.:: Art of Fighting 1 and 2 ::.
(last edited: 10th January, 2007)
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First, a brief history.
Ryo Sakazaki is the legendary fighter of South Town who employs the Kyokugen karate fighting style. Ryo Sakazaki, like Ryu, seeks to improve his fighting style and when initially introduced was to be the contemporary of a young Geese Howard.
However, to make him and Terry rivals in the King of Fighters, SNK decided to make him Terry's contemporary by overlapping the time lines--which meant that they didn't have to go through the trouble of having to change the sprites. Crazy ass logic and lazy as hell but the SNK fans were gratified nonetheless once KoF hit the market and became that fan thrilling bad ass that it is. However, there is the problem of timeline. Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting are a separate time line from the King of Fighters. Ryo in AoF timeline is much older than Terry Bogard, around 15 years. So KoF time line is different from FF/AoF timeline and in reality Ryo is FIFTEEN years older than Terry Bogard.
In short there are two timelines: KoF/FF timeline which originates from FF1 (or KoF92) and the AoF/FF timeline which originates from AoF1.
Also realize that though in AoF timeline, Ryo is the first champion of KoF and that is why he is later recognized as a legend, he isn’t the first champ of KoF in the KoF timeline. The Fatal Fury timeline is the same as the KoF time and since FF1 took place in what would be KoF92 Terry Bogard became the first champion of KoF. So to go through it again: Ryo is first KoF champ in the AoF/FF time line and Terry Bogard is the first champ of KoF in the KoF/FF timeline. Easy isn’t it?
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Art of fighting 1, the story was that Yuri (daughter of Takuma Sakazaki and sister to Ryo Sakazaki) is kidnapped and Ryo goes to find her in South Town where he beats it out of those whom he has to. He eventually faces a masked man, claiming to be Mr. Karate. Robert was already out of gas after their fight with Mr. Big and so Ryo fights Takuma. As the fight draws to a close, Ryo is about to kill him with the ultimate blast of Kyokugen karate, the Haoh-shiko-ken. However, Yuri comes in the nick of time to stop Ryo and tell him that the masked man is their father, Takuma Sakazaki. At the time he was a nameless son of a bitch in the game, so the fans started calling him Mr. Karate which eventually became his official name.
Art of fighting 2, a king of fighters tournament is held. Ryo and Robert enter the tournament to get their hands at Geese, who is the police commissioner and 26 years old. The following is canon:
We discover that Takuma was black mailed into doing so by Geese Howard who wanted him to kill off Jeff Bogard (someone who stood in Geese's way but was respected by Takuma). Takuma fled Geese's syndicate (now it seems to be ret-conned and Takuma was never part of Geese's syndicate. He was still ordered to kill Jeff by Geese). Takuma fled the syndicate/turns down Geese's orders only to be lured into a trap when Mr. Big had Yuri kidnapped. Ryo and Robert tear every one in South Town a new one, as they look for Yuri that eventually led them to fight and defeat Takuma (all canon).
We know that Takuma didn't want to fight Jeff as he respected Jeff.
To make him do Geese's bidding Mr. Big gets Yuri kidnapped (should be noted that Mr. Big had Yuri kidnapped not Geese. Heck, Geese didn't even know what was going on. Mr. Big was eavesdropping as Geese initially told Takuma to kill Jeff (shown in intro of AoF2).
Probably Big realized he could use Takuma to wipe away competition and since Jeff was opposing crime he was obviously in Big's path as well...and probably he could use Takuma to annihilate Geese too (since here Geese is a young warrior not the old and experienced badass that he later becomes while Takuma is a seasoned legend).
Thus, while Geese decides to go kill Jeff himself, Big (clearly not in the league of Jeff or Geese) black mails Takuma into getting rid of the superior fighter, Jeff Bogard.
Blackmailed, Takuma goes on the mission to fight Jeff Bogard, but is [I assume] defeated. If even not they way to look at it would be that either Takuma either fails to kill Jeff or before he could do it Ryo and Robert show up and rescued Yuri...after facing and defeating him.
Why do I say that he failed to kill Jeff?
well, we all know for a fact that Jeff was killed by Geese (canon). So if Takuma did go to kill Jeff, he was probably defeated. Story wise, Takuma has no other alternative but to go and kill Jeff as if he didn't, Yuri will be killed. So he MUST have gone to fight Jeff. Of course one may say that before Takuma could go to kill Jeff, Ryo and Robert show up and fight him. However, rumors say that the triple scar on Takuma's back is from Jeff Bogard. It could have only been gotten if Jeff and Takuma fought and the only time we can imagine them fighting would be when Takuma, forced to do so cuz of Yuri's kidnapping, goes to kill Jeff. The part of his defeat by Jeff is just my speculation though.
Canon-wise eventually, Ryo and Robert go looking for Yuri and after a series of beating-the-shit-out-of-bad-guys (and stripping poor King) Ryo makes it to Takuma who is still under Big's control. Masked and hiding his identity from Ryo, Takuma fights him as ordered by Mr. Big. They fight and Ryo nearly kills him but an escaped Yuri saves Takuma from Ryo's Haoh-shiko-ken blast. Ryo was obviously pretty pissed.
Around this time, Geese himself goes and kills Jeff (and he really, really kicks the shit out of Jeff by the way).
Now it may be a little obvious as to what the chain of events were:
1. Jeff was considered the strongest fighter in South Town. To kill him Geese needed someone of high caliber as well: Takuma.
2. Geese could do it himself but didn't want to bother as he was a police commissioner.
3. He tries to get Takuma to do it.
4. Takuma refuses.
5. Mr. Big (under Geese's control), who happened to be eavesdropping, kidnaps Yuri to make Takuma kill Jeff and use black mail Takuma to do his bidding and remove other competition for himself.
6. Takuma either is confronted by Ryo and Robert before he gets a chance to carry out his orders to kill Jeff or possibly fails to defeat Jeff.
7. Ryo and Robert come and rescue Yuri.
8. Takuma and the rest realize what has happened and is freed from Big's control.
9. Geese in the meantime goes and kills Jeff himself, hence starting the events leading to the second King of fighters tournament: Fatal Fury 1.
As for AoF2 and Ryo wanting to get his hands on Geese, the following is what happened (my apologies for the mistake I did previously).
1. Ryo and gang enter the first king of fighters tournament that was sponsored by Geese as payback once they find out what happened to Takuma.
2. Ryo makes it to Geese and defeats him though not decisively since Geese manages to escape (note however that Geese is still pretty young here).
3. After his escape he carries out his plans to eliminate Jeff Bogard personally and once he does he takes over South Town entirely.
4. The plan of the AoF gang kinda back fires since, well, it made things worse and Jeff still got killed after all of this.
5. Possibly and going with FF/AoF time line, the next tournament Ryo enters would be the KoF tournament that Terry enters (provided that Ryo's appearance in Fatal Fury Wild Ambition is canon) all those years later. Ryo would be in his prime at the moment but Terry is the one who wins the tournament and defeats Geese.
6. Terry winning would also explain Ryo and Terry's rivalry...and Ryo's rather aggressive nature towards this rivalry (compare their winning quotes against each other). this rivalry has been given a new exposure by SNK Playmore if you haven't noticed. Notice that Ryo is there in FFWA which is a retelling of the events of FF1 with the ret cons.
So there you go I fixed some of the mistakes I had made regarding the ret cons and the FF/AoF timeline jargon. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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