El arte de la lucha 3: El camino del guerrero

Art of Fighting 3: The Path of the Warrior ^{[ a ]} es un juego de lucha de 1996 desarrollado y publicado por SNK para el sistema arcade Neo Geo MVS . Es la tercera entrega de la serie Art of Fighting , después de Art of Fighting 2 de 1994.Presenta un nuevo elenco de personajes con la excepción de Ryo Sakazaki y Robert Garcia. El juego fue adaptado a Neo Geo AES y Neo Geo CD .

Al igual que sus predecesores, el juego fue producido por Hiroshi Matsumoto y Takashi Nishiyama. Se suele destacar por tener algunos de los mejores gráficos sprite que SNK ha producido, ya que la compañía trabajó por primera vez con captura de movimiento para darle al juego un estilo más tridimensional. Si bien la jugabilidad se mantiene fiel, se hace gran hincapié en los combos aéreos que no se pueden defender, así como en los Movimientos de Desesperación que pueden derrotar automáticamente al enemigo. El juego recibió críticas mixtas, con elogios por sus mejoras visuales y mecánicas, y críticas por su reducido elenco de personajes y problemas de equilibrio.

Actualmente se está desarrollando una reedición actualizada para Windows, titulada The Path of the Warrior: Art of Fighting 3 R.

La historia cambia de enfoque, pasando de los Sakazaki a su otro personaje principal, Robert Garcia. Robert desaparece en busca de una vieja amiga de la infancia, Freia Lawrence, a quien sigue hasta Glasshill Valley, México. Freia es buscada por el principal antagonista del juego, Tom Wyler, para completar un poderoso elixir desarrollado originalmente por sus padres. La droga otorga a quienes la consumen una fuerza sobrenatural. Robert es consciente de esto y desea salvarla a ella y a Wyler por su cuenta, lo que genera controversia con Ryo y otros preocupados por asumir esta tarea solo. Mientras tanto, otros personajes, como Kasumi Todoh, tienen objetivos diferentes, como derrotar a Ryo Sakazaki para vengar la desaparición de su padre, Ryuhaku.

The game is a fighting game like previous games but with changes and things remaining the games. The gameplay retains the "Desperation moves" from previous games, taunting, back dashing, dashing, and the ki meters. However, the ability to perform stronger punches and kicks by holding a button down has been removed. The game emulates 3D gameplay while remaining true to the 2D roots.^[3] Characters are given the ability move forward while attacking in order to create combo strategies. The combo system is similar to those from 3D fighters, and mostly consists of juggle combos that are executed by simply pushing a few consecutive attack buttons. There is a major emphasis on juggle combos despite how uncommon they are used in 2D games. Pushing kick or punch while holding the joystick in a specific direction will sometimes perform a different attack than if the joystick is in neutral. These attacks can decide the flow of the rounds and how to end them. Jump and attack your opponent are effective with enemies on the ground.^[3] Desperation moves performed on weak enemies on the first round result on an Ultimate Knock Out which automatically ends the battle.^[3]

Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia are the only returning characters in Art of Fighting 3, with all other playable characters being newcomers. The forthcoming 3 R release of the game will add two more returning characters, Yuri Sakazaki and King.^[4]

• Jin Fu-Ha (不破刃) is a former disciple of Eiji Kisaragi, who betrayed him. He then decides to kill Eiji, testing himself by first attempting to defeat Eiji's sworn enemy Ryo Sakazaki.
• Karman Cole (カーマン・コール) is a long-time employee of the Garcia family, acting in a personal assistant-like role to Robert since he was a child. The Garcias send Karman to find their son after he disappeared to look for his old childhood friend Freia Lawrence, which has led him to Glasshill Valley. Karman is a loyal employee who seems very fond of Robert Garcia and lets him get away with much more than he should.
• Kasumi Todoh (藤堂香澄, Tōdō Kasumi) is the daughter of Ryuhaku Todoh, who taught her the Todoh school of Aikido, Jujutsu and Kendo. As her family's sole heir, she does all she can to stand up for the Todoh way. When Ryuhaku left for South Town to settle an old score with Takuma Sakazaki, Kasumi remained waiting for her father's return. Months later, after learning Ryuhaku was defeated by Takuma's son Ryo, she decides to find and challenge him to avenge her father's defeat.
• Lenny Creston (レニィ・クレストン) is a private investigator who works with Rody Birts. She is a tough, straight-talking woman who wields a whip, but with a caring nature underneath. Though there seems to be some romantic tension between them, she and Rody are partners in a business sense only. They have been hired by Wyler to find and deliver Freia Lawrence to him. The two appear to have a bad reputation within their profession and Lenny sees their new assignment as their 'big chance'.
• Rody Birts (ロディ・バーツ) is a private investigator who works with Lenny Creston. Though she dominates him, their relationship is good-natured and there is even a hint of romantic tension. The two appear to have a bad reputation as private eyes. He goes to Glasshill Valley to search for Freia Lawrence on orders from Wyler.
• Wang Koh-San (Chinese: 王覚山) is an artist entering a competition, and is also a friend of Lee Pai Long. He comes to Glasshill Valley for inspiration for the competition, but once there he learns of Wyler's Elixir and thinks that it will interest Lee. Wang travels with his pet pelican Hoeh-Hoeh.
• Sinclair (シンクレア) is Wyler's bodyguard. Though she pretends to encourage him in his experiments, she secretly wants him to stop them. She has a flashy sword fighting style reminiscent of Indian swordsmanship.
• Tom Wyler (トム・ワイラー) is the final boss in Art of Fighting 3. He works on perfecting a powerful elixir that was originally developed by his father and Freia Lawrence's father. However, when their partnership fell part, Freia's father took the essential data needed to complete the elixir and left it with Freia. Wyler blames this action for his father becoming destitute and eventually dying, and begins seeking Freia so he can complete the elixir.

Like the first Art of Fighting and the sequel Art of Fighting 2, the third installment was produced by Hiroshi Matsumoto or Takashi Nishiyama.^[3] It was the first game in the series (and the first SNK fighting game) to use motion capture for its animation,^[5] The concept behind Art of Fighting 3 was to use motion capture, so instead of the company's own Artbox tool that had been used to develop MVS and Neo Geo games, SNK used Microsoft Windows. At the time, SNK did not have the technology for motion capture, so motion capture was recorded in the United States over a period of one to two months. After that, each character's movements were pixelated based on the motion capture. In an interview with Famitsu, designer Nobuyuki Kuroki, who was involved in the development of the series, said that while the captured data lost its original form as it was refined, he was still able to achieve smooth pixel art. The material was originally going to be used in the Fatal Fury installment Garou: Mark of the Wolves, but was left unfinished; eventually, SNK restarted development of that game as Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves.^[6] This led to several difficulties and SNK using few characters in general.^[7]

In the development environment at the time, each person in charge would create the images and sounds using specialized development equipment, and the programmer would use those materials to create the game, but during development, they would actually burn the data onto ROMs, and then fit them one by one onto the board to check the results of the development. I think Windows was introduced with Art of Fighting 3. Some of the data was created for Metal Slug which the staff liked. The staff was young during development of the game and had to live together in the making of it. The basic approach was to divide the work. About a month before the master-up date when the game is completed, there is a deadline for the character data, called "character mask," and that is when the designers are "done." After that, they go home at the regular time. But everyone else still has a lot of work left to do... It was quite a sight to see.^[6]

For Art of Fighting 3, Ryo was modified to feel more realistic to play. In retrospect, they felt that the only way to know Ryo's story was playing Art of Fighting as SNK kept developing KOF among other products where Ryo was playable but was not explored.^[8] In regards to the third Art of Figthting, the game was noted to be called "Gaiden" (lit. "alternative story") as a result of the story focusing now on Robert rather than Ryo.^[9]Art of Fighting 3 was ported to Neo Geo CD with the action with visual issues as a result of the sprites could not fit in the system's RAM. It also suffered long loading times in comparison to the original.^[3] The original trilogy were all released for the Neo Geo MVS arcade system, Neo Geo AES home console.^[10] The Neo Geo trilogy was compiled in Art of Fighting Anthology (龍虎の拳 ～天・地・人～, Ryuuko no Ken Tenchijin) for the PlayStation 2, while the original game was also included as part of SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 and the NEOGEO Station service. The trilogy has also been digitally re-released via the WiiVirtual Console and the ACA Neo Geo series.

At the 2026 Evolution Championship Series tournament, 30 years after the game's original release, SNK and Code Mystics announced The Path of the Warrior: Art of Fighting 3 R as part of their Neo Geo Premium Selection series of updated re-releases for PC. In addition to rebalancing the existing roster, 3 R will feature two additional characters from previous games, as well as a new training mode and support for local or online multiplayer with rollback netcode.^[4]

Según Famitsu , la versión de Neo Geo CD vendió más de 20.877 copias en su primera semana en el mercado. ^{[ 13 ]} Los cuatro críticos de Electronic Gaming Monthly le dieron a la versión de Neo Geo AES un 5 sobre 10. Criticaron duramente el juego por su mal equilibrio, siendo su mayor queja los nuevos Ultra-Cool Attacks, ya que son fáciles de ejecutar, no se pueden bloquear y causan una gran cantidad de daño. Además, criticaron la falta de originalidad e innovación del juego, y dijeron que no logró distinguirse de la avalancha de juegos de lucha 2D de la época. ^{[ 11 ]} Un crítico de Next Generation no vio ningún problema con el equilibrio del juego, pero coincidió en que es "demasiado similar a cualquier otro juego de lucha 2D del mercado". Le dio a la versión de Neo Geo AES tres de cinco estrellas. ^{[ 14 ]} En retrospectiva, HardcoreGaming101 señaló que el juego "es un paso drástico lejos de sus predecesores", comparando la historia de Robert con "un Jekyll y Hyde ". Compararon la jugabilidad con Virtua Fighter y Tekken , a pesar del uso de gráficos 2D y la dependencia de un estilo 3D. ^{[ 3 ]} Nintendo Life le otorgó un 7 sobre 10, elogiando el sistema de lucha simple y fiel pero criticando los cambios de diseño 3D. Hubo respuestas mixtas al modo historia por la falta de escenas cinemáticas y la gran cantidad de diálogo para cada personaje. En comparación con juegos anteriores, el sistema de lucha se sintió mejorado con respecto a los juegos anteriores de Art of Fighting y el pulido de los nuevos sprites de personajes. El hecho de que el jugador aún pueda acercar y alejar la imagen al acercarse a los enemigos fue elogiado por el crítico. En conclusión, lo encontraron un juego atractivo a pesar de no estar a la altura de The King of Fighters '98 y Garou: Mark of the Wolves . ^{[ 12 ]}

IGN and Eurogamer instead felt that Art of Fighting 3 was a massive improvement over the series, with the latter praising the visuals used for character sprites and victory scenes. They found that the new touches of the gameplay added replay value, highlighting how the Desperation Moves become more strategic if the player wants to win their first round.^[15]IGN believed the game to be the most modern fighting game in the Art of Fighting series, mainly due to the graphical improvements and how advanced they were for the Neo Geo system.^[16]GameSpot found it "very different from conventional fighting games" and "unfinished", but said it still feels more unique than the previous two games. They compared the fighting system to Tekken, highlighting the attacks that cannot be defended. In regards to the unfinished comment, the issue the reviewer found was that only Ryo and Robert have proper endings, while the rest playable characters seem to lack dialogue.^[17]

Kasumi Todoh would appear in The King of Fighters series starting in The King of Fighters '96. Game designer Toyohisa Tanabe wanted to work on a new Art of Fighting installment using the engine of recently created The King of Fighters '96 engine but was not given permission by his superior.^[18] By 1997, when The King of Fighters achieved high popularity with the Orochi story arc in The King of Fighters '97. Writer Akihiko Ureshino recalls fans believing Ryo and Yuri being original KOF character. However, Ryo Sakazaki and Yuri Sakazaki are genuine characters of the Art of Fighting series, and are not the "comedians" of the KOF series. They tend to be unable to get involved in the main story and end up in comical roles, but Ryo and the others are actually more serious characters. For this reason, Ureshino thinks there are many fans who do not want to accept Ryo and the others in KOF.^[19]