Final Fight Review

1989 was a big year for Capcom as the games it made this year pretty much bolstered it's status and made it one of the most known and famous video game companies in the world. Along with classics like Strider and Forgotten Worlds was Final Fight, which would be one of Capcom's most popular arcade games ever.

This was one of the first games to use Capcom's famous CPS graphics chip, which basically made it look better than everything else in the arcades. The sprites were huge and the graphics were well detailed, making it stand out against everything else and easily the best looking scrolling beat 'em up game at the time of it's release.

Even though most people know the story by now I'll go through it again anyway for the people that are new to Final Fight. Former Street Fighter Mike Haggar has just become mayor of Metro City (also known as the crime capital of the world), and has promised to get rid of the crime organisation Mad Gear who rule the town. However the Mad Gears capture Haggar's daughter Jessica. Haggar decides to take on the Mad Gear gang directly and destroy them for good. He also enlists the help of his gym mates Guy and Cody, both of who are experts in martial arts.

The game play in Final Fight was simple but addictive, which was one of the reasons it was so popular. Game play consisted of nothing but moving around stages and hitting opponents various ways; you can hit them in a combo, throw them into each other and even flying kick them. All enemies have energy bar's of their own which must be depleted to knock the opponent out.

The game offers three very different characters to play as, these being Guy, Cody and Haggar. All characters have their own strengths and weaknesses, and all kinds of different looking moves. This game can also be played with 2 players meaning you can co-operate with each other and fight the Mad Gear gang together.

There are 6 levels, all set in a different part of Metro City. Some of the levels have poorly implanted parts (the flame part from level 4 springs to mind) but all look good. The game scrolls in sections and you have to fight the Mad Gears in each part. Along the way you can collect helpful items and weapons that will make your life easier.

After completing certain levels you will get to a bonus stage that nicely breaks up the fighting action. The first is the car smash game where you must smash a Mad Gear member's car before the time runs out. The second is where you must smash all the panels of glass before the time runs out. Both bonus games can be played with two players, making them more competitive since more points are given to the player who did more damage.

The sound for the game is OK but not that great. Most of the tunes are average and some sound quite "scratchy", but this isn't that important. The sound effects are much better though because it sounds great when you hit an opponent. The speech samples, whilst there are not that many of them, also sound good.

The game is quite a lot of fun to play because it is very addictive as I said earlier. However this game is very unforgiving and it can put a lot of people off. Final Fight is quite difficult and on one credit it is unlikely that you will get past level 2. The enemies are nothing short of ruthless and you really need a 2nd player to get the most out of it.

Final Fight certainly isn't the most perfect game ever made. What I said above is one problem but there are other little things, such as the controls being a bit strange sometimes (you can often stop holding a boss when you are doing grab moves on them for no reason) and the extremely crappy boss fights, with have no real structure, are a big let down. Some of the enemies are also extremely annoying and frustrating at times. But these things don't really stop the game from being great.

Final Fight will always be a classic game and is one of the best scrolling beat 'em ups ever made. Whilst the genre did move on Final Fight is still a great game to play today thanks to the way you want to play it over and over again. This game also did a lot for the genre- with out this game it is unlikely that games like Streets of Rage would exist. Capcom itself even took ideas from this game when making games like Alien Versus Predator and Captain Commando.

It's a shame that there were never any sequels out in the arcade but I guess the SNES sequels are the best you can get. If you can't find this in the arcades then I suggest you check out the Mega/SEGA CD version, but the arcade is definitely the best way to play Final Fight.