Every week Cyril Lachel comes down from his giant castle in the hills to provide the final word on all of the classic downloadable games and retro compilations. This is the Retro Round-Up, your official guide to the best (and worst) in classic gaming for the Nintendo Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. Join us as we shed some light on what games are worth your five or ten dollars, and what games you should avoid at all costs. For more information about these games (and retro gaming in general) we invite you to check out Defunct Games. It`s the moment we`ve all been waiting for, the Neo Geo is finally on the Virtual Console. There`s just one problem, not a single one of them is worth your nine dollars. But that`s not going to stop us from telling you what we think of Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting and World Heroes. I bet you can`t guess which one we like the most? Find out now when you read this week`s Retro Round-Up ...

Art of Fighting (Virtual Console)
What Is It?
Released in 1992, Art of Fighting was a story-driven alternative to Street Fighter II. You play one of two characters, Ryo Sakazaki or Robert Garcia, as they battle the evil Mr. Big and retrieve Ryo`s kidnapped sister, Yuri. But don`t get too excited, because the original Art of Fighting is an absolutely dreadful game. At the time the game had a few things going for it, such as large detailed characters, a somewhat interesting (albeit cliche) story and a camera that zoomed in and out of the action as the characters got further apart and closer together. But with the good comes a lot of bad, such as a control system that is sluggish and frustrating. The biggest problem is that the moves are just too difficult to pull off, at the end of the day you`re stuck just mashing buttons hoping for the best. Street Fighter II is so revered because it combined interesting characters with solid gameplay, yet both of those attributes were thrown out the window when coming up with this ugly mess of a game. Thankfully the Art of Fighting series did improve over time, but this first installment is an absolutely dreadful game that should be avoided at all cost.

Does It Still Hold Up?
A lot of fighting game critics contend that the genre hasn`t improved much of the last ten years. In some ways they are right, the basic structure of one person fighting another person hasn`t changed. But all it will take is one play of Art of Fighting to appreciate how far this genre has come since 1992. There was a time when it seemed like only Capcom could make a good fighting game, but now we live in a time when everybody else is making better fighters than Capcom. Art of Fighting is a terrible game, it was back then and it is now. I love the Neo Geo, but this is not the way to debut the system.

Is It Worth The Money?
Of the three Neo Geo games released this week, Art of Fighting is by far the worst of the bunch. The graphics may be pretty (in that early 1990s kind of way), but the gameplay has been completely sucked out of this horrible fighting game. Believe it or not, the 16-bit Super NES version of this game is actually superior, if only because it featured slightly improved controls and more characters. If you really need an Art of Fighting game then go out and buy Art of Fighting Anthology for the PlayStation 2. Not only is it dirt cheap, but it also features Art of Fighting 3 (aka the only good Art of Fighting game).


Fatal Fury (Virtual Console)
What Is It?
Don`t ask me why, but for some odd reason there are a lot of people who really enjoy the Fatal Fury series. To be fair to those sorry, mixed up gamers, the Fatal Fury series has impro...