The popularity of Fatal Fury: King of Fighters and its original video animation led to the inclusion of Geese Howard as final boss.

The second installment in the Art of Fighting series added the "rage gauge"; similar to the "spirit system" of its predecessor, it limits the use and effectiveness of special attacks.

Additionally, Geese Howard from the Fatal Fury series appears as a secret boss if the player meets specific requirements in the single-player mode.

With Mai's high popularity in Fatal Fury, SNK decided to include Yuri in Art of Fighting 2 as a playable character which received similar response.

[3] Toyohisa Tanabe believed Capcom was ahead of their company when creating the Ryo's parody character Dan Hibiki in Street Fighter Alpha.

Ever since her introduction in Art of Fighting, Yuri was a weak character who becomes a fighter in a year, using her family's Kyokugen Karate style.

Tanabe decided to make Yuri a strong character despite her background, and often borrow techniques from Capcom fighting games out of respect and a fast fashion.

Furthermore, if the distance between him and his opponent changed even a little, the screen would expand and contract, so he would get sickness without realizing it, and before he knew it, he was hitting the "yawn" button repeatedly.

Yuri's popularity led to the creation of unique characters related to her but none of them made it to the actual game until her ending sequen.

[6] Geese Howard's popularity in Fatal Fury and his younger look from the first original video animation influenced his appearance in Art of Fighting 2 as a hidden boss.

[15] ONE37pm listed it as the third best SNK game, citing the larger cast and gameplay as major improvements but criticizing the big difficulty.

[16] GameInformer noticed that while the fighting game series was overshadowed by Mortal Kombat II, Art of Fighting 2 should not be overlooked as it still possesses several attractive traits that made the first game attractive and SNK improved on it like the improved faster gameplay comparable to Samurai Shodown despite still not enjoying the SNK sequel.

[19] 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.

Art of Fighting 2 was re-released for the Wii's Virtual Console in North America on 28 July 2008[20] and Nintendo Switch's ACA Neo Geo worldwide on 11 January 2018.