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Big, arcade-style sprites often make a bigger splash. Is size all important though? Or is it what you do with them that matters?
Beat-em-ups are a curious breed. Their intensive joystick action ensures you can't play for hours, while their violent theme is often cited as computer gaming's most deplorable aspect; yet still they keep on coming. Final Fight is a cracking conversion of the Capcom coin-op but is that enough?

The thick plotens
Guess what, the world's gone down the tubes again. Thugs and hoodlums rule the streets, but there are three warriors whose martial skill can set society back on the straight and narrow. You and another player can do some serious butt kicking in big sprite style.
If first impressions are anything to go by, then Final Fight scores. The sprites are huge and move with a speed which promises major league action. As one of three fighters, you're equipped with the fighting moves with which to dear the scum from the streets. Each battler gets a kick, punch and special move to do down the enemies of law and order.
The fights follow predictable patterns, as you stroll from left to right the first foes to show out are the level's losers: who are easily whipped into shape, providing a quick trainer in how to use the moves and street furniture (weapons). After a few layers of losers you go heads up with that level's boss. These guys aren't dangerous, but they are tough, and a solid series of sequential hits are needed here.
After each level you're transported to another location but annoyingly en route your man's managed to lose any weapons he had before and each section has to be beaten within a set time. The limit's generous, but it pays not to hang around searching for dropped knives or drain pipes, because this fight's a long one and losing a credit for any reason means you ain't going to see the end.

It takes no time at all to get to grips with the joystick moves because they are limited and logical. Without fire pressed, up makes you jump and left or right forces a walk. With fire pressed and the stick centred the battler punches, with the stick pressed left or right he kicks, while down starts off the special move.
In the arcade it was the special moves that made the machine worth playing. Two of the three heroes go into a pirouetting sweep kick, flooring all opposition. While the slower Haggar (who used to be Streetfighter) lovingly hugs foes, tums them upside down, jumps in the air and smashes their head on the pavement. Silly but spectacular.
Each fighter has their own energy bar and while they're actually bashing the opponents their's is displayed too, revealing how close to death both are. Both parties have generous amounts of life energy which doesn't help the action as there is little threat. It simply makes the stand up slugging matches slow affairs.

Animated aggression
The animation of sprites stresses speed before smoothness. Making them attack causes a swift shift of frame from their rest position straight into the attack, which while you're playing just looks fast. Watch over another player's shoulder and it begins to appear like a crazed flick book. For the purposes of the game though the system works and keeps the pace high: essential for arcade style action.
The background illustration, though, doesn't equip itself nearly as well, failing to be convincing, even when your attention is focused on the fight. Monotone is the overriding message, with simple sketches of objects and onlookers providing the backdrops.

Final Fight is enjoyable to a point, that point being where you realise that nothing new is going to happen. It smacks of formula with the same style of attack following time after time. Each major villain has to be beaten using a specific technique, but as you have relatively few moves the experimentation quotient is low. Without this the bad guys lose the fear factor that all guardians need if they are to lift arcades to classic status. The limitations of the arcade's overall design combined with the limits of the beat- em-up genre force Final Fight into a gameplay corner. It's one from which it cannot escape, because it does not break enough rules. Graphically the sprites are large and move fast, but this is at the expense of smoothness. The heroes seem to skate along when scrolling and the backgrounds are unconvincing at best.
A strong conversion of an average punch out arcade. Because of the coin-op's play problems the effort put into the conversion side is frittered away. It's one of the best conversions of a Capcom arcade for a long, long while but accurate copying of large sprites - the arcade's major puller - can't make for long-term computer entertainment.
Trenton Webb

"Decent conversion of the popular arcade side-scrolling beat-em' up."

Final Fight (Amiga)

The Amiga had it's fair share of side scrolling beat-em' ups over it's life-span the best in my opinion being the superb conversion of Double Dragon 2 The Revenge.

Final Fight released by Capcom in 1989, originally to be titled Street Fighter 2, was a beat-em' up not so unlike Double Dragon, but more simplistic in it's execution, with far less fighting moves and variety of weapons. All Though it was longer and tougher. This game remains the most imitated of the genre, though I personally think the original arcade version of Double Dragon is still the last word.

The system Final Fight was powered by, CPS-1, was quite powerful, and produced some very slick looking games, this one being no exception. So how does the Amiga version stack up.

The intro is all there, it looks lifted straight from the arcade, and this wasn't uncommon on the Amiga. I think only the close up on Jessica is missing.

The sprites were huge on the arcade, and thankfully they are here as well. There are less frames of animation per character than the original, but it doesn't detract to much. Everyone looks as they should, the muscle bound Haggar, Andore the rigid, the crooked gun totting cop, Eddie E, Sodom, Rolento, there all present and accounted for. Here you really want an extra disk drive and the 512K of slow memory. It makes for a MUCH smoother game. Trust me.

The backdrops sport some very nice pixel painting, from the gritty city slums to the ritzy mansion at the end. There's no layering though, but this is nit picking. Some background animation is present like dripping water on the rail-road level, and the hand grips sway back and forth inside of the subway train. No complaints here.

The story, for those who haven't played it, is just a take on Double Dragon. A girl is kidnapped, Jessica, the daughter of the new mayor of Metro city, and love interest of street fighter Cody. The fiends behind it all, the Mad-Gear gang, want Haggar to sit back and let them carry on running the city. Haggar, not one to take any guff, takes to the street to bust some heads and rescue Jessica.

The game-play is very fast due to a slightly high frame skip, and far less enemies than the arcade. It basically plays the same, with you (and an optional friend) bashing your way through scores of street thugs. The occasional lead pipe and knife mixes things up a bit. Also, sparse food pick-ups appear along the way to fill up your health metre. You'll need em' with only three credits and no continue feature.

When you start out, your dropped into a handful of enemies, instead of walking along a bit before taking some on. It doesn't take long to clear them out, but avoiding some damage is difficult. At the end of the first stage when you encounter DAMND, the blond geezer from the intro, you only fight him and his only crony is Andore. They both take a average amount of hits to take down, no different really from the other enemies.

This can also be said for some of the later bosses, such as Sodom, whom merely walks into your attacks.

DAMND doesn't whistle for clusters of back-up ever in this version. After he and Andore are done with it's onto the next level. It feels like your on level 4 within the first few minutes. All the levels feel very short, and the pace doesn't feel quite as it should.

That said, the controls work well and executing the moves are a snap. Combining the single fire button with joystick movements makes Guy and Cody's spinning kick and Haggar's jumping suplex easy as. This is a definite plus.

The sound effects are the usual assortment of thumps, thwaps, cracks and crunches. Nothing outstanding. Oh, and the hoop-hoodi-ah scream is sorely missing. I don't how they could have left that classic sample out.

The tune from the arcade plays during the intro sequence and sound good. Unfortunately there is no in-game music, this is a huge blow, as some tunes would have really helped liven things up.

Pretty solid conversion for the Amiga, from good old U.S. Gold. thankfully retaining the two player mode so you can bust heads with a mate, which is always more fun. The three credits shared is unkind, but the cheats have it sorted. Not the best of it's breed on Amiga, but the faithful graphics lift it to an extent.

Playability 6/10
Graphics 8/10
Sound 5/10
Overall 6/10




Reviewer's Score: 6/10 | Originally Posted: 10/02/06