Art of Fighting, published in Japan as Ryuuko no Ken, is SNK's bid to carve out its own space in the fighting genre that Street Fighter II had set off. Set years before the events of Fatal Fury, it follows Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia searching for master Takuma Sakazaki, and it introduced a dynamic zoom camera that pulled the frame in or out depending on the distance between fighters, something unheard of in the genre until then. It's a key piece for understanding SNK's evolution on the Neo Geo: it laid the aesthetic and narrative groundwork that would later deepen in the Art of Fighting saga and, above all, in King of Fighters. It's still played today more for historical value than for its combat system, which was left behind by what came after.
If you liked this one
