Final Fight

is a classic beat 'em up series from Capcom. It is considered to be Street Fighter's "cousin", and the two series are set in the same universe. Final Fight was originally released as an arcade game, but gained popularity on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and was subsequently ported to the Sega CD, X68000 and Game Boy Advance. It involves former wrestler (as seen in Saturday Night Slam Masters), and mayor of Metro City (Capcom's fictitious city, analogue after New York City), Mike Haggar.

Gameplay

Final Fight was an innovative and balanced game. Unlike several beat 'em ups before it, Final Fight featured very large and detailed sprites for its day, and the controls were quite fluid and simple. Beginners could take to the game quickly, yet the game was balanced and difficult enough to ensure even experts could always expect a challenge for every new play. The game also began the strength-based, speed-based, and average character variety that countless other beat 'em up and other genres derived, as one role-plays Haggar (very powerful yet very slow and vulnerable to attack), Guy (very agile and can use hit-and-run, yet has weak offensive power), or Cody (who balances strength and speed, being an excellent choice for beginners). It also featured very long levels and various powerful enemies that could easily crowd the screen and had several fighting tactics against the player. It was not uncommon to hear people talk of how crowds would gather to watch whoever was playing the machine at the time.

Story

The story of Final Fight involves the abduction of Haggar's daughter, Jessica, because he would not work with Mad Gear to ensure their dominance of the streets. When the Mad Gear thug Damnd contacts Haggar and informs him, Haggar calls up his daughter's boyfriend Cody and his sparring partner Guy, and they head into the streets to bust Mad Gear's skulls, fighting their way through the hordes of goons littering the city (including the Rastafarian thug Damnd, the "Japanist" Sodom, former Red Beret and militia leader Rolento, corrupt cop Edi. E, and the ill-tempered Abigail), to get to Mad Gear's boss, Belger. On the top floor of a large building, Cody defenestrates Belger, sending him plummeting to his death.

The original Japanese version of the Final Fight intro states that the game takes place in 1989 and provides the corresponding ages and birthdates for each of the main characters. The English language version of the arcade game's intro is a bit vague, stating only that the game takes place "sometime during the 1990s" and only provides the birthdates for the characters. The new English translation featured in Final Fight One reverts back to the original 1989 date. Since the backstory of the Street Fighter Alpha games established that the events of Final Fight occurred during the same time as the first Street Fighter tournament set in 1987, some feel that in order for the shared fictional universe to work, the events of Final Fight must be pushed back to that specific date.

The events that followed Final Fight but before Final Fight 2 remain somewhat blurred, and inferences could only be made through the Street Fighter Alpha series of games. Haggar returned to the mayor's office, Guy returned to Bushin-ryuu training, and Cody was arrested for disorderly conduct, although other sources indicated that he was also framed.

In Streetwise, Cody is released from prison and acts as his brother's cornerman until he is kidnapped by a gang. It's up to his brother, Kyle, to save Cody and Metro City from a drug spread known as "GLOW", a radioactive steroid. Haggar is no longer a mayor and runs a local gym and Guy is now a dojo instructor.

Playable Characters

Cody

Birthdate: April 14, 1967
Profile: He is a martial arts expert. He is especially good with knives. His girlfriend, Jessica was kidnapped by the Mad Gear Gang.
Advantage: Balanced power and speed.
Sure-Kill Technique: Hurricane Kick.
Weapon of Preference: The Knife.
Special Ability: Cody can stab with knives at melee range, which Guy and Haggar cannot do. From a distance, Cody will hurl knives.
Additional Ability: Cody is the only character that is able to punch at knives thrown at him which then will fall to the ground. And his punches have a higher priority of stopping charging characters (Sodom, Wang Fu, Andore's, etc) than Guy or Haggar.

Guy

Birthdate: August 12, 1965
Profile: He has mastered the art of Ninjutsu and attacks with unequaled speed. He often catches his opponents off guard with his special "Off-the-wall" jump.
Advantage: Unmatched speed.
Sure-Kill Technique: Bushin Hurricane Kick.
Weapon of Preference: The Katana Blade. There are two variations: Masamune and Muramasa.
Special Ability: Off-the-wall jump. Guy can use walls or vertical planes to launch himself towards opponents with a kick that has longer reach and high priority damage. This move can also be altered into using the down attack (elbow) to get more points and set the player up to either knee or throw the opponents.

Haggar

Birthdate: September 3, 1943
Profile: He is a former champion Street Fighter. He's the new mayor of Metro City. He has mastered professional wrestling skills and is expert at the Backdrop and the Piledriver.
Advantage: Unmatched power.
Sure-Kill Technique: Spinning Clothesline.
Weapon of Preference: The lead pipe.
Special Ability: Haggar exploits his wrestling skills to throw enemies with fervent ease.
- Backdrop: Haggar performs a German Suplex that slams his opponent from behind.
- Piledriver: Haggar grabs an opponent, leaps several feet into the air and smashes him down on the ground for massive damage.
Maximum damage tip: When you play with Mike Haggar, punch your opponent twice, grab him, perform a double headbutt by pressing Attack twice, then, before releasing him, perform a jump + attack (Piledriver) or a Backdrop, it will increase the damage to your oponent, this tip is very useful when the subject is the stage bosses.

Alternate versions

Capcom has produced various home versions of the original Final Fight throughout the years, with each version offering different changes and additions to the game. The following is a brief summary of each version and the characteristics that make them unique.

SNES version

The SNES version of Final Fight was first released on December 21, 1990 in Japan and in September 1991 in North America. Both releases served as launch title for their respective regions.

The SNES version was criticized for being a rushed release due to the fact that several features of the arcade version were missing on the SNES. The first notable difference was the omission of one of the three playable characters, with Guy being removed from the game. The SNES version also lacked the ability to play the game with a second player as well and the fourth stage, the "Industrial Area" (and by extension, the boss Rolento), was completely removed. Other differences includes a reduced number of on-screen enemies (due to hardware limitations), the omission of transition scenes (including the opening of Stage 1, where Jessica is carried away by Damnd) and the fact that the player must restart the entire stage after continuing from a game over, rather than being taken right to the spot where he died.

The American and European releases of Final Fight featured an additional change, the two scantily clad female enemies 'Roxy' and 'Poison' were modified to be males. Presumably, this was done either to enforce the view that violence against women is wrong, or that when the girls are knocked into the air, their shirts flip up and one can get an illicit view of their breasts, with nipples barely covered. The SNES was marketed as being family friendly, and with an in-game pause feature, this might disturb parents.

Final Fight Guy

A second SNES version of the game, titled Final Fight Guy, was released on March 20, 1992 in Japan. This version remained a Japanese-only release for a while until June 1994, in which Capcom released it in North America as a rental-only release. As the title implies, Capcom addressed one of the more common complaints of the first version by bringing back Guy as a playable character. However, they did so by removing Cody from the game. The game's opening and ending sequences are changed accordingly to reflect this change, with the explanation given stating that Cody is away on a training mission. However, the other flaws of the first version were left unaddressed in this version. The missing stage music from the Industrial Area can be heard in the Option Menu, suggesting than an attempt to restore the missing stage was at least made.

This version also fixes some of the flicker effects whenever there are too many enemies and barrels on-screen. There are also two new power-ups added to this version. A Jessica doll which makes the player's character invulnerable to the enemy for a limited period, and a Guy (or Haggar) doll which serves as an extra life. The enemy placement is also significantly different from the original (especially on the "Expert" setting) and the background of Stage 3 (the "West Side") has the bar crowd that was missing in the original port.

Mighty Final Fight

Mighty Final Fight is a somewhat lighthearted adaptation of Final Fight for the Nintendo Entertainment System that features the original storyline and characters. However, partly due to the technical limitations of the NES, the game features cartoon-like super deformed character designs.

Final Fight CD

The Sega CD version, titled Final Fight CD, was developed internally by Sega under license from Capcom and released in 1993. The game has been compared favorably over the earlier SNES version due to the inclusion of most of the missing elements from the arcade game. Due to the use of the CD-ROM medium, the developers saw fit to add an extended opening and ending sequences, featuring full voice acting. An arranged red book soundtrack was also composed for this version and a time attack mode featuring new stages for each character was added.

Final Fight One

A Game Boy Advance version, titled Final Fight One, was released in 2001. This version was based on the previous SNES versions (particularly Final Fight Guy), but contained all three playable characters and co-op gameplay through cable linking. The missing Industrial Area stage was restored as well, with the second Bonus Round moved after the fifth stage (the Bay Area). The Guy/Haggar and Jessica doll power-ups were kept, with a Cody doll added to the mix.

A feature unique to this version, is the added dialogue between the main characters and the enemies prior to boss fights. Sodom and Rolento are shown in their win pose from Street Fighter Alpha 3 when introduced. The game also allows the player to play as the Alpha versions of Cody and Guy after defeating a determined amount of enemies with the regular version of the characters.

Capcom Classics Collection

Final Fight was included as a component in this compilation released in 2005 for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Unlike most of the other games in the compilation (and previous versions of Final Fight), the version of Final Fight is a direct emulation of the arcade original based on the U.S. version. The compilation also features unlockable tips, music, character profiles and artwork from Final Fight (among other games).

Capcom Classics Mini-Mix

In this upcoming compilation of NES-exclusive games for the Game Boy Advance, Mighty Final Fight is set to appear here along with Bionic Commando and Strider.

Final Fight: Streetwise

Final Fight is an unlockable feature when finishing the main game of Streetwise. This version of Final Fight is emulated differently from the Capcom Classics Collection version: the framerate is lower, leading to somewhat slower gameplay. Also the audio is somewhat fuzzy. The video quality is also blurry, and "pixel-y".

Capcom Production Studio 8 did not have enough development time to access the code from Capcom Japan to create a perfect emulation.

Other versions

Final Fight was ported by Capcom to the Sharp X68000 computer in Japan. This version was considered an accurate port of the arcade game, with the only notable difference being a reduction of the number of on-screen enemies. The X68000 was capable of near arcade quality graphics and sound, and included a simultaneous 2 player mode, which was not available in the SNES version. European-based U.S. Gold also released ports of Final Fight for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum. The Amiga version suffered from slowdown and having only a one-button joystick for control. It also used only 32 colour graphics (the arcade board could display over 1000 colours at a time). The sound was generally quite faithful though, having been ripped from the arcade ROMs. The programmers notes can be read in the file s:startup-sequence on the floppy disk. In the Amiga version Andore makes an appearance on the first stage.

Final Crash

Final Crash was a bootleg of Final Fight released in the arcades in 1990 by Playmark. ^*

It's the same game, only the Tittle Screen is modified. Some machines perform a "Test Sound" when they are turned on or reset, all voices and sound effects are played there.

Censorship

In addition to the differences between the arcade and home versions of the game, some versions of Final Fight were also censored when they were localized to the western market. The following is a list of specific changes made to each version.

Arcade version

In the original arcade version of Final Fight released in Japan, during the game's opening intro, Jessica is shown wearing only her underwear when Haggar turns the TV monitor. The shot was removed from the North American and Worldwide versions of the game. Instead, the scene cuts directly to Damnd while Jessica can be heard screaming on the background.

In the SEGA CD and SNES ports of the game (as well in Final Fight Guy and Final Fight One), this scene was redrawn so that Jessica appears to be wearing her red cocktail dress instead. Some of the other home versions featured Jessica with her bra, depending on the regional release.

Sega CD version

The Sega CD version kept Poison and Roxy unchanged in the North American and European releases, with the only graphical alteration made being the length of their shorts and tank tops (which originally exposed half of their breasts). However, some of the other aspects of the game were censored as well similarly to the SNES version, including the names of the first two bosses. The Japanese Mega CD release featured Jessica in her underwear in the opening intro (like in the Japanese arcade version), while the English version features her in the red dress.

SNES and GBA versions

For the English-language editions of the SNES games, as well as the SEGA CD port, Sodom (the boss of the second stage) was renamed Katana because of fears that the name would be associated with sodomy. The name of Sodom is intact in Final Fight One. Ironically, some fans feel Katana is a more appropriate name for an American who wants to be Japanese. Also renamed was Damnd, the first stage boss, to Thrasher. Other religious content were also censored. The quote at the end of the first bonus stage Break the Car was changed from "Oh, my God!" to "Oh, my car!" for the SNES version.

The localized SNES ports also has the two "female" enemies in the game, Roxy and Poison, replaced by male versions named Sid and Billy. This was due to the fact that the developers stated that the character was a newhalf in the backstory, but the U.S. branch of Capcom was not aware of the character's true gender when they originally released the Arcade version. According to the book Game Over by David Sheff, when a Capcom USA playtester reviewed the contents of the game and objected to the presence of female gang members in the game, one of the designers pointed that "there are no female enemies" in the game and that Poison and Roxy were actually transvestites. However, the version of Final Fight found on the Capcom Classics Collection game seems to contradict this, if only partially; in the "Cast" section, Poison is definitely referred to as being a transvestite in his bio, with words like "him" clearly used in the character description. Roxy's bio, however, uses "her" in the description, so whether it was simply a mistake or actual confirmation of Poison actually being male and Roxy actually being female is unclear.

This change was also made in Final Fight One (despite the fact that Damnd and Sodom kept their original names in the English version), although Poison still made an appearance in the game's manual. Despite this, Poison's counterpart (Poison Kiss) in Mighty Final Fight was featured in the North American version of the game. This was presumably due to the more comical nature of the game compared to realistic look of the original game.

The opening dialogue was also adjusted for these releases; when Haggar asks Damnd "what happened to Jessica", Damnd's line was changed from "Nothing, but we'd enjoy the opportunity" to "Nothing yet.. but we will if..." And when Haggar turns on his TV, his "You son of a..." is changed to "You fiend!".

Trivia

The game was originally going to be the sequel of the original Street Fighter. The working title for the game was Street Fighter '89. The game was announced in Japanese magazines with the name Street Fighter: The Final Fight in March 1989.
It is interesting to note several tributes in the game to pop culture:
- Andore was a tribute to professional wrestler André the Giant. He also makes an appearance as a midboss in Final Fight: Streetwise. Despite their similarities, Andore and Hugo (from Street Fighter III) have never been clearly referred to as being the same person.
- Guy was based on Guy Picciotto of the American rock band Fugazi.
- Axl and Slash, were named after band members in Guns N' Roses.
- Poison got her name from the American glam rock group of the same name.
- Sodom got his name from a German thrash band.
- Abigail is a homage to King Diamond, as his name taken from one of his albums, and Abigail's facepaint design is reference to him as well.
The Mad Gear Gang is named after the Capcom driving/shoot-em-up game Mad Gear. ^*
The enemy character 'Two P' appears in Forgotten Worlds as the second player ('Two P' for 2P, 'Player 2'). He also appears in Final Fight: Streetwise, having abandoned his old "Two P" handle in favor of "2-Ill".
The game is considered by some to be the most difficult of the Final Fight series.
Mike Haggar and Guy both appear in Namco x Capcom, with the latter partnered with Ninja Commando Shou from Captain Commando.
During the throw animation, all player characters are invulnerable to hits.
Players discovered a handy trick with Cody. When repeatedly tapping the attack button, Cody normally performs two jabs and a body blow, followed by an uppercut that floors the enemy. Most bad guys could withstand several rounds of this before being dispatched. However, by performing the opening two jabs, then turning away from the enemy, quickly throwing out the body blow and turning back again before the enemy had a chance to recover, the uppercut would be canceled and Cody would begin his punch combo again from the beginning, leading to an endless combo. Thus, an enemy (or even a group, as punches could connect with more than one opponent) could be held in place until killed. This attack was used as one of Cody's super moves in Street Fighter Alpha 3. Using this trick, it is possible to defeat Damnd without him being able to jump onto the wall and summon help, and can prevent other bosses from using their more powerful attacks (particularly Rolento, who is difficult to pin down, and uses grenades). A variation of this trick also works with Guy on the arcade version which is basically using the opening 2 jabs, the stomach punch and then turning away from the enemy, throwing out the elbow to the face and repeating the combo and on the SNES version, even Haggar can use it, although the timing is much more difficult.
Players sometimes can be seen using a combo that works with either Guy or Cody. The combo starts with the jumping knee drop (Cody) or jumping elbow (Guy). Cycle through the basic punch combo and stopping with Cody on the body blow to move up and grab the enemy. Perform up to 2 knee kicks then throw the enemy. With Guy, stop on the elbow blow, move up and grab the enemy, Perform 2 knee kicks and then throw. This combo will take approximately one full life bar from Damnd.
Jumping down attacks (Cody - headbutt, Guy - elbow, Haggar - Bodypress) done with a backflip or reverse jump gives you an extra 100 pts on the arcade version.
In the scene that is the walkup to the showdown with Belgar, behind each pillar there is a gemstone hidden.
When fighting against Edi. E, the gum that he spits out actually allows you to recover some life. If the player picks up the gum in Capcom Classics Collection Remixed, then the art gallery for the game is unlocked.
When you have defeated Damnd, if you position your character behind him, you can get in about 2 more hits for free when he is busy collapsing at the cutscene when the player walks off into the subway.
Former Capcom Studio 8 lead designer Tom Sakine stated Final Fight was inspired by the 1984 film, Streets of Fire. The film stars Michael Paré, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis and Willem Dafoe and was directed by Walter Hill. Similarities include:
- The main character played by Michael Paré is named 'Tom Cody' and Cody resembles him. Tom Cody also wears jeans and a white shirt at some points during the movie.
- The city is plagued by gangs and a motorcycle gang kidnaps Cody’s Ex girlfriend.
- The cop that arranges a meeting between Cody and the Gang’s boss is nothing other than a corrupted cop by the name of 'Ed Price', the only Cop in the game is called 'Eddie'.
- The city has an old and trashed look similar to the game.
- At the end of the movie, Cody leaves the girl, just like in the game. Only this time, there is no 'Guy' to stop him from leaving.
During the opening to the original version of Street Fighter II, Joe, a character from the original Street Fighter that physically resembles Cody can be seen punching Mike, another Street Fighter character. Neither character appears in Street Fighter II, but in Street Fighter Alpha 3, Cody inherits Joe's fighting moves.

Abbreviation confusion

Final Fight may be confused with Square Enix's popular Final Fantasy series if the name is abbreviated FF. An "i" should be added after "FF" for Final Fight in order to prevent confusion with Final Fantasy. Therefore, Final Fight is abbreviated FF in fighting game circles and Capcom-related forums, but the abbreviation FFi is used in RPG and general video game circles and non-Capcom forums. On a side note, Cody, Guy, Maki, Sodom, Rolento, and Hugo (a character evidently the same as the enemy Andore) also starred in various Street Fighter games, while Haggar has also appeared in the Slam Masters series. Hugo, Maki, and Rolento also appeared in the SNK vs. series. In the SPC archives Final Fight is abbreviated "FFight," while Final Fantasy is abbreviated "FF"; since Final Fantasy is much more popular than Final Fight, those who attempt to type Final Fight may mistakenly type Final Fantasy. It should also be noted that Final Fight also shares initials with Fatal Fury.

External links

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