(LAST UPDATE: 3/11/2010)
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Developer(s): SNK
Publisher(s): SNK
Platform(s): Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD, PS2 (Art of Fighting Anthology)
Release: March 12th, 1996
Characters:
Ryo,
Robert,
Rody,
Kasumi,
Wang,
Lenny,
Karman,
Jin
Fuha,
Sinclair,
Wyler
Related Games:
Art of Fighting, Art of Fighting
2
Story:
The story switched focus from the Sakazakis to Robert Garcia. Garcia disappears
to search for an old childhood friend, Freia Lawrence, and he tracks her to
GlassHill, Mexico. Freia is wanted by the game's boss character, Wyler, to
complete a powerful elixir that was created by his and Freia's fathers.
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Review:
The third
and last installment to the AOF series introduced an entire new cast of
characters, only bringing back the heroes of the series, Ryo
and Robert. AOF3 highlights
all of the aspects that made AOF stand out when it debuted.
Character sprites were the biggest to date, and featured incredibly fluid
animation.
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AOF3's visuals are something to behold... The
hand drawn backgrounds look awesome behind the epic character sprites, and the scrolling effect used in the first two games
returns smoother than ever. The gameplay was tweaked with brand new combo
system, which is the best gameplay to come from the series thus far (though some
fans might tell you different). Combos compliment the gameplay and although many of the moves look great,
some of the "hit effects" actually don't make much sense. For example,
Robert's spinning backfist actually "launches" the opponent into the
air. That's a technique that
should simply knock down or stagger your opponent, not send them flying
10 feet into the air... 
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The new cast was disappointing
to many AOF fans, including myself. The new characters don't really seem to "take the place" of some of the classics;
and for the most part don't have the lasting appeal that the originals did. This is probably
the biggest downside of AOF3... That character selection screen has a rather "lonely" feeling.
Where's Yuri? Is she dead? Where's
Takuma... Hell, it would even be great
to even see that fat biker-dude, Jack. And what about finally bringing back Todoh?
I guess they wanted to wipe the slate clean and offer some new styles... It was
a good attempt, but sadly the new designs aren't much to write home about.
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7.5 / 10 |
Closing Comment:
Overall, AOF3 seems
to concentrate more on good animations than actual gameplay. It's a cool
fighting game to get into and try out for a while, but that sluggish feeling in
the gameplay is still evident. Personally, I'd still
prefer going back to AOF or AOF2 for the characters alone. The Art of Fighting
series might be dead, but at least the classic AOF characters have been brought
back in other SNK fighting games like KOF to represent this classic SNK series. ~F.Yagami,
Webmaster
of TFG
