The
Total Recall
DUD OF THE MONTH
COLLECTION!
FINAL
FIGHT
(Capcom,
1991)
Month it won: September 2005
Month it won: September 2005
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The
Total Recall |
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| Artist touch: This face to face art really helps to explain the difference between the heroes and the villains and what type of game this is. Why is Guy in the background though? Cover art rating: 6/10 | (Capcom,
1991) Month it won: September 2005 |
Special note: This was the first home translation of Capcom's famous arcade hit. |
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Introduction and Story: |
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Capcom's
Final Fight was an insanely popular action game in the arcade during
the late 1980's. In the game you pick from one of three tough guys and
you get fight your way through a crime infested city much like other beat
em ups like Renegade and Double Dragon. In 1991 Capcom ported
this game to the then highly anticipated Super Nintendo and some
people liked it, some people hated it. I'm with the latter and you better
believe I'm angry.
The game starts out with the new Mayor in his office. Instead of sitting on his butt like every other Mayor does (C'mon, you know it's true), this guy promises big changes and his first thing on the agenda is to clean up the city. Mayor Hagger should know something about beating up on scum bags because he is a big 6.6 foot muscle head and a former Street Fighter champion (think Jesse Ventura or Arnold Schwarzenegger). Unfortunately, Madgear: the city's toughest gang isn't ready to give up yet and they have just kidnapped Hagger's daughter Jessica to continue their wicked ways. Since your local police force sucks, Hagger must go to the streets himself to get some answers and Jessica's boyfriend Cody wants to help as well. |
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Controls and Game Play: |
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Both
of the fighters here each have their own style. Hagger is the big pro wrestler-type
that may lack speed but his holds are lethal while Cody is weaker but
is a bit faster plus he is good with knifes. Maybe you noticed that I mentioned you can only
pick Hagger and Cody, eh? Sadly, this means that Cody's ninja friend Guy is not in the game even though he was in the arcade one! If you don't know
the fighter Guy was a awesome character in the original because
of his technical strikes and his quick speed. Capcom even screwed over their fans twice because they released the equally
bad 'Final Fight Guy' which pretty much replaced Cody with Guy
but it didn't fix the other problems in the original SNES Final Fight.
What are the other problems you say?  Final
Fight is one tough game but you're now stuck fighting a gang of vicious
streets thugs on your own since the two player mode has been completely
taken out! It's really hard to imagine a game like this without being
able to invite a friend over to help but I guess Capcom hates me. Wait,
there more! Since Nintendo doesn't like a lot of sex and violence in their
games (remember this was before ESRB rating system) Capcom took
out those very sexy female cops. Although I think it's wrong to hit a
women, it was still a shame to see them gone and replaced with generic
thugs who just look weird with the same girl-like moves. The arcade game play still remains mostly intact. If you are surrounded
by a large group of wacky thugs that range from common street punks to giant
Ardre the Giant look-a-likes you pick up all sorts of weapons
and power ups anywhere in the game to help gain a edge. Smacking around these
dirt bags in places like subways and dirty streets is actually kind of
fun for the first few levels and the game even has some bonus scenes like
where you would destroy a car, however by stage 3 the whole game gets
way too repetitive (not too mention cheap) in a hurry and gamers will
tire of this one quickly. |
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Graphics and Sounds: |
 Sure I've been ragging on Final Fight a lot but I did find something fairly good
about the game. Since this is on the 16-bit SNES the game looks very close
the arcade title with its large, colourful, and detailed characters plus
the gritty street backgrounds are drawn well. These graphics were definitely
a step up from previous fighting games like Double Dragon. It isn't
all good news though because the animation is on the weak side and the game
suffers from slowdown when only three or four characters are on the screen
at once. Although the graphics weren't perfect, at least it was better then boring
music here. The game's various sound effects like broken barrels and grunts
help to capture the edgy feel of the fighting but just get that mute button
ready when that horrible soundtrack comes on because there is no option
to turn it off. |
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The Bottomline: |
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This popular mission based fighting may have been an huge arcade hit but the SNES version is way too watered down. Let's review the crap you have to put up with here: first the game has no two player option (a sign of lazy programming), secondly the half naked girlcops are now missing (a bad sign of censorship), and finally the game even has actual areas and even a full stage completely edited out (signs of low memory). Add to the fact the game just wasn't all that great to begin with at least for the home market since it was a quarter sucking hog with enemies that drain your energy way too quickly and you lose health from special moves. The game is not only filled with the same re-spawning enemies over and over again but it is also filled with bigger guys who can easily take away 50 to 70 percent of your health resulting in a lot of fast and cheap deaths. The game isn't very balanced and it will frustrate casual gamers in no time. If you are a fan of the series then go for Final Fight 2 and 3 or Sega's Streets of Rage on the Sega Genesis, all are far superior and Sega even did a better version of Final Fight on the Sega CD. Final Fight SNES is just a bad effort and now I know why Guy didn't do the game. |
| Conclusion: | |
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FINAL FIGHT
overall rating: 38/100 Find Final Fight on eBay here! For 1 player only graphics: 7/10 sound: 5/10 gameplay: 2/10 replay: 3/10 -StarSoldier1 (Ryan Genno) 2005 See other Total Recall duds of the month |
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