![]() In addition to the various knives, drainpipes and katana that happen to be strewn all over the sidewalk, your basic move set is surprisingly limber. You can flex your dynamic arsenal with intuitive ease, fly-kicking and throwing punks into one another with a rhythmic tempo and a satisfying rumble of bodies. Our heroes plod forward with purpose, volleys of iron punches locking enemies in brief combos before sending them sailing to the floor. From the velvety tones of West Side's cosmopolitan backstreets to the rising sun of the Bay Area, it accurately captures the gang warfare vogue of the era.Ībove all else, it fits like a glove to play. The backgrounds and extravagant sprites are rendered with confident brushstrokes and embossed with the kind of vibrant palette work that went on to typify everything the company did thereafter. Walter Hill's Streets of Fire informs much of Final Fight's look. Subways, underground fighting arenas, and the now customary mansion infiltration are all present and correct: trends previously established by the likes of Technos' Renegade, but given new life by Capcom's exceptional art division. In your bid to save Jessica from the clutches of Belger - the disabled mastermind behind the corrupt Mad Gear gang - you traverse Metro City's trashcan strewn sidewalks and graffiti dyed concrete, a stand-in for the mean streets of 80s New York. Elaborate perhaps, but still one of the arcade's most gratifying aural expositions. ![]() ![]() The music is a strong assembly of dark, braying synth over an arrangement of troublesome beats, stressing the game's gritty and violent affectation. Fists whip through thin air like passing subway cars and connecting blows sound like wood cracking beneath the wheels of a lorry. The audio sampling is magnificently heavyweight. Cody's knife-wielding capabilities benefit in close-quarter combat, striking the best all-round balance. With Guy a good start for novices, the hulky Mayor's strength is a commanding force when governed by specialist handling. The game was originally promoted as a Street Fighter sequel, although it would stand on its own soon enough.Īll three characters are uniquely balanced, with experts having put Mike Haggar's cumbersome brawn, Guy's martial art zip, and Cody's tactical strength through rigorous testing. Competing developers turned out copycat software in droves, but none could match Final Fight's inimitable snap: the feel of its punch volleys and the raw discord expelled from the CPS1's guttural sound chip. Ported to just about every console on the map, it's a model for the genre: its sprites bold and beautifully drawn, its collision detection boasting a tautness of unmatched precedent. ![]() If you can accept that the scrolling beat-'em-up is married to a specific point in arcade history, Final Fight has barely aged. It was a larger-than-life offering, technically advanced for 1989, visceral and visually supercharged, and, contrary to the complex dynamics of the aforementioned, won audiences by virtue of its relative simplicity and dramatic cinematic qualities. Street Fighter 2 may have guaranteed the fortunes of Capcom, but even in the wake of Makaimura, Bionic Commando and Strider, it was Final Fight that first cemented it as a force to be reckoned with. ![]() It's still plain to see why it was ahead of its time. and sun-kissed, blonde-dreadlocked Damnd busting through a wooden door and heckling you with his ferocious smoker's cackle. That distinct credit jingle, those copper rusted oil drums, that telephone booth, that basement warehouse, that beef sirloin inside a pillar of car tyres. Like so many Capcom classics, Final Fight is a pop-culture archetype, its opening backstreet belt a nostalgic incendiary for arcade goers of the 90s. ![]()
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