Game:

The King of Fighters '94 (1994)

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Art of Fighting 2 (Ryuuko No Ken 2/The Fist of Dragon and Tiger 2 in Japan) was developed by SNK and released in 1994. It has a long-time notorious reputation as one of the most difficult fighting games of all time, and I know from personal experience.

The year 1979. A year prior, Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia had set out to rescue Yuri Sakazaki, who was kidnapped. Being held somewhere in South Town, Ryo and Robert had no choice but take on many adversaries in the streets to get to Yuri before it was too late. After several battles, Ryo and Robert finally found where she was being held, at the Karate Gym, where they had to fight the mysterious Mr. Karate. After a hard battle, they eventually defeated him... but Yuri begged Ryo not to finish Mr. Karate off! Why?! It was because the tengu mask wearing fiend was actually.... Takuma Sakazaki!!! Ryo and Yuri's father!

WHAT?! You mean to tell me that Mr. Karate was actually their father, and NOT a gray palette swap of Ryo with a tengu mask overlay?! Well, color ME surprised! I guess it should have been obvious considering that Mr. Karate had the exact same moveset as Ryo, you know, them both knowing Kyokugenryu Karate.

So what's the deal, then?! Was Takuma behind his own daughter's kidnapping?! Not at all, actually, as there was a more sinister plot behind it. Here is the official story lifted from the SNK wiki:

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"Mr. Karate, the undefeated martial artist, was revealed as Ryo's missing father, Takuma Sakazaki. 10 years ago, he knew that Ronnet's death was intentionally planned by someone. Fearing that the rest of his family would be targeted if he stayed, he disappeared. However, 10 years after Ronnet's accident, he learned that an organization had targeted his daughter Yuri. Learning that Mr. Big was behind this, Takuma was forced to work with him. However, Mr. Big's ambitions were foiled by Ryo, Robert, and King's revolution, the latter being one of his former subordinates. Yuri and Takuma safely returned home.

A year after Yuri's kidnapping, while Ryo was training in the mountains, he received a letter. The letter was an invitation for a new tournament in Southtown. Fighters from every corner of the town were gathering there. It was a test to decide who was the "strongest"... a tournament for the chosen and for the real fighters. The strongest of the strong, each aspect applies to the dragon and the tiger. Southtown would be split in twain by their instincts.

...But, this event was only the beginning for a certain man filled with ambition.

"King of Fighters"... the birth of a man's legend and the prologue for an even greater story."
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So we return to South Town once more, this time Ryo, Robert, Yuri, and Takuma all wanting to defeat the one man responsible for the death of Ronnet (Takuma's wife) - and that man is none other than corrupt police commissioner, Geese Howard! Yes, that Geese! We all know he was up to no good, even back then. Remember, Geese was also responsible for killing Jeff Bogard, the father of Terry and Andy Bogard. Damn, this guy just doesn't know when to quit with the parental murdering, eh?

Also, as a quick footnote, AOF 2 marks the first official "King of Fighters" tournament which occured in 1979. In case anyone was wondering, the AOF and the KOF are actually separate universes, because if they merged, the entire cast of AOF would be several years older than everyone else circa KOF '94. Either way, taking into account if you want to ignore canon timelines and universes, leaning in the AOF direction, this could kill my idea that Fatal Fury 1 wasn't the first KOF tournament after all, like I mentioned a few weeks ago.

So anyway, Art of Fighting 2 is the second entry in the series and everyone from the first game makes their return, except Ryuhaku Todoh (although interestingly, a leftover defeated image of Todoh is hidden in the game files). We have new four new characters to add to the roster, including Yuri Sakazaki, who decided to train under her father to learn the basics of Kyokugenryu Karate in an attempt to get stronger, Eiji Kisaragi, a ninja who desires to defeat the style of Kyokugenryu Karate including its practitioners, Temjin, a Mongolian South Town worker who dreams to one day become a teacher, and Geese Howard, police commissioner of South Town and host of the first KOF tournament to seek strong fighters to join his cause in the crime syndicate.

This playthrough I decided to run through with Mickey, and set the game to one round matches due to the insane difficulty - and I also actually WANTED to fight Geese. The requirement is to beat all opponents without losing a round. Sadly I can't talk about the game much more here due to the character limited for the video description, but I want to apologize to any viewers for the constant save states. It may get boring, but this game is BRUTAL.

See you next game!