Final Fight was yet another side scrolling beat â??em up in the mould of Double Dragon but this was no cheap copy; it was a well designed blast of violent urban action. Released by Capcom in 1989 you had a choice of three characters and could play co-operatively battering wave after wave of thugs into pulp in a desperate attempt to rescue a kidnapped girl.

 

The back story was nothing new and the game was set in Metro City a typical crumbling US metropolis where the streets were filled with gangs of thugs. The new Mayor was an ex-wrestler named Mike Haggar and he vowed to clean up the city which prompted the top gang, Mad Gear to kidnap his daughter Jessica. You played as Haggar, Jessicaâ??s knife fighter boyfriend Cody or his Ninjitsu expert pal Guy.

 

I know what you’re thinking, we’ve seen this all before, what was so special about Final Fight? Well it was designed by Akira Nishitani with character art by Akira Yasuda and both of them went on to work on Street Fighter II. Their skill was evident here as well and Final Fight added something new to the genre as each of the principal characters had their own fighting style. The artwork was superb with stylised urban decay and plenty of muscle bound thugs. The main characters were well realised and you can see hints of Ryu in Guy who was clad in an orange ninja outfit. Cody was bigger and dressed simply in white T-shirt and jeans and the moustachioed Haggar had ripped off his shirt to reveal rippling muscles. Their size related directly to their speed and strength with Guy as the fastest and weakest, Cody in the middle and Haggar strong but slow. They also specialised in different weapons, Haggar favoured the pipe, Guy the katana and Cody the knife. Haggar could pull off wrestling moves like the suplex and piledriver while the other two relied on punch and kick combos.

 

Final Fight also featured some of the greatest baddies ever to appear in a videogame. They really had fun with the thugs here and in addition to basic thugs there were biker thugs called Axl and Slash in a reference to Guns nâ?? Roses. There was the fat man trio Wong Who, Bill Bull and G. Oriber who charged and headbutted. There was the agile El Gado and Holly Wood with knife attacks and sliding kicks. There was also the female Poison and Roxy and the over-sized Andore family based on famous wrestler Andre the Giant. Each stage ended with a boss fight and the boss characters were equally well designed. Damnd had a flying cannonball attack, Sodom was a heavily armoured samurai armed with twin swords, Edi E was a dirty cop, Rolento was a military baddie, Abigail was a street brawler with a power up attack and the final boss Belger was wheelchair bound and armed with a crossbow.

 

Final Fight was massively creative and many of the characters had moves which later appeared in the Street Fighter series. In fact many of the characters went on to make cameo appearances in later Street Fighter games. The game-play was terrific; it was a hugely enjoyable co-op game with simple 8 way joystick and three button controls. It was also an important release because it took elements of Double Dragon and improved on them encouraging the genre into a new direction which would reach its pinnacle with Street Fighter II.