Final Fight CD

Even though Nintendo signed up Final Fight for a Super NES exclusive, Capcom decided to port the game over to the Mega CD anyhow for a 1993 release. It was a direct port of the 1989 arcade game, which was one of the most successful games of the year.

In Metro City, crime capital of the world, a big gang called Mad Gear has taken over and is ruling the streets and pretty much every other place in the city. But Mike Haggar, the newly elected mayor, plans to change this. He promises to get rid of Mad Gear once and for all and return the city to peace.

Mad Gear soon learn of Mike's plans and are having none of it, so they go and capture Mike's daughter, Jessica, and phone up Mike telling him that he can have her back if he lets Mad Gear do as they pleased.

Unluckily for Mad Gear, Haggar gets rather angry at this and instead of agreeing with them he decides to act out his plan of getting rid of Mad Gear, but his strategy is to go in a beat them all up in every area of the city until he finds Jessica. Cody, Jessica's girlfriend, learns what has happened and also wants to help out. He brings along his ninja friend Guy and the three of them set off to rescue Jessica.

Get past the impressive intro (which has some cool and clear voice acting in it) and you'll be presented with two different modes of play; game start or time attack. The game start is a conversion of the arcade, and you select a character and take on the Mad Gear gang across various levels.

Thankfully this is certainly not a port of the disappointing Super NES version, but seems to have been converted straight from the arcade. The graphics are identical, and every character and level is present, unlike the Nintendo counter part. Even though the game was 4 years old at the time of it's release it still looks good, with large sprites moving comfortably around the screen.

There are 3 characters on offer, each with very different styles. Haggar is very wrestler like and has the throw moves to match, whilst Guy uses ninja type attacks and Cody tries traditional street fighting styles. Each character has a normal combo attack, a few different types of jumping attacks and a special attack that will knock down any close enemy but every time it connects your fighter will lose a bit of life.

To help you on the way there are various items you can get, which are usually found in drum cans. Food items like burgers and steak will refill your fighter's life gauge, whilst other items will give you extra points such as radios and jewels. Finally, there are three different weapon types on offer, a knife, a pipe and a sword. Each character is good with a certain one, but all can do damage with any.

The levels are all set in different locations, and all look rather good. The subway stage is excellent, with part of it on a train which rocks around, and the other stages are great too. The enemies come thick and fast, and whilst you get the same ones on each level there are many different types so it doesn't get boring.

After level 2 or 4 you get a bonus game to break up the normal scrolling fighting. The first one has you smashing up the car of a Mad Gear member, which is funny, and the second bonus game is smashing a few glass panels. Each game gives you extra bonus points which is useful to earn some extra lives.

To give players something else to do, and extra mode has been added. Time attack let's you pick a character and then you have to beat as many Mad Gear as you can in the time limit. There are no items in these stages so you have to rely on your normal moves to win.

The music has been totally re-done and makes use of CD sound. Final Fight's sound wasn't particularly good in the arcade but the re-mixes found here are actually quite good and a lot better than the arcade version. However when a tune plays for a long time it will just fade out and then start again, which is a bit annoying. The sound effects haven't been changed, which is a good thing since they were fine in the first place.

Unfortunately some things that really needed to be changed haven't been. One of Final Fight's main problems is that it is far, far to hard, even on the easy setting. Enemies will just come and pound you, and you don't have enough credits either. Another flaw is that whenever you are knocked over, you are not "invincible" for 1 or 2 seconds when you get back up, like in Streets of Rage. This makes the game quite unfair, because it means enemies can get take most of your life out this way. I had one enemy do a slam throw on me, and as I got back up, another one did another slam throw, meaning I lost about 3 quarters of my health. Unfair, and these things are still present in this version.

Thankfully these problems vanish when the game is played with 2 players, since your friend can help you out easily. However, another bad part of the game is that amount of flicker going on. Get to many characters on screen and sprites flicker in some parts, but sometimes when it gets really bad (part of level 5, for example) and some characters just disappear entirely until enough sprites are removed. This doesn't happen that often however so it's only something minor.

A lot of people may think that this game is a bit outdated. Streets of Rage 2 certainly has more going for it than this, and is a better game, and that was on the Megadrive. But, even though this is simpler, it is still a good game. And if you want the best home conversion of Final Fight, you have to get this version.

This isn't the kind of game you can play every day due to it's repetitive nature (like all scrolling beat 'em ups) but with 2 players it's a lot of fun and the time attack mode gives the game extra longevity. Plus this is one of the best games on the Mega CD.