The original Art of Fighting 3 by SNK came out in arcades – and on the Neo Geo AES – in 1996.

It was mostly lambasted at the time of release, for having “poor balance” and unstoppable (and easy to perform) Ultra Cool Attacks. In spite of the huge sprites, nice backgrounds and fast action. In 1996 the arcades were flooded with these types of fighting games…

What Art of Fighting 3 did do, though, is: change the cast of the series radically (everyone is new bar Ryo and Robert), and also developer SNK used motion capture for their animations for the first time, leading to more realistic visuals.

Art of Fighting 3 is still an interesting beat ’em up to play, and did lead on to greater things.

The Art of Fighting cast later went on to appear in the Capcom versus SNK series, so if you want to look into that universe you need to play the Art of Fighting series.

More: Art of Fighting 3: The Path of the Warrior on Wikipedia