ART OF FIGHTING 3 

OVERVIEW 

Art of Fighting 3 is one of the recent 
Neogeo games I just got. I estimate this 
game is about SNK's 50th or so fighting 
game. They just havn't made enough yet...
He he hehe! Do they ever get tired of making
so many fighting games???

STORY 

AF3 is on of the few fighting games to 
incorporate stories into each character. 
There aint much to each fighter, but the
intermission cutscenes between each fight
help build the character's attitude and 
history. 

Presentation is done quite well. There's 
simple animation as you walk from one 
Mexican town to the other. (Don't ask me
why all the levels are mexican!) I like the
winning poses, as they have cool taunts and
winning animations.

GRAPHICS 

The graphics are too good in this game. They
are the best 2D graphics I have seen in my 
life. Each character's animation is done
with tons of frames to ensure perfect 
smoothness. It's hard to imagine how long
the artists at SNK spent to draw so many 
frames per each punch, kick, or whatnot. The
finished product is awesome. 

The backgrounds are narly too. They contain
many actions going on. You'll always see 
the environment shifting according to the 
wind or viewers shouting to each other. As 
like the character animations, each level
was created with extreme livelyness and 
smoothness.

GAMEPLAY 

The control is simple and easy to pick up.
A is punch, B is kick, C is fierce attack, 
and D is taunt. Each character has around
4 moves, which isn't comparable to those 
of recent Street Fighter games. But, SNK is
trying to go back to old school fighting. 
Where you don't have to memorise tons of 
moves, or jam buttons all day to win. In
Art of Fighting 3, you need to master each
character's few moves to put up a strategic
fight. I like this old school feeling SNK
put into AF3.

I especially like the cool special gauge 
this game has. It is a gauge under you 
health that depletes after each use of a 
special attack. Once it runs out, you have 
to "Raz" (as SNK calls it) by holding down
D and charge it up. During the charge-up, 
your character is vulnerable to your 
opponents attacks. I like this cool addition
as it adds strategy to the game. You can't
just cheaply corner someone by repeating
a special move over and over. With this new
addition, players have to plan out their 
battle well.

SOUND 

The sound in AF3 is incredible. Each special
attack is accompanied with exelent quality
voice acting. There are a ton of diferent
sound affects for the different weapons
fighters use. So unlike, street fighter, you
won't be cheaped out by hearing repeated
identical punch or kick swipes. 

Background music is awesome too. It gets 
people in the mood of brawling and also 
helps them visualise better the level they
are in. The background music perfectly 
matches each level you're fighting in. The 
only drawback is that the music is not very
rememerable.

REPLAY VALUE 

There aint much to the storyline of Art of 
Fighting 3. The fighteres don't even have an
ending movie. All that happens, is SNK 
showing the ending credits and the game is 
over. That's kind of cheap and downgrades
the replay value. And I don't think you 
would want to beat the game again with other
characters after you already have with 
another character. Once you see all the 
levels, that's it. SNK should have added 
better storylines and endings like Capcom's
Street Fighter series.

SUMMARY 

System: NeoGeo 
Genre: Fighting 
Developer: SNK 
ESRB: Teen

Story: 7/10
Graphics: 10/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Sound: 8.5/10
Replay Value: 6/10
Average: 8.1/10


Written by Ryan Lin on June 14, 2002.