"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