ACA NEOGEO ART OF FIGHTING 3 Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

ACA NEOGEO ART OF FIGHTING 3 Switch NSP Free Download HAMSTER’s ACA Neo Geo series has brought a number of one-on-one brawlers to the Switch, and now here’s another one. The first Art of Fighting game may have been visually impressive for its time, but it was lacking in the gameplay department meaning there was little reason to pick it up on Switch. Laughing in the face of sequential order, HAMSTER now skipped the second game in the series to bring Art of Fighting 3: The Path of the Warrior to the eShop. That’s no bad thing, however, as it improves on the formula considerably. The visual presentation of Art of Fighting 3 is superb. ROMSLAB.COM  Best Switch Games

ACA NEOGEO ART OF FIGHTING 3 Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

The gritty look of the first two games has been ditched in favour of an animated one that works wonderfully thanks to good detail in the surroundings and the smooth animation of the fighters. The zooming camera (based on the relative positions of the fighters) still features – which enhances the experience – and stages are varied with good touches such as scenery distorted behind flowing water, grass gently swaying in the wind and impressive shadow effects in one particular level. There’s a good range of sound effects along with rocking and jazz-like music tracks that add to the atmosphere, but the most effective stage from an audio point of view is the one that takes place in a street some distance away from carnival-like celebrations.

Lights and fireworks can be seen far away

As you fight in a quiet street (a lone dejected-looking man at a bar the only other visible person), and here the music is provided by a distant band, rather than featuring prominently in the sound mix. As before there is a button for punch and a button for kick, with a third button providing strong attacks (what these are depend on your current position). Once again your ability to perform special moves is dependent on your spirit gauge, but thankfully it doesn’t decrease too much with performed specials, though should your opponent taunt you it does take a big chunk away. You can of course recharge it by holding down an attack button. Void Bastards Switch

ACA NEOGEO ART OF FIGHTING 3 Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

The lack of attack buttons could be limiting, but there are still a number of moves you can perform and the new rush attacks add to the excitement of battle; these are performed by simply holding forwards and mashing the punch or kick button. Should you find a good opening these can prove to be very effective, particularly as you can also combine these with special moves. Your fighter has a number of other moves too, such as a throw and the ability to attack your opponent when they are lying on the floor. Attacks can be sidestepped and with careful timing of your moves you can juggle your opponent in midair to deal lots of damage. It feels quite different to other games, more Virtua Fighter than a typical 2D brawler.

Should you be the one who has received a lot of damage

You can turn the tide of battle with a devastating Desperation move when low on energy. All of these elements fit together well, with fast paced and smooth gameplay that leads to plenty of enjoyable fighting. The only returning characters are Ryo and Robert (plus Yuri as an NPC) and disappointingly they are joined by just eight others. There’s some good variety in the fighters however, with various spinning, jumping and projectile attacks giving a different feel to each of them, as does the fact some have weapons. Sword-wielding Sinclair and hulking end-of-game boss Wyler are not visible on the character select screen, but picking them is simply a matter of pushing the cursor past the edges of the screen. Volgarr the Viking Switch NSP

ACA NEOGEO ART OF FIGHTING 3 Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

Aside from Sinclair and Wyler each character has an ending, so there’s some replayability in trying to see them all. On the default difficulty setting (4 of 8) this is not too difficult, as whilst the fights get tougher as you progress there’s a lot of opportunity for rush attacks, a very useful strategy to master. Increase the difficulty, however, and the CPU opposition will counter many of your button-mashing attempts at victory, providing a tougher challenge as you learn new ways to fight. As standard, games released in the ACA Neo Geo series come with some nifty features such as button remapping and the ability to add scanlines (and even a scrolling video line) to the image for that old-school CRT look.

There’s also two extra ways to play

the games thanks to the one-credit Hi Score and five-minute Caravan modes. Typically you try and see how many points you can rack up with these limitations and then replay to do better as you try and move up the online leaderboards. These modes work better in some games than others, and in Art of Fighting 3 they work very well indeed. When playing a one-on-one brawler the focus is more on winning than on how many points you’ve got. SNK seemed to realise this and here it’s ditched the score and added a timer to keep track of how quickly you can clear the game. The faster you are, the higher you are on the game’s leaderboard and subsequently this has had an effect on the additional ACA modes. V-Rally 4 Ultimate Edition Switch NSP

ACA NEOGEO ART OF FIGHTING 3 Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

For example, the five minute Caravan mode now challenges you to see how many wins you can get in that period. Is it possible to clear the game in that time? At the time of writing the best anyone has managed is seven wins. With only nine fights in the game, possible placements on the leaderboard are limited, but there’s an addictive quality when you miss out on a win by a few seconds, then go again as you hope to manage it the next time around to increase that win tally. Hi score mode is simply about clearing the game as quickly as possible, with the 1-credit limit adding some additional challenge. There’s also an online leaderboard for the regular arcade mode, and whilst that too is about beating the game quickly it allows continues.

Add-ons (DLC): ACA NEOGEO ART OF FIGHTING 3 Switch NSP