Final Fight

Final Fight is a 2D beat-em-up, released by Capcom for the Super Nintendo in 1991.

Lately, I've been getting really miffed at the description "lovingly crafted." That phrase seems like the go-to compliment in 2018 reviews, but isn't everything lovingly crafted? Does that description really mean anything? When I play Final Fight for the SNES, I am reminded that not everything is lovingly crafted. Some things are crafted under an overwhelmingly pervasive "meh."
Final Fight for SNES is a 2D, two-button beat-em-up game. Choose between bulky, slow Haggar, whose daughter has been kidnapped, and the more ability-balanced Cody, the boyfriend of the kidnapped girl. Punch with "Y" and jump with "B." Push them at the same time to perform a supermove that drains your life meter. Jump, then press "Y," and you can do a flying kick. Use the directional-pad to traverse a 2D corridor, and pummel all the bad guys. That's it.

What could possibly go wrong?

Final Fight got its start in the arcades. This SNES version is a port of the original arcade game. Some ports are "lovingly crafted," even though they're only ports. It's very obvious even from the opening menu that the SNES port of Final Fight is not. That's because there is no main menu. If the game featured a two-player cooperative mode like its original arcade version, you'd need a menu to select between one and two player mode. Since the SNES version only features solo play, no main menu is needed. You just press start and choose one of the two characters available. Something feels strange, though, because Cody's controls feel really balanced, and Haggar feels extremely slow, yet overpowered. Shouldn't there be a faster, weaker character, too? Oh, wait, the arcade version did have a faster, weaker character, named Guy. If you want to use him on the SNES, you have to play Final Fight Guy, which is literally the same game as this, but with Guy in the place of Cody. I guess they could have just put all three in one game, but that would have taken just a little more effort than Capcom wanted to give here.

Hey, lady, you dropped your necklace. Oh, wait, Nintendo edited all of the ladies out of this game.

The good news is that the game does look good. Sprites are huge, with Haggar and Cody both seeming to take up the entire screen. Backgrounds are colorful and detailed. However, even this comes with several catches. The first is that the framerate slows down when there is too much happening onscreen. The second is that only three bad guys can be on screen at once, in an effort to mitigate the slowdown. How slow would the game have been if they'd let a normal amount of bad guys in?

Hey, Capcom, give me your lunch money!

You'd think less bad guys onscreen at a time would make the game easier, but instead, it is mystifyingly difficult. Your character never seems to quite move fast enough, with bad guys often getting a surprising jump on them, or surrounding them without the player having a chance to react. Certain villains like Andore (who looks suspiciously like a wrestler with a similar name) have ridiculously cheap moves, like an unavoidable body slam after the player has already been hit by him. It's infuriating. This, coupled with the slowness of the characters just makes Final Fight for SNES feel off. The anonymous soundtrack, none of which sticks in memory for more than a few seconds doesn't help matters. This game just isn't very fun.
You know what is a "lovingly crafted" 16-bit beat-em-up from 1991? Streets of Rage. Go play that instead.

1991 Capcom

Graphics: 7.0/10.0

Sound: 6.0/10.0

Gameplay: 6.0/10.0

Lasting Value: 5.0/10.0


Overall: 6.0/10.0