens by the usual way: just move towards the direction your opponent is facing, and don't forget to keep the direction by the moment the attack connects.
We must account on a funny-ass basic maneuver the game knows of and invites you to utilize: this is an off-the wall "off-the-side-of-the-screen" jump kick, usable by most characters. Dodging and dashing are available by the usual, respective double directions.

The most notable feature Art of Fighting grew quite popular by is the implementation of the Spirit gauge. Special moves do cost Spirit Power in Art of Fighting, the more Spirit you have, the more damaging your Specials will be. If you lack the required Spirit energy to introduce a certain kind of Special, then your character either will do not perform it at all, or there will be not much thanks in it. As we do see, the Spirit gauge is of essential importance, as are the methods of keeping these gauges as full as possible if it is ours, and to drain them ruthlessly if it is possessed by a rival in the opposing corner. Fortunately, Art of Fighting does support a very nice minigame concerning these gauges, indeed. Here are the rules: if you want to fill your Spirit gauge, all you need to do is to stand still and hold one of your attack buttons. Your vulnerability is of course will be increased during this brief meditative period, but your reward is either a fully or a partly refilled Spirit gauge.



Taunting is the method to drain the rival's Spirit gauge down. These are funny little animations with occasional tiny remarks to them, each exhibiting excessive cockiness, actually, enough to drain the viewer's Spirit gauge. First and foremost, the method makes "Special Spamming" impossible, I refer to the method if and when a player chooses to utilize the same maneuver in a repetitious fashion, yet, we must certainly account this integral solution as a significant element of tactics and good fun, reigning intact, grateful, solid in the game's system.

Special moves are learned along the way, in a quite nicely presented fashion. Art of Fighting delivers bonus segments that have more impact on the gameplay than pumping your score up. There are three types of these - notice the quality redundancy here: - little minigames in the effort, all of them influencing your character in one way or another. While chances of increasing the length of your Spirit gauge will be offered on two occasions, you will be even presented with the opportunity to master the Highly Illegal Secret Technique!, coming to you as a nice Special you can rely on for the upcoming bouts. Oh, do not believe me: if I am not mistaken, you can use all Specials from the very start, please correct me if I am wrong. While the prizes you earn by a successfully accomplished Bonus attempt do not exactly redefine the standards of RPG excellence, they surely do manage to add nice and proper flavors to the core experience.

There are some secret Specials/Desperation moves available for some, though definitely not all of the characters. Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia, the selectable 1 Player contestants both do have such a maneuver, yet you need to fulfill various, strict conditions to be able to unleash your Desperation Special. See the linked Guide for details.



Beyond a system that frequently delivers rather swift rounds and tends to exhibit rampant aggressivity when combating the CPU, the game rewards a cautious gameplay with a strong focus placed on awareness of WHEN to throw a Special at the enemy. These moments usually concern long range ground-and airborne attacks, offensive segments you want to throw a Special in to counter the intended assault. Keeping opposition away initially seems to be most fluent with the use of projectile Specials - as long as either the enemy does start to come forward or your Spirit energy empties. Now it is your choice whether to risk a forwarding yourself or to set the pace for a period of countering. And never, ever forget about the throw: throw that throw instead.

With it's integral presentation values Art of Fighting remains among the 2D Fighters that managed to enrich the genre by delivering fresh solutions, thus creating a more flamboyant experience than the era's average 2D Fighter could or even ever aspired for. Not to mention to introduce Ryo Sakazaki. Never ever would occur to you that Ryo is a mixture of two highly popular Street Fighter characters, Ryu and Ken, right? Never ever would occur to you that it is just: NATURAL to look Caucasian with blond hair and blazing eyes, still possessing the name Ryo Sakazaki. Unless I am not in some fatal misunderstanding, then these are among the little vibes and traits that certainly give extra appeals to Art of Fighting, in my opinion. As hinted, the output marks a significant milestone in SNK's history as well, as Art of Fighting was their first delivery that could gain massive and devoted attention in an era excessively characterized by Capcom's Street Fighter II. And the ENDING, what a tremendously, hilariously and amazingly bad ENDING it sports!



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related recommendation:
Art of Fighting Guide

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Garou - Mark of the Wolves

SIGHTS THAT BITE






This 1999 output from SNK is both an answer to Capcom's Street Fighter 3 and the ninth installment in the Fatal Fury series. While ties and references to the aforementioned title are numerous, Garou certainly chooses to thread along a different path as opposed to following one which have been established already by its predecessors, let alone the evident aspiration to deliver a game which should and might rival with Capcom's Street Fighter 3.

The Japanese word Garou translates to hungry wolf, an entity the game gives you 12 metaphorical variants of via a character roster composed of subtly diverse personas. While the number of protagonists is not exactly the highest you had chance to witness in a fighting game, this deficit allowed SNK to include more frames for character animations. The results are exceptionally fluid motions, combined with a very steep attention devoted to detail work. With true eye candy 2D presentation and a new system it introduces and proudly relies on, many regard Garou as one of the most enjoyable fighter experiences ever to date. Now it is time to scrutinize this work superclosely.

Enjoy and Read on!




As mentioned, this SNK effort was an answer to Capcom's Street Fighter 3, a title that finally hit the arcades when the firm no longer had face/courage/guts/place to add any more words to the Street Fighter II title AND release related variants as completely fresh outputs. How about Super Street Fighter II Turbo? While a Super Street Fighter II Turbo Special and a Super Street Fighter II Turbo Special 2 also would have been nice, Capcom instead chose to release a brand new episode back in 1997, a highly successful statement that probably shaped the creative powers and motives to fuel this here trademark delivery.

Garou brings essential changes to the table when compared to the previous Fatal Fury statements. The focal alterations do concern an increased degree of instant accessibility in certain aspects, while the final name of the game is the massively complex structure the entire system is built and offers exceptional - sorry about this - depth upon.

The T.O.P. gauge you need to set in on your lifebar once you pick your character represents your Tactical Offensive Position. Once your lifebar reaches the T.O.P. portion your character deals an increased damage when connecting, her/his health increases constantly and the special T.O.P. attacks do become accessible, too. T.O.P. assaults are mainly consensual attacks, invoked by the same command. This customizable period a character can exhibit increased efficiency by gives an extra tactical touch to the game, something which is spiced up both by the "common" specials each character has a decent set of, let alone Super and Power specials which are available once the corresponding meters on the bottom section invite players to unleash ruthless efficiency.

Super moves are mainly consensus commands with but a few exceptions to them on part of certain characters, as far as Power moves go, they are accessible once a protagonist chooses to build up a maximized Super gauge - now the possessor is ready to score a Power attack in, similarly invoked by consensus moves with but a few exception to this direction. As you might have guessed and probably guessed correctly, Gauge increasement occurs when you manage to connect, though taking assaults in has a tendency to offer some Gauge power as well. All characters possess a decent selection of these rampant delicacies in their arsenal, while the common specials and the subtle, integral core system Garou supports these focal elements with do invite us to taste a fighting experience which essentially begs to be invoked. Let us elaborate on these gameplay methods.



Garou heavily relies on the brand new Just Defense system when compared to previous SNK and Capcom efforts: a Just Defense maneuver occurs when you block an attack in the last possible moment as opposed of blocking offensive moves all the while. Successful Just Defense is Good News: it gives back life to you. Unsuccessful Just Defense is Bad News: you will suffer the harm intended without any block to damp the punishment down whatsoever. Just Defense is a truly nice implementation which invites you to demonstrate not just a safety-based, but instead a skill-based defensive game. Via the health increase a successful Just Defense worths and a flawed one tolls on you, the system becomes a focal factor and an element to imbue tactics into the flow when two great Just Defenders meet. Actually, the game features an invisible gauge which we might regard as the Guard gauge: if you eat in too many attacks in a short period, your Guard will be effectively crushed, leaving you pretty much helpless against consecutive attacks for a brief period.

Guard Cancels are reliant on the Just Defense system: certain kinds of special moves - for the Impatient: Special Command Moves, T.O.P. moves and Super Moves - can be transitioned and utilized as Guard Cancel moves, granted you Just Defended an attack. Time is both little and precious to introduce these cancels though, as you will have but a little more than a moment to state your special from behind the Just Defense you - naturally - just exhibited.



Feint moves are new, and pretty cool, too: the commands for these moves are consensual ones, while the moves themselves look different on a per character basis. Feints are both nice decoys and gateways to delicious parts of the system's depths. When you throw a Feint, your character will mimic one of her/his trademark specials by introducing the first few frames of the related animation, yet you are free to turn the Feint into an instant assault against an enemy whom is hopefully got misled by the Feint itself. This subsystem offers firm possibility to form combo chains by Feinting out from certain normal attacks, something the game allows, even invites you to do. Now it is up to the player to construct and develop longer combo chains that are incorporating both the Feints and the consecutive attacks.

What about Break moves? Each character has one or more Specials that can be broken up by a consensus command, giving opportunity to make your next action via any direction you want after splitting this particular special. These Break moves can be incorporated into combos, which of course is a yumi, yumi. Normally you can implement one Break move per combo, though you will see that this directive is but a directive indeed, not a rule which reigns intact and permanent. Successful Countering can open pathways to multiple Break moves. A Counter hit occurs when you manage to connect on your rival prior she/he could finish an opposing move that she/he was busy introducing. Garou likes Counters immensely, thus also delivers a rather complex and balanced subsystem to incorporate them.



The following sentence might sound a bit complicated, as it will concern move buffering. A quite nice thing about Garou is that it remembers movements and recognizes once a complex command have been both started and then have been finished, regardless if some additional command and its related move have been given and executed in between starting and finishing the more complex move which is incorporating the simpler move. Hey, thanks for still being here. This ability of buffering commands is naturally opens up nice additional perspectives. Garou also offers complex evasive maneuvers via upper body and lower body variants, yet each character have only one kind of main evasion form - upper or lower - available for them.

Throws are implemented nicely with a pair of related minigames to spice this here subsystem up further: you can escape throw grips if you use the consensus move with the right timing, while an underlying roll structure gives the players opportunity to decide how and when to roll - if to anywhere, that is - when knocked down. A swift forward roll might very well earn you both a grip on your rival and a successful throw, or a knee in your face which is not necessarily the result you were hoping for, yet an unsuccessful attempt at least still does remain an attempt, yes?

Garou still weighs in as a very integral and flamboyant 2D fighting system which remains supereasy both to recommend and to develop an immense liking for. But a final tip remains before you are advised to punish some Garou butts: if you want to face the Final Hidden Boss - and hell, you WANT to face the Final Hidden Boss as this is the only way to see your character's end sequence - then you do not necessarily want to score lower than an "A" Fighting Rank during the bouts, especially be sure that you do not lose a round against Grant, the great Sub-Boss Garou introduces. Kain awaits you, and it is Kain who waits for you, indeed.



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related recommendation:
Garou - Mark of the Wolves Guide

Garou - Mark of the Wolves System
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Samurai Shodown V Special

ISSEN HISSES!






While fine tuned, much more balanced gameplay mechanics and boosted presentational appeals are focal reasons to regard Samurai Shodown V Special as the Finished Fifth Installment of the series, the 2004 effort also caused good old controversy with its fresh implementation of Finishing Moves, a similar concept to Mortal Kombat's Fatality system. These extremely violent specials were unleashed on consensus by the time of the Nevada-tan Incident, leading SNK Playmore to release a whole stream of variants of the game, many of which are heavily censored, yet surely you can access all of them on the MAME platform, uncensored variant included.

Samurai Shodown V Special is the last statement for the NeoGeo platform from SNK, a piece naturally introducing massive relations with its direct predecessor Samurai Shodown V. The game presents a very impressive hero palette, offering even the trademark Boss protagonists as playable characters, while an elegant blend of the established Samurai Shodown traditions do form a supersolid basis here just to be spiced up sanely by fresh elements you never had chance to witness prior to this statement of elegance, integrity and significance.

Enjoy and Read on!




At its innermost soul - nice oximoron, no? - Samurai Shodown V Special seems to be a sober blend of the classic, simultaneous buttonmolesting-direction of the series, while keeping the more furious pace introduced from the third episode on intact. Every single method, feature and/or solution you love in the previous games are implemented, thus Samurai Shodown V Special first and foremost unravels as a robust statement to contain all the charming traits its predecessors have brought to the table, yet with the quite complex, combined structure it claims and proudly exhibits via filtering elements from previous episodes results in a highly flamboyant system that has a massive amount of content in store for us.

Now that the previously established gameplay mechanics pretty much all have been implemented, Samurai Shodown V Special definitely does NOT come up short of all the cute gauges we had exquisite chances to familiarize ourselves with, let alone the highly complex relations these meters are affecting each other by this time around. The basics have been altered as well, now we have a button specifically assigned to perform various dodge maneuvers beyond the classic evade attempts that are still available. These new basic movements allow you to roll back and forth, also swift jumps can be utilized, giving players increased potential to escape both from airborne and low ground attacks. The same button you use for the new dodge maneuvers triggers the Meditation function if you stand still and keep pressing, a feature coming back to the game after a brief absence, also a feature we will account on later.

Basic blocking still happens via the classic method of pulling your character towards the opposite direction good blessings and assaults do come from, yet the system now exhibits a rather elaborate cancellation structure underlying beneath which allows you to effectively counter opposing maneuvers out once you unleash the proper antidote-move to the incoming strike. This particular aspect weights in as a supportive, quite elegant subsystem which is rather interesting to explore on a per-character basis, yet seems to operate at the highest frequencies of the game. A definite offering for the hardcore player you witness, and what you witness here is none other than a definite offering for the hardcore player, say that I herein.



Additional extras as far as consensus movements are concerned include Pursuit maneuvers that do come in two different variants, each is quite suitable to greet an opponent who is about to get back on her/his feet, also some crazy-ass triangle jumps can be mastered to confuse either the enemy or at least yourself. A basic Surprise Attack is also accessible in each hero's skill palette, swift moves to connect on multiple occasions when properly executed, giving you a recoiling opponent and a chance to take a deep - yet swift - breath.

The essential gameplay mechanics surely do concern the massive amount of gauges you see on screen, in fact, you can't pick any favorite from a previous title and end up lackadaisical seeing that it's missing. Trust me, it IS there. The Rage meter still fills up when you eat strikes in, also the Rage Explosion is still available as comfy, cozy gateway leading to excessively aggressive behavior. You can pass through this gate once your Rage meter is full and choose to trigger the Rage mode via the consensus move. When enraged, you deal a blatant amount of damage to All Flesh Opposing, even better: when in this state, the timer stops counting back, letting you claim ruthless punishment without time limitation as long as the Rage gauge has some life in it.

A catch is present though, also, a clever one it is: you can use ONE Rage Explosion per match. I do not mean the round, I mean the entire match. As we will see, there are sober decisions to be made about when to use up this ability, as keeping it to the second or the third round is an absolute MUST if you plan to punish your rival with radical elegance. My personal observation is that it is generally seems to be unwise to trigger the Rage Explosion in the first round.

Let us see into the cause of this suspicion. Samurai Shodown V Special comes with the Mu no Kyouchi state implemented, this translates roughly to State of Nothingness. You can enter into this mode only when certain, strict conditions are fulfilled. These are as follows: you must have had lost a round already, AND you must be close to release your soul for the Eternal Hunting Fields by the time you are allowed to rely on this mode. Meaning you can trigger the Mu no Kyouchi only if your Life gauge has turned to Blue. This occurs only if you have access to the Rage function yet - surely, whether you do or not is revealed clearly by the accessibility or the absence of the meter in question. In case you Exploded in the prior round, you won't do that in the current, as the Rage gauge itself is absent. You see why it was unwise to trigger Rage in the first period? Haha, or you might as well see that you do NOT see.



As for the Mu no Kyouchi state: granted that conditions are fulfilled you trigger this special mode via a consensus command, and a pace of slow motion you find yourself in. The Rage gauge turns to Blue, counting back quite hastily: the amount of time you can spend in Mu no Kyouchi is massively dependent on the time you spent with Meditating prior triggering the state. You will see a tiny triangle above your Life gauge, - granted you are kind 'nuff to point your eyes to the hinted area - the further it is, the more you have meditated, and the more time you will be able to spend in state of massive focus and concentration. Let us clarify matters further: each character has different starting relations to pretty much all the gauges, meaning every hero will have their respective benefits and hindrances towards each gauge. Some gets Enraged further, some does not need to Meditate all that match to be able to spend a considerable amount of time in Mu No Kyouchi. The basic idea though, is this: if you spent no time whatsoever with meditation then chances are that you will only have time to execute the Issen move while in Mu No Kyouchi. The Issen move is the quite vicious strike we had chance to witness in Samurai Shodown IV by the name RAGE Strike - now accessible only through the State of Nothingness, while the resultant effects of successful utilization remain as satisfying as ever. Mu No Kyouchi also has an interesting trait to it: connecting strikes into a combo is quite easy when in this mode, you can even abuse your enemy in mid-air if you prove to be skillful enough to prevent her/him from falling. Perfect care, cool design.



We are to elaborate a bit on the Rage gauge yet, as a maximized Rage meter gives you access both to the Weapon Flipping Techniques and the Zetsumei Ougi delicacies, these latter group being the class to contain those tender, controversy-ridden Fatalities. Weapon Flipping Techniques are essentially the same elements that were the POW Specials in Samurai Shodown IV, yet now these moves do guarantee that your opponent will be disarmed when you successfully utilize these particular Specials. Weapon Flipping Techniques are blockable assaults, yet you are allowed to attempt them as long as your Rage gauge looks alive - once you succeed, the meter drops to zero, leaving you in dominant, your rival in desperate situation, as weapons are the most precious friends to keep close in the game.

- before -



- after -



A little side note here: the output features consensus commands to disarm the opponent while you are unarmed, even better: you are free to drop your instrument yourself as an act of taunting your partner. Killing yourself is still an option, as well. And great fun, too! Not to mention that you could rely on the feature in a tactical context in case you would go for the Mu no Kyouchi or the inherent Issen, as these, remember: require one lost round out of you. If giving away a session to your rival is too bitter of a perspective, then throw the round away by your own hands, and never forget to unleash the Ultimate Special, the Forbidden and Highly Secretive Five Note Song of Revenge Technique!

Goes like THIS, though takes LIFES to master:

MUHAHAHAHAHA!

The Zetsumei Ougi moves are accessible only in the rounds in which you could get away with the W, meaning either in a second round that follows up a FIRST in which you emerged triumphant, or in a third round following rounds with one win to go for both participants. You will need to be after a Rage Explosion to trigger the Fatalities, also it is required that your opponent's Life gauge have turned to Blue, giving her/him the chance to enter concentration mode and surprise you with the Issen. What though if your rival's Life gauge no longer can turn to Blue because she/he lost the Rage gauge by using up the Rage Explosion? Can you still unleash the Zetsumei Ougi? Be sure to comment if you could. A side note yet: the Zetsumei Ougi is blockable.



Kusaregedo (right) is a delicately silhouetted notability of modern day mixed martial arts.

Samurai Shodown V Special weights in as a robust statement to simultaneously record, contain and offer the great gameplay mechanics that were culminated during a whole decade to solidify unto the worthy output this piece proudly radiates as via every single seconds you spend with it. The excessive character palette and fine tuned presentational values conceal robust inherent content ready to be explored, yet let us conclude this review with a quite practical advice: if you want to see an Endsequence in this effort then you have to kill, KILL, absolutely !KILL! the first three Bosses the game puts you together with. Rely on the Issen or on the Zetsumei Ougi. For the forth Boss: you decide.



Giving the Issen to Amakusa?? SURE, we do that ALL DAY LONG!

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Samurai Shodown V Special Guide

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