ART OF FIGHTING HISTORY - Street Fighter's WEIRD Half Brother!? 

I thought Dan Hibiki was more or less Robert Garcia's head on top of Ryo Sakazaki's body. Capcom had a lot of fun with this in some of their games. In Street Fighter Alpha 3, one of Dan's win quotes is, "I hate the art of fighting, but I wanna be the king of fighters." But by the best Dan/SNK reference is in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter. Dan's ending spoofs the Art of Fighting ending, when Dan's sister stops Dan from killing Cyber Akuma and says "Brother! Stop! Don't you know who he is? He's our..." The End.

The animation in AoF 3 is ridiculously good. Looks so crisp even now. [might be worth a video. One of the first motion captured fighters I think]

The Sakazaki’s family fighting style is based on real life style called Kyokushin Karate, its’ fictional name is Kyokugen-ryu. Takuma is based on Kyokushin’s founder: Masutatsu Oyama.

Hi Top Hat, you forgot to talk about the "hidden" super moves wich are exécutables only when your life bar is under 10% and your spirit gauge is full. Great vidéo anyway, art of Fighting is a masterpiece

An arcade machine that ends on a cliffhanger, unique I must say.

Video games would not be the same without SNK. A big part of my video games childhood.

mr. karate 1st appeared as PLAYER 1 in a game called STREET SMART by SNK

I bout the _Art of Fighting Anthology_ for my ps2 and I was floored how difficult it was. It took me days to finally beat the first two games. It was a horrible example of button reading.

I played a lot of this and World Heroes (they were on the same machine in my local arcade) once I got sick of SF2... but then X-Men: Children of the Atom was released....

I remember Dan's ending in Marvel vs. Street Fighter poked fun at Art of Fighting's ending.

Clearly, King is inspired by the movie, JUST ONE OF THE GUYS, its an 80s flick, pretty 80s, check it out!

I loved how SNK tried to make their fighting games more story heavy, that was something most fighting games didn't care about until MK VS DC Universe

Fun fact, the carrier John Crawley is assigned to is the USS Independence. I thought it was a neat background note. He's noted to be a Corporal according to his ending in AoF 2. I'm guessing there was an NJP involved.

Keep up the great SNK videos and I'll definitely become a patron!

Wow, can't wait to find out who Mr. Karate really is! Guess I am just going to go watch The Empire Strikes Back while I wait.

That scaling feature really mesmerized me at the time. It looked amazing! I also really liked that bonus rounds would increase the health bar and teach the super move. The sound effects were great, with every hit sounding really painful. The whole spirit gauge thing was annoying at first, but it's not so bad once you get used to it. The whole Fatal Fury connection made it interesting, and the inclusion of a Latin character made me an eternal fan. Robert García was extremely beloved in all the games he appeared within my gaming group.

I always thought that Ryo and Robert was kinda inspired by John Kreese and Terry Silver from Karate Kid 3.

There's one feature that you forgot to mention the Super Special Moves (or Desperation Moves as they're later called). It's when your character is near death (around 25% or less) and you still have a full spirit gauge, you would be able to use an even more powerful attack. In Ryo & Robert's case, it's their Ryuko Ranbu which is their other signature Super Move.

I love Yuri's story arc from damsel in distressed/kidnapped victim to someone NO ONE would dare tangle with

Art of Fighting is criminally under rated and under appreciated. It introduced elements that have become staples in Fighting Games [Story Telling and the Super attacks] I hope I live long enough to see an AOF 4.

Actually, SNK was the first to make fun of Capcom's Street Fighter. In King Of Fighters 94, if you manage to reach Rugal Bernstein, he will reveal his gruesome collection of fighters that he *"defeated"* and made statues of, in the dialogue cutscene. In those metal statues, there's a statue of Ryu,Guile and Akuma. Dan was a somewhat retaliation to this. And in Capcom Vs SNK, there's a special interaction between Rugal and Guile. The special interaction has Guile doing his sonic boom on his statue, damaging it. Rugal then does his reppuken, completely destroying the statue.

Awesome stuff, sir 🎩! It would be awesome to meet you one day.

.. anyone remember "world heroes".. was about the same time as AOF

Art of Figthing's presentation was increible for the time, and also the animé adaptation stands out for being Ayumi Hamazaki's only voice role in animé.

Top Hat Gaming Man You forgot to mention wall jump

i had this game when i was young, the SNES port, the guy from the store sold me with this argument: he got the cartuche box, and at the back it had a screenshot of Robert performing a Hawoh-ken and then said "do you like street fighter because of the hadouken right? look the size of the hadouken they do in this game!", my 5yo version thought that was enough of a reason to get tha game and i did. HUAHEUHUHEa

AOF takes place in 1978!? There nothing about that game that gives off a 1978 look lol

Nailing it. You're on point. Keep this up, 100 k soon.

I like the first game despite its stuff controls. The 2nd game is my favorite even though the ai is bs. I need to play more of 3rd game

Final fight was never ever known as Street Fighter 2. If anything it was Street Fighter 89

Art of Fighting was the first SNES game I bought with my own money for my birthday. I had experience playing in in the Arcade prior so I was well familiar with it when I got the console version. I got good enough to beat it with both Ryo and Robert on the hardest difficulty in the arcade mode without losing a single round. It was an early video game achievement in my tween years. Like many fighting games of the time, the harder the difficulty mostly resulted in the AI's attacks taking off more damage and yours doing less. For AOF, you also started out with less health and spirit than your opponents and would enter every fight with a disadvantage even if you were successful in the bonus rounds. If you wanted either max health or spirit, then you couldn't get the Haow-Ken death blow. As cool and powerful as the attack was, it was too slow and unless your opponent was stunned it wasn't easy to hit the AI with it. Plus on the later difficulties it really didn't do that much damage even when you did pull it off successfully. For me I always tried to max out my health, though that was basically impossible without a turbo controller for the last bonus round. Maxing out spirit was the easier route but since you could refill that within the match itself, I didn't usually bother with it. Plus the last bonus round for that was easy to mess up anyways also. This wasn't an easy game but it's almost a cakewalk compared to AOF 2, which is disappointing it never got a North American release on the SNES. I played the Japanese version on an Emulator though so that was more than enough. Look forward to seeing your AOF 2 Video. Keep up the great work!

I've always respected AOF for the innovations it brought to the genre (dashing, super moves, character damage etc) it doesn't get the credit it deserves in that regard....however i've honestly never that big on the series gameplay wise. It was always too stiff and clunky and the "spirit gauge" restricting your use of special moves hurt it too. A damn shame tho because i always liked the graphics, music, and presentation of the series, but overall it doesn't hold up nearly as well as other classic SNK series like Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown, or KOF. Tho i will say AOF 3 actually had excellent animations, too bad the game felt so "off" and weird to play. It felt very "slippery" like the fighters were sliding across the stage.

Robert Garcia drives a Ferrari F40. That car didn't come out till late 80s. Also if you have a game save of aof on a neo geo memory card, if you played aof 2, your player started with the death blow if you got it in aof 1.

I heard that the King's top rip appears in Samurai Shodown 2. But only done by Hanzo's Baku'en Ryuu (Fireball Slinky) as the final hit to Nakaruru. Her top rips open also.

I'll say it again . You really should have more subscribers . I haven't really been a fan of fighting games since the days of the SNES and Genesis ( MegaDrive ) , but I still can't get enough of this rich history of fighter games that you have been providing to us . Excellent video as always !!!!

Great video but I think you should try your hand at fighting layer

I had this game in genesis and I played a lot in arcades.I beat both of them with one credit. It was somehow hard and unfair.

Art of fighting is one of those games that doesn’t get the credit it deserves; it brought more advancements to the fighting genre than even fatal fury

Love your videos brother!!...the nostalgia comes to me hard when I watch these things!! I would like to see you do vids on the World Heroes series!!

Art of Fighting ROARED in the arcades and had a great crowd of players at my local arcade! What made this game standout more than SF ( besides the amazing visuals) was the special move/ super bar! It would take Capcom another 2 years to finally add a super bar to a single SF title!

Dan's design is a combination of Ryo and Robert. It's Robert's head on Ryo's body, and his style is a parody mix of them both. His emphasis on taunts is because, as you highlighted, taunting was a mechanic made popular by AOF

My favorite RU-vid series!! Always look forward to these videos.

I was a young button masher and would "play" this game in Cental London. Loved it very much

I hope there is a build up to how all of these characters all meet up to cross over in the KoF franchise! In Mexico, arcade machines were very popular basically until a few years ago where game consoles reached somewhat more affordable prices. King of Fighters (+ Metal Slug) is a big hit down there as Street Fighter was up here in the US. Even the red frames for the AES multicart systems were super popular to house non SNK games like Marvel vs Capcom. I am enjoying these fighting game histories, keep up the good work!

AOF is legendary, When I first played it I was blown away by the visuals and sound quality, huge sprites. SNK games need to be gamed on proper SNK hardware, no conversions etc, MVS or AES

Good story about Art Of Fighting. How about looking into Global Champion next?

Gee, who can Mr. Karate possibly be!!!

Also Art of Fighting 3 is goddamned amazing. Best Neo Geo fighting game animation, bar none. The animation is better than it's direct rival, Street Fighter 3.

Your channel is gold man keep it up.

Actually in AoF you CAN use desperation moves (ryuko ranbo) if you are with very low health and have the full spirit bar. Probably one of the first games to have this feature.

One fun fact about AOF, that Ryo Sakazaki design was inspired by Patrick Swayze. Can you say Roadhouse (Roundhouse).

I think it's really funny how you do a halfway decent job pronouncing Ryo's name (Lio, kind of like Yo but placing the tongue at the top of your mouth in the beginning in the L placement going right into Yo) but pronounce the Ry part of Ryu completely differently. Hahaha! Hot oil wins!

Art of Fighting is the redheaded half brother who gets all the abuse from the rest of the family and then starts walking down odd paths(mostly thinking of you AOF3).

Thank you so much!!! Always look forward to your vids.

When I was about 6 (1994) the Round Table Pizza by my house had this game. After spending all my parents' quarters on it every time we went, they got it for me on SEGA Genesis. The characters seemed totally ridiculous to me, even compared to Street Fighter, but I loved it and it'll always be the pizza game to me.

If you like the pc engine version of this game, the ports of Fatal Fury 2 and Special are a sight to behold as well. Very close to the Neo Geo.

Now we want World Heroes!!!

Can you a story on FIGHTER'S HISTORY Series?

At this point I'm pretty sure you read Ryu as "rai-uh" on purpose.

Ahh Mr Top Hat my good man, would you consider doing the history of Die Hard Arcade/Dynamite Deka & it's not sequel Dynamite Cop/Dynamite Deka 2. Would fall in with your lovely SoR vids & a nice gap on RU-vid would be filled. Many thanks my good chap, Ta Ta.

Art of fighting 2 is my all time favourite SNK game AND favourite 2D 1vs1 fighting game ever. It never got it's recognition I suspect because the difficulty when playing the story mode was too hard...or once you figured out each enemy's tactic, too easy. Story mode in no way whatsoever allowed you to uncover just how deep the gameplay was but having spent hundred's of hours in vs games I found this game (AOF2) was ahead of the competition on all fronts.

"Soon, all will know Todo! No, not the dog!" - Todo's daughter Kasumi in KOF96

The Art of the Hat Man clearly! Great video again THGM, cheerio!

Ryo & Robert are much older then Terry & Andy Bogard. Art of Fighting 2 final boss is a young Geese Howard, if anybody watch the anima films you see a young Terry & Andy as kids when they father Jeff Bogard get killed by a young Geese Howard. [Art of Fighting & Fatal Fury] takes place in south town

AOF is my favourite my fighting game series and the biggest mistake they made was to loan out their ultimate villain Geese Howard to the Fatal Fury series. I know fans love the blood feud between Terry and Geese but that pretty much killed off the AOF series with no credible villain left. Any AOF story extension wasn't really possible as AOF1 final boss Takuma(Mr. Karate) was a good guy by then, and Mr. Big isn't credible enough to be a final boss that could possibly defeat Ryo.

I hate it how he calls Ryu Rhy-yoo and calls Ryo correctly. You had one job man.

Great video the Art of fighting was a great series of games now can you do SNK World Heroes this is another fighting game series that was pretty cool for it time.

So many info is missing, and lot is mistaken, Ryo is not based on Ryu (pronounced リュウ, Hepburn: Ryū not Raiu) he is based on Goku and Kenshiro, SNK pitched a Hokuto no ken Game, and it was rejected(HENCE THE NAME RYUUKU NO KEN) They kept some of the moves, like the Zanretsuken, And the GI is same as Goku, and thats the reason why you can charge KI. It had nothing to do with Ryu, then they added the Kohou, to match Shotokhan characters. You also missed that Todoh is based on Soun Tendou. You found that info on Wikipedia, but just like Jordan Peterson said: READ MORE Still you have my like and subscription, for doing your part with this video!

rival schools, strider, and saturday night slam masters

For any Nintendo switch owners, They have arcade perfect ports of art of fighting 1 and 2 on Nintendo eShop. I got part 2 last month. Hoping they install part 3?

Yo! You just earned a sub from this vid. also, if any of you want to join my SNK based fan server, of which I am in the process of building, just join this link bros

As much as i LOVE Fatal Fury, personally i have to say Art of Fighting was the much more superior game in my opinion. I liked the story in Art of Fighting much more, the atmosphere of the game felt like an action movie rather than some generic martial arts film, i think the characters were more stylish, I love the bonus stages for NOT just being bonus stages, but giving you the opportunity to power up who you are playing as IF youre successful in completing that stage, a nice cliffhanger, adding a woman to the game in such an amazing way (in my opinion. I just love the idea of making a woman appear as a man just so everyone could see who she really is in the end like Metroid and Baraduke), and to top it all off, good details in graphics and the music. Also, I feel SNK does NOT use enough audio representation for Art of Fighting when they could select a bunch of good music for Ryo and the gang in the King of Fighters series. Only songs that comes to mind are Yuri's theme from Art of Fighting 2 (Called Diet) and the theme song of the series (Or otherwise known as Todo's theme. Strange they would have a side character's theme song as the theme of a game series honestly). Theres just so many good songs to add in KOF like Ryo's theme, My Horse and Me/Uma to Boku, Robert's theme, Swing the House, Takuma's theme, Shihan, and etc.

Mad story of powerstone soon pretty please big daddy tophat?!

You should cover Dragon Ball FighterZ. It's a pretty cool Marvel vs Capcom clone.

I love this video and series soooooo much! I always kinda liked AoF because of how different it was. A lot of innovations from this small series effected the genre forever.

Thanks for your content, you should do World Heroes, whats that game about, any relations to fatal fury or art of fighting ?

I like the first one but fatal fury special was my favorite

Not sure if he's saying Ryu wrong being that I don't know how the Japanese say it, but I still hate the way he says it.

It's REE-YU, not RYE-YU. I only bring this up because you say Ryo's name correctly. Show Ryu some respect. 😁

Art of Fighting was one of my favourites despite the sometimes maligned zoom effect.

Remember this coin op in Leisuretime down Burnley town centre. Never got anywhere near the love sf2 got.

I love SNK fighting games! Fatal Fury is my favorite fighting series of ALL time! Keep up the good work!👍🏽👍🏾👍🏿

Man i miss the 90s so much

So AOF was the first to do supers and also ultra combos? Interesting

Please, please, please do Fighters' History!

Dude,, you just took me waaaayy back to almost 40 years ago!! We had MOST of these at our local arcade "Take Ten", throughout most of the 80's & 90's. But I probably wouldn't have even thought about those days agan, had I not seen this video!! 👍💯

What is that Fighting game that plays like Street Fighter III Strike?

I found Mr. Big and King to be the most difficult opponents. You could Time Out Mr. Karate if you knew how to. 😜

Have you ever thought about doing videos about specific characters like Terry Bogard, Chun-Li, or Geese?

I bought AOF not too long time ago here in Japan! Cool story and nice gameplay actually!

Cooler and better looking brother. Also props to SNK for not releasing the same game with just minor changes 20 times

Snk put out a bunch of fighting games in the 90's. This was one of my favorites.

I honestly have never heard of this game I love learning new stuff on this channel.

I have always preferred aof, fatal fury and kof over Street fighter series.

Do a review on World Heroes

Unfortunately SNK got caught by the 3d gimmick wave and that's when all the fun stopped, they should have stood their ground and developed a 1080p version of their console and kept 2d alive and kicking.

5:40 a video about the mad history behind Michael Jackson and Sega gaming patnership? Yes, please!

I have never seen any kind of questioning of sexuality with King. I can only assume you made that up. Discrimination is part of why she dresses like a man in the first Art of Fighting, but it's curious you don't mention the even more obvious reason of the superstition about women practicing Muay Thai.

Hey, Top Hat Gaming Man. Can you please do a video on Art of Fighting 2?

No ryo that's our father