Burning Fight

"Burn, baby, burn..."

Once upon a time, a young woman named Jessica Haggar was kidnapped. It was the modern take on the old damsel-in-distress plot; replace the princess with a helpless jailbait, and ditch the evil warlord/wizard/dragon in favor of a bunch of hardened thugs and cool villains. More importantly, take out the gallant knight in shining armor and replace him with three incredibly badass fighters with unique strengths and abilities. Cody Travers was the hero of this story; his potent fists were all he needed to become a legend. He was backed up by Mike Haggar, who is arguably the manliest man to ever grace the realm of video gaming. Then there was Guy, the quick and stereotypically silent ninja. Together, the three of them razed Metro City's underworld, saved the girl, and lived relatively happily ever after. More importantly, they set the standard for all the characters of beat'em up games that followed after…

And were blatantly copied for everything they were worth.

A certain phrase suggests that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This game, however, crosses the line of flattery and into outright stupidity. Enter Burning Fight, SNK's answer to Capcom's greatest brawler. Too bad that lacks just about everything that made the older game so awesome. Oh, the game tries hard to emulate the other. It's even got clones of two out of the three classic heroes. It's the story of two generic cops and a ninja tag-along crusading through an equally generic version of Chinatown in an effort to stamp out evil. Their respective resemblances to Cody and Guy are close enough to the originals - the stupid haircuts, the jumpsuit, and the abnormally tight jeans and white t-shirt are dead giveaways - that's practically worth suing over. At least SNK had enough sense to design the Haggar knockoff a little differently; the dude is younger, a bit leaner, and is clad in a black muscle shirt. However, they decided to take things a bit further and suck out potential charisma or anything memorable about these guys; they're bland, flat, and utterly boring. The game tries to make up for it with some gimmicky villains (though the Hulk Hogan wannabe is rather amusing), but it comes up lacking at best.

The problem is that mimicking established characters can only take a game so far. What really matters is that personality - that charisma - that makes such characters so memorable. None of the trio in Burning Fight have that kind of quality. They are boring, generic tough guys with little to make them stand out. One of the game's biggest blunders is based on their designs. Rather than having each character specialize with inherent abilities and weaknesses (speed, attack strength, and the balance between them), all three fighters play nearly identical to the other. The same hitting range, power, combos, and everything else. That might be due to the shoddy hit detection and utterly pathetic AI, but it's still unforgivable. The game tries to make up for it by giving each of the fighters their own supermoves, like a wimpy spinning uppercut or a running tackle. These moves even damage the characters when used, which makes for some semblance of strategy and need to develop tactics. But since you can annihilate the majority of your foes by just mashing the attack button, there isn't much of a need to pull off anything special. Besides, the sheer amount of knives, sticks, firecrackers, guns, and other weapons ensures that you'll always have the upper hand.

The game tries to distract you from its shortcomings by making one of the flashiest presentations ever seen in brawler. Chinatown isn't so much a bunch of storefronts s it is a blend of neon lights, badly painted signs, and tons of destructible property. You can even enter some of the stores, simply for the sake of breaking random items or tearing down shelves in search of weapons, health restoratives, or bonus points. There's nothing quite like stamping down foes while riding n escalator, or punching through a pickup truck just to get at the guys riding inside. While having a helicopter trying to shoot you off the roof of a moving train might be cool, the Hulk Hogan wannabe tearing through a fountain in his intro sequence is just over the top. Despite such a ridiculously awesome atmosphere, you shouldn't let yourself be won over. The character designs are bland and lack detailed, right down to the choppy animation frames (not that there are many for you to even observe) and wooden movements. There's nothing that makes these characters stand out or make you want to play them; they're just generic, boring avatars for you to use to wreak havoc.

It's sad. Final Fight established the golden standard for all beat'em up games that came after it, and so many have tried to emulate it. Burning Fight tried to do the same (and blatantly copied it in several ways) and still managed to come up unsuccessful. SNK's take on the 2D scrolling brawler genre is weak, pathetic, and ultimately unsatisfying. The characters are boring and lack any unique qualities or style to make them memorable. The shallow combat mechanics and lack of differentiation don't help much, either. Don't be fooled by the glitzy presentation; beneath all the flashy lights and gimmicky villains, there's very little substance of which to speak. Needless to say, these guys wouldn't last long in Metro City.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 10/14/08

Game Release: Burning Fight (US, 08/09/91)