Description of game

Inspired by a 1984 movie, ‘Streets of Fire’, Final Fight is an interesting little game. It is a side scrolling beat’em’up brawler released by Capcom in late 1989 and the first installment in the series of the same name. It was initially designed as a spin-off of Capcom’s Street Fighter, but following the commercial succes of Double Dragon by Technos Japan, the game transformed from a fighting game into a brawler and the name was changed to Final Fight.

Now, if you have ever played Capcom’s arcade classic Aliens vs. Predator, you’re going to have a major déja vu. Not that it would be plot-wise related in any way, but AVP—although released five years later—runs on only a slightly upgraded if not the very same engine as Final Fight. The only difference is, that Final fight is controlled by an 8-way joystick (same as AVP) and only two buttons (AVP has three).

Plot of the game, yes Final Fight has a plot—and I dare to say not a completely bad one, feels pretty much like your generic 1980’s action movie: the criminality rate in fictious American Metro City is hittin the roof, a former street-fighter Mike Haggar is elected a city Mayor, in hope that he can clean the city from gang activity. As you can imagine, gangs don’t like the idea and so they kidnap his daughter, Jessica. Haggard obviously goes after them, along with his daughter’s wannabe-boyfriend named Guy and his friend Cody. In order to get to Jessica’s kidnappers and Jessica herself, the three have to fight through city streets and beat pretty much every gangster that gets into their way.

Now, you can play as either of the three main protagonists, and up to two players can play simultaneously. As I’ve said before, the controls are pretty much the same as in later AVP: 8-way joystick for movement, and two buttons, first one for attack and the second one for jump.  Pressing jump button and then attack button in a sequence will result in a jump kick. After pressing both buttons simultaneously, the selected character (any of the three) will perform a 360-kick-kind-of-attack. Use this wisely and as a last resort only, though, as every use of this move comes at the expense of your HPs represented by the yellow/red bar at the top of the screen.

Like in AVP, even in Final Fight you can pickup various weapons—like water pipes and knives— and use them in combat. Boxes and barrels can be broken to obtain food and drinks, which will restore the player’s HPs.

For 1989 the graphics are pretty solid. Actually, not that much different from AVP altogether. Only you’re not fighting aliens but good old gangster scum. All and all, this is definitely a game that’s worth a shot.