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Final Fight (ファイナルファイト Fainaru faito^?) is the first game in a 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. Guy, Andore (under the name 'Hugo'), Rolento, Cody, Sodom, and Poison have all appeared in later Street Fighter installments.

Final Fight was originally released as an arcade game and was ported to several platforms, including the Super NES, Sega CD, Sharp X68000 and Game Boy Advance. It features former wrestler (as seen in Saturday Night Slam Masters), and mayor of Metro City (Capcom's fictitious city, modeled after New York City), Mike Haggar.

The early design name for Final Fight was Street Fighter '89, before Street Fighter II was planned. The artwork for the promotional poster under this name is the same as the European flyer shown to the right.

Gameplay

Final Fight is an archetypal scrolling beat-em-up game. One or two player characters move from left to right through each level (most of which are split into 3 or more scenes), fighting with the enemy characters who appear, until they reach a confrontation with a stronger boss character at the end of the level. Once said boss is beaten, the players automatically move onto the next stage. Enemies appear from both sides of the screen and from out of doorways or entrances set into the background, and the player(s) must defeat all of them to progress. If the players try to simply travel through the levels without fighting, the screen will stop scrolling until all current enemies have been defeated, before allowing the players to continue progress. Enemies may move outside the confines of the screen, but players may not. There is a time limit to each stage, but, like most beat-em-ups from this era, this is merely a failsafe device to ensure that the arcade cabinet did not suffer screen burn if a player abandoned the controls in mid-game. Typically for a game of this kind, there are no characters in the game who are not antagonistic towards the players.

Final Fight featured very large and detailed sprites for its day, and the controls were quite fluid and simple. The game also introduced the strong/fast/average character trinity copied by countless other games: Haggar (very powerful yet very slow and vulnerable to attack), Guy (very agile, can 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 populated by crowds of enemies using various fighting tactics against the player.

Story

The story of Final Fight involves the abduction of Mayor Mike 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 (later on stated by Capcom that they never met until then and the dialogue was added for the U.S audience, Guy being Bushin is sworn to fight evil), and the three vigilantes 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 "Japanophile" 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 knocks Belger out of the window, sending him falling 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 changes the setting to "Sometime in 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.

Playable characters

Cody

Guy

Haggar

Enemies

As with most games in the genre, Final Fight features a variety of enemy characters the player must defeat in order to progress through the game. Although there are numerous small fry characters thorough the game, only seven of them are actually unique in terms of appearances and fighting style, while the rest are head swap/palette swap counterparts with more or less vitality. There's also six unique boss characters, one for each stage.

Underlings

Bosses

Damnd - The boss of the Slum area (Round 1). A Caribbean thug with dreadlocks, who serves as Mad Gear's informant, though he is apparently also an informant for the FBI and a worshiper of Mammon. He is the one who calls Haggar in the opening intro and can be seen carrying Jessica at the start of the game. When he takes a certain amount of damage, he summons his underlings to fight in his stead by whistling, while he sits in wait before waiting for the opportunity to strike the player. His name was changed to Thrasher in the English localizations of the SNES and Sega CD versions.

Sodom - The boss of the Subway area (Round 2). A Caucasian American who is a Japanophile that speaks in broken Japanese. He is dressed in samurai-like protective gear (including a blue kabuto helmet that conceals his face) and is armed with twin Masamune blades. The player can disarm him and use his blades against him, but he will counteract this with a rush attack. His name was changed to Katana in early English localizations of the SNES and Sega CD versions, as well as the SNES version of Street Fighter Alpha 2. Sodom would reappear as a playable character in the Street Fighter Alpha series.

Edi E. - A corrupt police officer who serves as the boss of the West Side area (Round 3). Edi E looks similar to Ray Traylor, better known as Big Boss Man from the WWE. He attacks the player with his nightstick and when he's low on health, he will draw his revolver and start shooting randomly. The gum he spits out just before starting to fight will restore a lot of health if needed. Makes a cameo appearance in a couple of Cody's win poses in Street Fighter Alpha 3.

Rolento - A former member of the Red Beret special forces who is in charge of Mad Gear's drug plant. The boss of the Industrial Area (Round 4). He attacks the player with his club and grappling techniques. When he is low on health, he will resort to "shadow dashing" around the arena and throwing many grenades. Stage 4 and Rolento were absent from the two SNES ports, although Capcom compensated this by making Rolento the only returning enemy character besides the Andore clan in the SNES sequel, Final Fight 2. Like Sodom, Rolento would be turned into a playable character in the Street Fighter Alpha series, starting with Alpha 2.

Abigail - The boss of the Bayside area (Round 5). He is a head swap of Andore who wears a white outfit and has a face paint and mohawk (like the wrestler Animal). He tends to literally turn red when angry and charges towards the player with a punch. When he's low on health, the charge attacks become more frequent.

Belger - The final boss and leader of Mad Gear. He poses as a disabled old man on a wheelchair in order to trick his enemies and attacks the player with his crossbow. When he first appears, he is holding Jessica on his lap. When the player defeats him, he is thrown into his window and falls from the high rise building and into the ground. In the English localization of the SNES version, his wheelchair was redrawn into an office chair. The dialogue portrait in Final Fight One shows Belger with a full beard, however his sprite shows that he only has his usual neck beard. He reappears as a cyborg in Mighty Final Fight and as a zombie Final Fight Revenge. His brother, Father Bella, serves as the antagonist of Final Fight Streetwise.

Ports

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 titles for their respective regions. An emulation of this version was released for the Virtual Console in 2007.

Several aspects of the game were changed from the arcade version, due in part to the limitations of cartridge space at the time. The most notable differences were:

Other differences include a reduced number of on-screen enemies and objects (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.

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 damage for a short time, and a doll of the player's character, 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.

Note: This was released later in Australia as "Final Fight" on the Super Nintendo, only adding to the confusion.

Mighty Final Fight

Final Fight CD

The Sega CD version, titled Final Fight CD, was developed internally by Sega under license from Capcom and released in 1992. The game was considerably better received by arcade fans over the previous SNES version due to the inclusion of all the missing elements from the arcade game, such as a playable Guy, the industrial stage with the Rolento boss fight, and simultaneous two-player mode. Due to the use of the CD-ROM medium, the developers saw fit to add 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. Most of the scene transitions were added to this version, though a few are still missing such as boarding the train in mission 2 (the doors of the train also do not open as they do in the arcade) and entering the lift in the final mission. This version is also censored in regards to having Roxy and Poison replaced with Billy and Sid.

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. It is mostly uncensored, with the only exception being the intro where Jessica is not shown on Haggar's television. The compilation also features unlockable tips, music, character profiles and artwork from Final Fight (among other games). The PlayStation Portable version was bundled in the Capcom Classics Collection Remixed released in 2006 and it is a direct Japan arcade port with unlockable elements (the port of the arcade Final Fight is also available on GameTap).

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 blurred and blocky.

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

Other versions

Sequels

Censorship

In addition to the differences between the arcade and home versions of the game, the home console version of Final Fight was censored when they were localized to the American market with the later released PAL versions being identical.

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 bra when Haggar turns the TV monitor. The shot was altered for all non-Japanese versions to her wearing the red dress later seen in the game. However, some non-Japanese prints don't even use the alternate outfit. Instead, the scene cuts directly to Damnd while Jessica can be heard screaming in 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 arcade version, on the left, originally exposed half of Poison's breasts. The Sega CD version, on the right, lengthened Poison's tank top and shorts.

The Sega CD version kept Poison and Roxy 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 Sega CD release featured Jessica in her underwear in the opening intro (like in the Japanese arcade version), while the English version features her in her 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. However, some fans feel Katana is a more appropriate name for an American who wants to be Japanese. The first stage boss, Damnd, was also renamed to Thrasher. The quote at the end of the first bonus stage Break Car was changed from "Oh, my God!" to "Oh, my car!" for the SNES and GBA versions. When you hit someone with a normal attack in any version, you get a small explosion effect. However, in the Japanese version, when you hit an enemy with a weapon, you will see a little blood squirt, like in the arcade game. This was dropped from other versions, and instead you just have the explosion effect again. In the West Side level, the sign outside the door is different depending on the version. The Japanese version has "BAR", whilst other versions have "CLUB". The statues you can often see in the Up Town level are also different. In the Japanese version, the breasts are more exposed, whilst in all other versions they have been covered up significantly. The health power-ups changed, Beer became Rootbeer and whisky became vitamine. Belger's wheelchair is completely different in all versions but aside from the Japanese one. The Japanese version has Belger's chair looking like the one in the arcade version. However, in the US and PAL version the chair was changed.

The localized SNES ports also had the two enemies in the game, Roxy and Poison, replaced by male versions named Sid and Billy.

Roxy and Poison were also replaced 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 cartoonish 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..." Also when Haggar turns on his TV, his "You son of a..." is changed to "You fiend!"

Pop culture

There are several tributes in the game to pop culture. Former Capcom Studio 8 lead designer Tom Sakine stated Final Fight was inspired by the 1984 film Streets of Fire. The film's plot shares some key similarities to Final Fight's plot. 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 movie is set in a rundown city that is plagued by gangs and a motorcycle gang kidnaps Cody’s ex-girlfriend. Also, the cop that arranges a meeting between Cody and the Gang’s boss is a cop by the named 'Ed Price', the only Cop in the game is called 'Edi E.'. The gang's boss, Raven Shaddock, wears an odd-cut pair of black overalls which have a similar design to the character Bred. Finally, 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.

There are other influences on Final Fight from other sources of pop culture. Andore was a tribute to professional wrestler André the Giant. 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 punk 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. Billy and Sid, Poison and Roxy's console replacements, were named after Billy Idol and Sid Vicious, respectively.

The grindcore band FDISK was influenced by the game as fans and wrote a song, "Metro City, Crime Capital of the World" which features actual clips of gameplay sound effects in the game.

Relationship to other games

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. Guy and Sodom were featured as playable characters in the original Street Fighter Alpha released in 1995 with Sodom trading his katana blades in favor of a pair of sai. Rolento was then added to the playable roster in 1996's Street Fighter Alpha 2, followed by Cody in 1998's Street Fighter Alpha 3, who was reimagined as an escaped convict.

The Mad Gear Gang is named after the Capcom driving/shoot-em-up game Mad Gear. .

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. Mike Haggar and Guy both appear in Namco x Capcom, with the latter partnered with Ninja Commando Ginzu (Shou in Japan) from Captain Commando.

Mike Haggar was a playable character in Saturday Night Slam Masters featuring all of his moves from Final Fight and adding new moves like a body slam.

Continue screens

Final Fight (and both of its sequels) featured a notorious continue screen in the vein of the arcade version of Ninja Gaiden. In Final Fight, once the player has lost all his lives, the screen changes to the character tied to a chair with a bundle of dynamite ready to explode in his face. If the player does not insert a coin within the ten second countdown, the bomb will detonate, causing the screen to flash black and white. In Final Fight 2, the character is locked in a well with water slowly rising towards his head. Final Fight 3 pays tribute to Ninja Gaiden's continue screen by lowering a giant spike press on top of the character, who is tied down in the same way Ryu Hayabusa was in the arcade version. Unlike Ninja Gaiden, instead of a scream being heard at the end of the countdown, a sound effect was heard. (An explosion, a splash, etc.)

References

^ "All About Capcom Head-To-Head Fighting Game 1987-2000", page 339. Studio BentStuff, 2000.
^ Capcom Classics Collection. Capcom, 2005.
^ SNK vs. Capcom Card Fighters Clash card bio for Damnd

External links

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Final Fight at the Killer List of Videogames
Final Fight at GameFAQs
Final Fight Online
Hardcore Gaming 101 - Final Fight
Final Fight at MobyGames
Final Fight at World of Spectrum
Final Fight guide at StrategyWiki
Final Fight at ArcadeHistory
original official Final Fight 1 artwork at FightingStreet.com

v • d • e Final Fight video games

Final Fight · Final Fight 2 · Mighty Final Fight · Final Fight 3 · Final Fight Revenge · Final Fight: Streetwise

v • d • e Street Fighter and related characters

Characters sorted by game they first appeared in

Street Fighter characters in later games	Adon · Birdie · Eagle · Gen · Ken · Ryu · Sagat

Street Fighter II series	Akuma · Balrog · Cammy · Blanka · Chun-Li · Dee Jay · Dhalsim · E. Honda · Fei Long · Guile · M. Bison · T. Hawk · Vega · Zangief

Street Fighter Alpha series	Charlie · Dan · Juni and Juli · Karin · Ingrid · R. Mika · Rose · Sakura

Street Fighter III series	Alex · Dudley · Elena · Gill · Ibuki · Makoto · Necro · Oro · Q · Remy · Sean · Twelve · Urien · Yun and Yang

Final Fight series characters	Belger · Cody · Guy · Hugo · Maki · Mike Haggar · Poison · Rolento · Sodom

Others	Gouken · Goutetsu · Captain Commando · Saturday Night Slam Masters characters

Non-canon Street Fighter characters	Blade · Sawada · Kevin Striker · Sheng Long · List of Street Fighter EX characters

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