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Profile
General: Art of Fighting was well known to be SNK's answer to Capcom's smash hit arcade game, Street Fighter 2. Art of Fighting offered a similar style of gameplay to SF2, but introduced a new graphical "scrolling" effect where characters got smaller as they backed up. While not nearly quite as popular as the headline 2D fighter that was SF2, it did seem to "mooch" off of Capcom's success, managing to attract a small, yet dedicated fan base over time. AOF was indeed one of the games that launched SNK into the world of fighting games, and also introduced some characters that eventually became "icons" in the fighting game world.
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Only two characters (Ryo and Robert) are selectable in the regular arcade / story mode, but in the 2 player VS mode, all 10 are selectable. The character sprites are colorful and big, especially when compared to those from SF2. Although they appear "bigger" than the Street Fighter 2 characters, they are also a bit more stiff at times; not only in animation but in actual gameplay as well. This was probably the biggest complaint for fans of SF2, because this feeling of stiffness drastically effected the flow and overall quality of the gameplay that 2D fighting gamers were getting over in Capcom's side of the arcade.
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However, the overall "look" of the game was definitely impressive for the time. Character's faces actually become bruised as the fight progresses, and backgrounds are large, colorful, and moody... Not to mention the catchy BGMs. And finally, the most notable aspect of visuals, as characters moved further away from each other, the screen would "scroll back" giving the player a bigger view of the arena and making characters smaller. This became one of SNK's graphical trademarks, as it was used in later games like Samurai Shodown.
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Overall, it was an attractive arcade game for the time, especially when considering what was out in 1992. AOF had a decent story, interesting characters, catchy music, cool super moves, and clever bonus rounds... All which made this one stand out in the crowded 1992 arcades. The SNES and Genesis versions of AOF did not live up to it's arcade counterpart... The 2D sprites were much smaller, and the game was nowhere as near as impressive looking as the original; but the gameplay was close to arcade perfect.
Manufacturer: SNK
Platforms: Neo
Geo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis
Release: 1992
Characters:
Ryo,
Robert,
Todo,
Jack,
Lee,
King,
Mickey,
John,
Mr.
Big, Mr. Karate
Related Games:
Art
of Fighting 2, Art of Fighting 3
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Closing Comment:Like
many "arcade rats" of 1992, I was too busy playing Street Fighter 2 to
get into AOF all that much... 
But at the few arcades in my area that actually had this game, I did enjoy
mopping up the "competition" and then getting back to the story mode, just
lose to the retardedly tough last boss... stupid Mr. Big! Hey, I was just
a kid back then, but I still knew that SF2 was a much better game. The
first thing I said when I saw AOF? "Hey, it's like Street Fighter 2...
but not as good!" ~F.Yagami,
Webmaster
of TFG