The Neo Geo is something the SNES can only hope to emulate and this is an instantly forgettable conversion of an average beat em up. Ryo (er…) has had his sister kidnapped (nooooooo!) and he’s gonna get her back dang nabbit! Even if he’s gotta beat up every mofo in town! It surely would be wrong of me to review the SNES version against the original, so I’m not gonna.
One thing I would say is that the sprites, in still form, look every bit as big and detailed as the Neo Geo arcade experience. But that is where the similarities end. The animation is awful, character movement is stiff and executing jumps or anything in the air feels erratic. The collision detection is awful with the exception of punches that seem to connect fairly satisfyingly. The special moves are very similar to SF2 but don’t feel as elegant or as easy to pull off.
Button attacks are limited to punch, kick, throw (and roundhouse kick) and taunt. The lack of variety makes everything feel very Double Dragon (I really should stop bagging DD). The taunt button is interesting, it saps your opponents spirit gauge reducing the power of their attacks. The use of special moves saps your own gauge and the ability to build it up the other way to unleash super attacks is one of the few things that try to set Art of Fighting apart from the rest (in addition to the taunt option).
The Sound FX and music hurt the ears, male characters sound like female moomins and background tunes fit better on the NES. The story mode is interesting enough although the bonus games are awful. There are versus modes of course but you’re unlikely to have much more fun with a comrade.
And that’s the point, this game is no fun. No variety, no substance and bad gameplay will force you to shell out the real bucks for the Neo Geo version, or get SF2…
If you like this…
Street Fighter 2 (SNES Review)