Ryo Sakazaki (リョウ・サカザキ Ryō Sakazaki) is the main protagonist in Art of Fighting, forming the first half of the Japanese series's namesake as the The Invincible Dragon (無敵の龍 Muteki no Ryū). His name is frequently written in katakana; earlier games used to write his name in kanji (坂崎 亮, Sakazaki Ryō).
In Gamest's 1997 Heroes Collection, Ryo was voted as the staff's twenty-fourth favorite character. He shared the spot with Sie Kensou and Toru Kurosawa, a character from Sega's Last Bronx. In the Neo Geo Freak's 1997 Volume 8 character poll, he was voted as the seventeenth favorite character with a total of 602 votes. And In a 2005 poll made by SNK-Playmore USA, he was voted as the fifth fan favorite character with a total of 193 votes. Both Nobuyuki Kuroki and Youichiro Soeda have Ryo as their favorite character from the Art of Fighting series.
Character Summary[]
"Single strike special attack!" - Ryo's pet phrase
In an interview Takashi Nishiyama states that Ryo was created as a homage to Ryu from Street Fighter. Artist Shinkiro has expressed he had no problems with designing Ryo in contrast to Robert Garcia due to Ryo's poor state. SNK staff members Youichiro Soeda said that Ryo and Robert's debut was unique to other games based on the company because it did not focus on fighting tournaments but instead of the duo's quest to save Yuri Sakazaki.