Art of Fighting 3: The Path of the Warrior

Art of Fighting 3: The Path of the Warrior
Developer(s)	SNK
Publisher(s)	SNK Neo Geo CD JP/EU: SNK BRA: Neo Geo do Brasil Ltda.
Director(s)	Kimura Ken
Producer(s)	Hiroshi Matsumoto T. Nishiyama
Programmer(s)	YuritaRo
Artist(s)	K. Miya Hori Pu Rolly-R
Composer(s)	Masahiko Hataya Yasumasa Yamada
Series	Art of Fighting
Platform(s)	Arcade Neo Geo AES, Neo Geo CD
Release	1996 Arcade WW: 12 March 1996 Neo Geo AES JP: 26 April 1996 NA: 26 April 1996 EU: 26 April 1996 Neo Geo CD JPN: 14 June 1996 BRA: August 1996 EU: 14 September 1996
Genre(s)	Fighting
Mode(s)	Single-player Multiplayer
Arcade system	Neo Geo MVS

Art of Fighting 3: The Path of the Warrior (Japanese: ART OF FIGHTING 龍虎の拳 外伝, Hepburn: ART OF FIGHTING: Ryūko no Ken Gaiden, lit. "Art of Fighting: A Side Story of Dragon & Tiger Punch") is a fighting game developed by SNK. It is the third Art of Fighting game. It often being noted as some of the best sprite-work SNK has produced. It features a new cast of characters with the exception of Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia. Yuri Sakazaki is seen in the game, but only as a side character in Ryo and Robert's story mode.

Premise

The story switches focus from the Sakazakis family composed of Ryo and his accompany sister Yuri to their best Robert Garcia who has been a supporting character in previous games. Robert disappears to search for an old childhood friend, Freia Lawrence, and he tracks her to Glasshill Valley, Mexico. Freia is wanted by the game's main antagonist, Wyler, to complete a powerful elixir that was created by his and Freia's fathers. The drug affects users granting them supernatural strength. In Robert's case he is aware of Freia's issues and wishes to save her and Wyler on her own, becoming a foe for Ryo and other characters for taking the responsibility on his own. Meanwhile, other characters like Kasumi Todoh have different goals like defeating Ryo to avenge her missing father Ryuhaku Todoh as revealed in their own routes.

• Cast:

Ryo and Robert are the only returning characters in Art of Fighting 3, with all other playable characters being newcomers.

• Jin Fu-Ha (不破刃) is a former disciple of Eiji Kisaragi, who betrayed him. He then decides to kill Eiji, testing himself by first attempting to defeat Eiji's sworn enemy Ryo Sakazaki. Voiced by: JAI
• Karman Cole (カーマン・コール) is a long-time employee of the Garcia family, acting in a personal assistant-like role to Robert since he was a child. The Garcias send Karman to find their son after he disappeared to look for his old childhood friend Freia Lawrence, which has led him to Glasshill Valley. Karman is a loyal employee who seems very fond of Robert Garcia and lets him get away with much more than he should. Voiced by: Mantarō Koichi
• Kasumi Todoh (藤堂香澄, Tōdō Kasumi) is the daughter of Ryuhaku Todoh, who taught her the Todoh school of Aikido, Jujutsu and Kendo. As her family's sole heir, she does all she can to stand up for the Todoh way. When Ryuhaku left for South Town to settle an old score with Takuma Sakazaki, Kasumi remained waiting for her father's return. Months later, after learning Ryuhaku was defeated by Takuma's son Ryo, she decides to find and challenge him to avenge her father's defeat. Voiced by: Masae Yumi
• Lenny Kreston (レニィ・クレストン) is a private investigator who works with Rody Birts. She is a tough, straight-talking woman who wields a whip, but with a caring nature underneath. Though there seems to be some romantic tension between them, she and Rody are partners in a business sense only. They have been hired by Wyler to find and deliver Freia Lawrence to him. The two appear to have a bad reputation within their profession and Lenny sees their new assignment as their 'big chance'.Voiced by: Kumi Ishida
• Rody Birts (ロディ・バーツ) is a private investigator who works with Lenny Creston. Though she dominates him, their relationship is good-natured and there is even a hint of romantic tension. The two appear to have a bad reputation as private eyes. He goes to Glasshill Valley to search for Freia Lawrence on orders from Wyler. :Voiced by: Eiji Yano
• Wang Koh-San (Chinese: 王覚山) is an artist entering a competition, and is also a friend of Lee Pai Long. He comes to Glasshill Valley for inspiration for the competition, but once there he learns of Wyler's Elixir and thinks that it will interest Lee. Wang travels with his pet Pelican Hoeh-Hoeh.Voiced by: Monster Maezuka
• Sinclair (シンクレア) is Wyler's bodyguard. Though she pretends to encourage him in his experiments, she secretly wants him to stop them. She has a flashy sword fighting style reminiscent of Indian swordsmanship. Voiced by: Harumi Ikoma
• Wyler (ワイラー) is the final boss in Art of Fighting 3. He works on perfecting a powerful elixir that was originally developed by his father and Freia Lawrence's father. However, when their partnership fell part, Freia's father took the essential data needed to complete the elixir and left it with Freia. Wyler blames this action for his father becoming destitute and eventually dying, and begins seeking Freia so he can complete the elixir. Voiced by: Monster Maezuka

Gameplay

Gameplay screenshot showcasing a match between Kasumi Todoh and Rody Birts.

The gameplay retains the "Desperation moves" from previous games, taunting, back dashing, dashing, and the ki meters. However, the ability to perform stronger punches and kicks by holding a button down has been removed. The game emulates 3D gameplay while remaining true to the 2D roots. Characters are given the ability move forward while attacking in order to create combo strategies. The combo system is similar to those from 3D fighters, and mostly consists of juggle combos that are executed by simply pushing a few consecutive attack buttons. There is a major emphasis on juggle combos despite how uncommon they are used in 2D games. Pushing kick or punch while holding the joystick in a specific direction will sometimes perform a different attack than if the joystick is in neutral. These attacks can decide the flow of the rounds and how to end them. Jump and attack your opponent are effective with enemies on the ground. Desperation moves performed on weak enemies on the first round result on an Ultimate Knock Out which automatically ends the battle.

Production

Like the first Art of Fighting and the sequel Art of Fighting 2, the third installment was produced by Hiroshi Matsumoto or Takashi Nishiyama. It was the first game in the series (and the first SNK fighting game) to use motion capture for its animation, By 1997, when The King of Fighters was at its peak with the Orochi story arc in The King of Fighters '97, new works in the Art of Fighting series had already stopped being released. As a result, writer Akihiko Ureshino recalls fans believing Ryo and Yuri being original KOF character. However, Ryo Sakazaki and Yuri Sakazaki are genuine characters of the Art of Fighting series, and are not the "comedians" of the KOF series. They tend to be unable to get involved in the main story and end up in comical roles, but Ryo and the others are actually more serious characters. For this reason, Ureshino thinks there are many fans who do not want to accept Ryo and the others in KOF.

The concept behind Art of Fighting 3 was to use motion capture, so instead of the company's own Artbox tool that had been used to develop MVS and Neo Geo games, SNK used Microsoft Windows. At the time, SNK did not have the technology for motion capture, so motion capture was recorded in the United States over a period of one to two months. After that, each character's movements were pixelated based on the motion capture. In an interview with Famitsu, designer Nobuyuki Kuroki, who was involved in the development of the series, said that while the captured data lost its original form as it was refined, he was still able to achieve smooth pixel art. The material was originally going to be used in the next sequel to Fatal Fury installment Garou: Mark of the Wolves left unfinished; Eventually, SNK restarted development of such Fatal Fury game as Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves.

In the development environment at the time, each person in charge would create the images and sounds using specialized development equipment, and the programmer would use those materials to create the game, but during development, they would actually burn the data onto ROMs, and then fit them one by one onto the board to check the results of the development. I think Windows was introduced with Art of Fighting 3. Some of the data was created for Metal Slug which the staff liked. The staff was young during development of the game and had to live together in the making of it. The basic approach was to divide the work. About a month before the master-up date when the game is completed, there is a deadline for the character data, called "character mask," and that is when the designers are "done." After that, they go home at the regular time. But everyone else still has a lot of work left to do... It was quite a sight to see.

For Art of Fighting 3, Ryo was modified to feel more realistic to play. In retrospect, they felt that the only way to know Ryo's story was playing Art of Fighting as SNK kept developing KOF among other products where Ryo was playable but was not explored. In regards to the third Art of Figthting, the game was noted to be called "Gaiden" (lit. "alternative story") as a result of the story focusing now on Robert rather than Ryo. Art of Fighting 3 was ported to Neo Geo CD with the action with visual issues as a result of the the sprites could not fit in the system’s RAM. It also suffered long loading times in comparison to the original. The original trilogy were all released for the Neo Geo MVS arcade system, Neo Geo AES home console. The Neo Geo trilogy was compiled in Art of Fighting Anthology (龍虎の拳 ～天・地・人～, Ryuuko no Ken Tenchijin) for the PlayStation 2, while the original game was also included as part of SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 and the NEOGEO Station service. The trilogy has also been digitally re-released via the Wii Virtual Console and the ACA Neo Geo series.

Reception

The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the Neo Geo AES version a 5 out of 10. They lambasted the game for its poor balance, with their biggest complaint being the new Ultra-Cool Attacks, since they are easy to execute, cannot be blocked, and deal a massive amount of damage. They further criticized that the game lacks originality and innovation, failing to distinguish itself from the deluge of 2D fighting games coming out at the time. A reviewer for Next Generation saw no problem with the game's balance but concurred that it is "too similar to every other 2D fighting game on the market". He gave the Neo Geo AES version three out of five stars. According to Famitsu, the Neo Geo CD version sold over 20,877 copies in its first week on the market. In retrospect, HardcoreGaming101 noted "is a drastic step away from its predecessors", comparing Robert's story to "a Jekyll and Hyde. They compared the gameplay to Virtua Fighter and Tekken despite the usage of 2D graphics but reliance of 3D style. Nintendo Life scored it a 7 out of 10, praising the simplistic and faithful fighting game system but the changes that evoke 3D design. There were mixed responses to the story mode for the lack of cutscenes but large amount of dialogues that explore each character. In comparing previous games, the fighting sytem felt improved over previous Art of Fighting games and the polishing of new character sprites. The fact that the gamers can still zoom in and out when getting closer to the enemies was still praised by the reviewer. In conclusion, they found it as an appealing game despite not being up to the level of SNK's most famous games The King of Fighters '98 and Garou: Mark of the Wolves.

IGN and Eurogamer instead felt that Art of Fighting 3 was a massive improvement over the series with the latter praising the visuals used for characters sprites and victory scenes. They found the new touches of the gameplay to be add replay value especially as the Deperation Moves become more strategic if the players want to win with their first round. IGN feels like the game is the most modern fighting game in the Art of Fighting compilation thanks to the graphics' improvements especially for such an old software it was originally released. GameSpot found "very different from conventional fighting games" and "unfinished" but it still feels more unique than the previous two games. They compared the fighting system to Namco's Tekken series, commenting on the attacks that cannot be defended. In regards to the unfinished comment, the issue the reviwewer found was that only Ryo and Robert have proper endings while the rest playable characters seem to lack dialogues.