Art of Fighting 3/FAQ

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General

Should I play this game?

Play this game if you want...

  • 2D fighting game with similarities to 3D fighting games
  • Emphasis on frame data
  • Juggle combos and wall carry
  • Movement and spacing centered around whiff punishment
  • Several okizeme options
  • Poking focused neutral with short combos, but high damage
  • Massive comeback potential
  • A game that is "2D Tekken" in a nutshell

Do NOT play this game if you don't like...

  • Huge damage off of combos
  • Wonky supers
  • Weighted characters changing the combos you can do
  • The game's method of teching (rotating the stick)
  • A learning curve
  • 3D fighting games in general

Is there a community Discord?

Why of course, we run a server for not only Art of Fighting 3, but the whole Art of Fighting series in general, because why not? Feel free to join the Discord!

What is the rest of the Art of Fighting series like?

Art of Fighting 1 is nothing to write home about. It’s another page in SNK’s history, but it can be boiled down to little more than both players taunting each other twice and turning the game into a glorified poke fest with no combos. It looked good for its time but it offers little for gameplay. Art of Fighting 2, once you get past the awkward control scheme, makes for a unique fighting game different from what Art of Fighting 3 offers, thanks to being a significant improvement over Art of Fighting 1.

Is this game actually as hard to learn as Tekken is?

While we describe the game as "2D Tekken" at its most basic level, or even "2D Virtua Fighter" in a few other ways, it is nowhere near as brutal to learn. There are only 9 (legal) charaters, no 3D movement, move lists are significantly smaller, and despite its differences, you'll still generally learn Art of Fighting 3 as you would any other 2D fighting game. Its more unique approach to the 2D fighter subgenre will certainly take some time to get used to, but it's far from brutal on its basic fundamentals. One of the hardest parts is learning to combo in this game, since it has tons of tight links outside of rush combos, and it's easy for players to assume juggles are little more than one rush combo or one special. Character specific combos also exist, and while you won't always need them per se, as players grow increasingly more adjusted to the game's system, combos will easily start deleting over half your life bar, if not 90% to its entirety.

Other things that are important, like delaying strings, meter management, and okizeme are not any harder to learn, but will take some getting used to with how fast this game is. However, the case can be made that even with prior 2D fighting game experience, this game can be really difficult to pick up for its unusual system and the fact it demands players know their game knowledge ASAP. Matches can end in less than a minute if not less than 30 seconds, and much of that comes from system mastery and game knowledge which becomes especially apparent when fighting someone who has played the game long enough. One small mistake can easily end the round if you're not careful. With the likes of counter hit effects, knockdowns, okizeme, the huge damage output and such giving huge profit to the standing player, AOF3 can be an unforgiving game to learn at first as you can't afford to make mistakes and need to be able to think right away. Among low level play, this is nowhere near as apparent and is much slower, but high level play is a different ball park. That said, if you can get past the steep learning curve, it's a thrilling and rewarding fighting game as you're able to adapt to any scenario where any stray hit can not only lead to the end of a round, but also flip it 180.

The biggest issue with learning Art of Fighting 3 is, despite being a 2D fighter, you will likely find it troublesome to transfer your skills over starting out, no matter what your background with fighting games is. No other fighting games quite like Art of Fighting 3 exist out there. Getting used to the controls alone can be challenging despite there being few controls to remember. What turns out to be a fluid, fast-paced fighting game that demands you make split-second decisions back-to-back will start out as a sluggish run through a pile of what feels like mud in the dark. Basically, the flow of Art of Fighting 3 and how its system works makes it very confusing as to which skills you need and how to apply them, on top of the already high demand that you know how the system works in every scenario to perform well. You are left to start back from scratch to learn this game at even its most simple level, which in of itself is likely a huge turn off for some players, at least without proper guidance.

Wait, this game is FT3 in tournament sets?

AOF3 players can agree on one thing: this game is too fast for FT2 sets. Much like real 3D fighters, this game is explosive and the match can quickly do a 180 out of nowhere or otherwise end very quickly. On top of that, Ultimate KOs end the match instantly, giving the point to whoever performed it. The only other thing left to debate is whether or not Finals sets should be FT5 instead of FT3, but as it stands, it will probably turn into Grand Finals sets only should be FT5. For Winners and Losers to be FT5 would take too long to complete, but a FT3 Grand Finals is also potentially too short, which again, this game can get very fast.

Gameplay

Who is easy to play? Who is hard to play?

Ignoring the tier list entirely, Ryo and Robert are the two easiest characters to play in the game, whereas Kasumi is the hardest character to play in the game, and everyone else falls into the middle for character difficulty. As always, play whoever you want to play as character love is a powerful motivator. Learning any fighting game is difficult, but in AOF3's case, it's also an issue of the esoteric and hard to understand systems in place, assuming you're looking deep into what's going on in the background. If Wyler is tournament legal, he's the easiest character bar none, even when you remove jab spam.

Ryo and Robert are the closest to traditional shotos as you can get in AOF3, and most of their combos take little work to learn and have very self-explanatory kits. Though they have among the most moves of any characters in the game, in actuality you won't use all of them. They play like what you'd expect a shoto to play like in neutral, with some nuance due to this game being AOF3. Robert is arguably easier to play than Ryo is, if only because his pros and cons are much more black and white than Ryo's are. But Ryo isn't much harder, either, and can still get away with a lot even at a lower skill level without being complicated.

Again, assuming Wyler is legal, he's extremely barebones and you can learn everything he has to offer almost immediately, ignoring jab spam taking zero effort to learn. You can basically turn your brain off.

To briefly explain Kasumi's case, somewhat low skill floor, very high and demanding skill ceiling. Many of her optimized combos force you to combo with precisely timed jump attacks, specific delays with her strings, spacing issues to account for, meter management for some of them, and character weights affecting what combos she can do against which characters. Thus, she has character specific combos for the entire cast that if you want to play as optimally as possible, you have to memorize. This affects other characters, too, but not nearly as much. Particularly if she's in the corner, this becomes especially apparent, and it's very easy to drop her combos. For neutral, her gameplay expects you to know every matchup and understand the system mechanics at least somewhat well enough to play smoothly. She has several options she can take advantage of, but won't get much out of if you can't use them well. On a surface level, she's still easy to play, but there's a huge difference between a new Kasumi and an experienced Kasumi. That said, she's incredibly rewarding when you put the work in.

This wiki is nice, but I prefer a video guide to learn the basics.

You can follow this video guide here created by Lichmassacre that covers all the most important basics and info that a beginner needs to get their foot in the door with this game. Although a lengthy video, it covers all the general video with timestamps and captions, too. Nothing impressive, visually, but gives video examples of all the mechanics and some tips, too.

Wow, what a great video! But I still prefer a video for the more detailed mechanics, where can I find one?

Also created by Lichmassacre, this video guide here covers all the more intricate, detailed mechanics and more advanced stuff, including tech recovery theory. It's even longer than the general guide video, but hopefully helps illustrate the point across with the more advanced mechanics. And more importantly, it also corrects errors from the first video due to misunderstanding over the game's engine at the time of making the first video. This part is only about 8 minutes long, but still, is worth the watch for that alone.

Wait, character birthdays are an actual mechanic in this game? Doesn't that mean running tournaments on their birthday is impossible?

In Art of Fighting 3, whenever the system's internal clock falls on one of the ten characters' birthday, it will give then a constant desperation bonus that gives them a permanent ~20% damage boost for every match that lasts the whole day. They still have to be low health in order to use their supers, however. As for tournament play, long story short while yes this bonus is obviously banned from competitive play, this does not mean it is impossible to run a tournament on a character's birthday. This is false hearsay. If you wish to run a tournament on a character's birthday and avoid the birthday bonus entirely, all you have to do is change the system's internal clock by at least one day by accessing it under the test menu. Regardless if you're on a real cab or on an emulator through netplay, changing the date will remove the bonus and thus make tournament play possible.

Worth noting also that despite this restriction, it never stops Mikado from running joke Wyler birthday tournaments every year, no matter how monotonous it is when everyone picks Wyler during those tourneys.

What does the tier list look like?

Lichmassacre's Tier List

Non-Wyler Tier List (as of February 26th, 2022)

  • Tied God Tier: Lenny, Kasumi (Lenny probably better but only slightly. If Lenny isn't using the pseudo infinite, then Kasumi is top 1.)
  • S: Rody
  • A: Everyone else
  • F: Sinclair

Will update with info TBA.

hara96str's Tier List

  • S: Lenny
  • A: Rody, Kasumi, Wyler
  • B: Wang (2P), Jin
  • C: Ryo
  • D: Robert, Karman
  • F: Sinclair

Tier list can be found here.

Lord Tiki's Tier List

Tier List by Lord Tiki:

  • God: Kasumi, Wyler
  • Top: Rody, Lenny, Ryo
  • High: Jin, Robert
  • Mid: Wang, Karman
  • Low: Sinclair

Old Tier Lists

Old tier list as of June 2021: (by Lichmassacre)

  • Banned: Portrait AOF3 Wyler.png
  • God: Portrait AOF3 Kasumi.png
  • S: Portrait AOF3 Jin.pngPortrait AOF3 Ryo.png
  • A: Portrait AOF3 Karman.pngPortrait AOF3 Robert.png
  • B+: Portrait AOF3 Rody.pngPortrait AOF3 Lenny.pngPortrait AOF3 Wang.png
  • F: Portrait AOF3 Sinclair.png

Lenny could certainly knock down Rody a peg, possibly even be an A tier character or even be top 4 and an overall better character than Karman, but as of right now almost no one plays her so truly determining where she places is difficult.

Basic gist of the tier list: Note: Middle 6 characters can more or less be swapped around due to the game's nature, but both top and bottom 2 I find are very difficult to argue against. Other note: Everyone is viable to some extent, being low tier doesn't automatically mean the character in question is bad as all characters have their own oddities that help them score matches. This is a game that rewards system play. Only non-viable character is Sinclair, and even then, she still has a touch of death combo.

Banned Tier:

  • Wyler: While not as broken as other fighting game bosses, he still has several advantages over other characters such as reduced damage and a braindead easy to use jab. Making him playable in a tournament would require removing both 5A and 6AA, and even then he's still got several super powerful attacks. While possible to beat, it'd be frustrating for anyone to deal with as only some characters can deal with him reliably. Those who can't can still win against him but requires a ton of correct spacing, timing, and patience, maybe even some luck with the hitboxes. Also not entertaining to watch someone do 5A the entire match. Not the strongest character in the game as Kasumi still beats him, but nonetheless kill's the game's momentum by breaking almost all of its rules.

God Tier:

  • Kasumi: Has literally everything and more besides a fireball. Able to punish basically anything in the game and with several safe/difficult to punish attacks that let her also confirm into huge damaging combos.

S Tier:

  • Ryo: Has a huge variety of tools and the only consistent cross-up button in the game, but he loses to specialists and his frame data leaves a lot to be desired.
  • You could make a case that he's 3rd place instead, simply because his frame advantages are that bad, tied only with Sinclair and Wang.
  • Jin: Mixups for days, hard to juggle, consistent damage output, good reach, solid overall. Lacks consistent use for his special moves and super, plus he's slower.
  • If Ryo is third place, Jin could be swapped for him.

A Tier:

  • Karman: Mediocre lows, his height and trouble approaching aside, Karman has among the best defensive tools in the game with a jab and consistent BnBs that lead to free pursuits the opponent can't escape. Simple but effective okizeme and solid wakeup game, too.
  • Robert: Strong special moves and very easy but rewarding combos with good pokes to play a good defensive game. Has just enough to handle most situations at the expense of being meter hungry and some issues with his best moves, namely 4A. Weaker offense compared to other characters.

B+ Tier:

  • Rody: In the right hands Rody is very difficult to deal with having constant 50/50 pressure and fast speed, but his light weight makes him easy to juggle and one wrong guess leaves him losing his momentum.
  • Lenny: Hard to really judge as few people play her, but the gist is she can't crouch reliably, and she can't jump reliably because of both bad buttons and bad animation frames. That said, several attacks have great range, fast speed up close, good zoning and hit-and-run potential, and overall good ground game. She's very meter hungry though, and has only one low which limits her mixups severely.
  • Wang: Terrible range issues are enough to limit him, especially when he's unable to whiff punish the majority of the time. Very annoying mixups in the right hands and above average damage output, but overall terrible frame data and limited overheads doesn't him in that area, either. However, he still has a ranbu super even if a slow one, and a 3 frame DP reversal.

F tier:

  • Sinclair: Too slow and well animated to her own detriment that few attacks she has are actually good. Almost everything has a severe delay to it which makes most actions a big commitment. Sinclair can't move normally because of her delayed walk and jumps. However, she has a TOD combo and her special moves/best pokes deal high damage.

-Lichmassacre

Old Tier list (August 2020):

  • This is the August 2020 tier list that was made one month after experimenting with the game and finding a foothold for it.

AOF3 Tier List August 2020.png

"While the tier list goes from God to Low tier, it should be noted that everyone is viable in this game, and Sinclair is arguably the only real character who is not very good in this game. The game is also still new, so we have yet to see its meta flourish, but for now we have a pretty good idea that this accurately reflects what we know."

What about the matchups?

  • General note: Characters with ranbu supers who face themselves inadvertently have a 5.5-4.5 or 6-4 matchup against themselves, or roughly around that, because of the player 1 priority where two simultaneous ranbus connecting always gives player 1 the winning advantage. This also applies to normal throws, but since they're not used that much, it doesn't affect the matchup much, either. In Wang's case, player 2 has their own advantage due to his command grab being bugged on the player 1 side.
  • Other note: There are two total values divided by a / to make it clearer: the left value is the matchup score when Wyler is not a factor, whereas the right value adds the matchup scores for when Wyler is a factor, since the case can be made that Wyler shifts the meta enough to factor into character viability and/or overall ability to handle other matchups/general meta of the game. Wyler only has one score for obvious reasons.
  • Other note 2: This is purely the opinion of Lichmassacre, so it may not be 100% accurate.
Jin Karman Kasumi Lenny Robert Rody Ryo Sinclair Wang Wyler Totals
Jin - 6 4 4 6 6 6 7 6 4 45 / 49
Karman 4 - 4 3 5 5 4 7 4.5 1 36.5 / 37.5
Kasumi 6 6 - 6 6 6 6 8 7 7 53 / 60
Lenny 6 7 4 - 5 6 5 8 7 7 48 / 55
Robert 4 4 4 5 - 5 4.5 7 5 4 38.5 / 42.5
Rody 4 5 4 4 5 - 2 7 5 4 36 / 40
Ryo 4 6 4 5 5.5 8 - 6 6 4 44.5 / 48.5
Sinclair 3 3 2 2 3 3 4 - 4 2 24 / 26
Wang 4 5.5 3 3 5 5 4 6 - 2 35.5 / 37.5
Wyler 6 9 3 3 6 6 6 8 8 - 55

Technical

Is there a training mode?

Unfortunately, SNK has never made one for Art of Fighting 3. The AES version and even the Art of Fighting Anthology both have no sort of training mode to work with. But there is a way to make a bootleg training mode, one that also works across multiple Neo Geo games. It is barebones, but at least you won't need to spam savestates. Training Mode can be found here.

So why does the wiki list frame advantages for soft knockdowns and staggers?

You might be thinking, "Wait, isn't a soft knockdown just a different type of knockdown? Of course you're plus, the opponent is down." Or you may also think, "Well, if the opponent is staggered, I should obviously be plus enough to continue into a combo." While you wouldn't be wrong to think this, Art of Fighting 3 has unusual frame data due to the rotoscoped graphics. Firstly, not all normal knockdowns have equal frames attached to them, so that's why they'll be marked as a "quick knockdown" or a "QKD" instead. For soft knockdowns, there are situations where you may be plus but do not have enough of a frame advantage to land a pursuit (and will be punished instead), or other such follow-ups. The same applies to staggers: Kasumi's 6AAC rush combo ends in a stagger, but while she is plus, she's only +2, which makes continuing it impossible, as opposed to her 3B wrongblock giving her a frame advantage of +31. If you pick Jin, and land his 66B pursuit attack as a counter hit, it will instead SKD and leave him at -29, but if it lands as a wrongblock, it will leave him in an even worse state at -44 frame advantage due to it being a stagger instead. In other words, there is no real consistency to the frame advantages to moves in Art of Fighting 3. The only guarantees are most normal knockdowns give you a huge plus advantage, and that STKDs (stagger knockdowns) always leave you plus enough to get some sort of follow-up in. Secondly, block animations all have a set frame count as well as the knockdown animations themselves, which inadvertently affect the frame advantage.

Who has the best jabs in the game?

Jabs in this game, or a 5A, serve quite a lot of purposes. They can poke, shake the enemy off you, counter hit launch, help flinch back at the opponent, and can even be used in some combos for extra damage if you can pull off the tight spacing and timing. They're overall more important in this game than they are in other 2D fighting games (just like gasp Tekken and Virtua Fighter.) Jabs in Art of Fighting 3 vary widely in quality, so here's a quick recap of what the best jabs in the game are:

  • 1. Wyler (aka the reason he's banned)
  • 2. Karman (really large range; essential for his combos and come out quick)
  • 3. Kasumi (not amazing range, but you can't punish this unless you use a low and maybe a jump in attack; it will stop almost anything)
  • 4. Jin (solid range and speed which make it an effective long ranged poke)
  • 5. Lenny (almost as annoying as Kasumi's jab, but it doesn't hurt as much. Still very useful in forcing the opponent to respect Lenny)
  • 6. Ryo (one of the stronger jabs, and is fast enough to still frustrate the opponent. Decent range and may be the second most used jab in combos)
  • 7. Robert (just a notch under Ryo's jab by being a pinch slower)
  • 8. Rody (nothing crazy, but it does decently well as a shrug off tool)
  • 9. Wang (slowest startup and also has the longest recovery for a jab that isn't Wyler's jab when you don't spam it. Pitiful range, and isn't too spammable, but it pushes Wang forward a little bit. Not bad up close, but underwhelming. You'll probably use 4A much more)
  • 10. Sinclair (it's fast, but it's height makes it easy to whiff and it cannot follow up on itself, except maybe a counter hit. You technically can use it in combos, but it hardly hurts the opponent on top of being super difficult to time. Okay anti-air when timed right)

Who has the fastest Pursuit in the game?

Pursuit speed hardly affects anything in a real match, because in most cases the opponent is right next to you if you can perform it quickly. But in those uncommon cases where you need to commit to the Pursuit a little more, here's a small chart that ranks the speed of each character's Pursuit:

  • 1. Karman (His Pursuit is instant, since it activates a unique animation that the opponent cannot escape from. He will also automatically teleport if his Pursuit is within range. He has two Pursuit animations, one for when he faces the opponent's legs and another for their head. The latter is not instant, and can be whiffed/escaped by the opponent, but it rarely comes out)
  • 2. Kasumi
  • 3. Robert
  • 4. Lenny
  • 5. Rody
  • 6. Wang
  • 7. Ryo (3A Pursuit)
  • 8. Wyler
  • 9. Jin
  • 10. Ryo (214A Pursuit)
  • 11. Sinclair

Who has the fastest walk/dash speeds?

(Needs testing/video comparisons to verify; currently a rough estimate

Note: Dash speeds are determined by how long it takes the character to end their dashing state, where they can then enter crouch. Although dashes are cancellable, you cannot crouch during a dash.

Forward Dash Speeds:

  • Fast: Kasumi, Rody, Wyler
  • Middle: Lenny, Karman, Robert
  • Slow: Ryo, Sinclair, Jin, Wang

Forward Dash Travel Distances:

  • Far: Kasumi, Lenny, Rody
  • Middle: Ryo, Robert, Wyler, Wang
  • Short: Jin, Karman, Sinclair

Backdash Speeds:

  • Fast: Kasumi, Rody, Lenny
  • Middle: Karman, Ryo, Sinclair
  • Slow: Jin, Wyler, Wang, Robert

Backdash Travel Distance:

  • Longest: Rody, Lenny, Robert, Wyler
  • Middle: Jin, Wang, Ryo, Sinclair, Karman
  • Shortest: Kasumi

Who has the tallest crouching hitboxes?

  • Tall: Wyler, Jin, Lenny, Karman
  • Middle: Robert, Ryo, Rody
  • Short: Kasumi, Sinclair, Wang


General
FAQ
Controls
HUD
Glossary
System
Training Mode
Characters
Jin
Karman
Kasumi
Lenny
Robert
Rody
Ryo
Sinclair
Wang
Wyler