Final Fight One

"The arcade port the SNES couldn't handle."

When I first became truly hooked on video games, Capcom was the company that created and fueled my addiction. The first two arcade games I ever played that kept me coming back for more (and thus wasting much of my allowance) were Street Fighter II and Final Fight. Sure there were games I played long before these two, but these were the games that unleashed competitive fury that lay within. When Nintendo finally released their 16-bit games system, I was over-joyed to learn that these two favorite games were on-deck for a home conversion. Though Final Fight on the Super Nintendo wasn't a perfect port, I was satisfied (and more so when it came to SEGA CD) and life was good. Fast-forward ten odd years and Final Fight has come home once again…

Ah Metro City. How long has it been since I've walked down your streets? Final Fight One's story take place in a (obviously) fictitious city called Metro City. In Metro City, Mike Haggar is the Mayor and his daughter, Jessica, is kidnapped by the Mad Gear Gang. Good ol' Mayor Haggar isn't going to stand for this and, being the ex-wrestler that he is, takes to the streets to find his daughter and beat the crap out of a few punks. Of course, he isn't alone in his quest as Jessica's boyfriend, Cody, and his friend, Guy, join the fight. Along the way, you'll fight character you just might have seen in other Capcom releases such as Sodom (Street Fighter Alpha), Rolento (Street Fighter Alpha 2) and Hugo (Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact).

Graphically, Final Fight One is very impressive for a handheld, even one as powerful as the Gameboy Advance. The characters are huge on screen and retain every bit of animation that they had when first they appeared in the arcades. The backgrounds are detailed and the colors are crisp and plentiful. My only complaint is the lack of actual enemy variety. Believe me, there's plenty of baddies to unleash justice upon but so many of them pop up again and again, sometimes as the very same character and sometimes as a palette swap with a name variation. A sign of the times for sure but technology has come a long way since.

Plain and simple, the sound on Final Fight One sucks. The music hasn't fared well the test of time and the audio effects, while adequate, weren't cleaned up at all from whichever version they sampled. And what's up with the voice?!? When you take out unnatural aggressions on some poor shmuck's car during a bonus round, he come on and cries 'Oh my car!' but the voice sample is so horrible you'd think it was an original Gameboy game (think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). Come one Capcom, at least clean up the sample before you recycle it. God knows the Gameboy Advance can handle it with Factor 5 having created the handheld wonder's sound system…

No game was better suited for the control layout of the Gameboy Advance than Final Fight One. With only two buttons to worry about (one for punching, one for jumping) it's easy to jump right in to the game. And, as an added bonus, if you're too lazy to push those two buttons together to perform your character's super-move, the shoulder button can be mapped to simulate the pressing of the 'A' and 'B' buttons. Okay, I'm being a tad sarcastic here, but the controls are easy to use and quick on the response so there's no complaints.

Isn't it nice to see that a game like this can be so well-designed, that when a company wants to make a quick buck off it in a re-issue on a new system, it is still just as fun as the first time you played it all those years ago. The nice thing about Final Fight One is, for the most part, it's a port of the arcade version. That means everything missing from the Super Nintendo version, including the two player mode and the lost stage, have made it to the portable version. Hooray for progress- it only took ten years for a Nintendo system to get a proper version of this classic.

It wasn't enough that we got the full, unedited version of Final Fight on the go. No, no- Capcom had to go and throw in a few nifty little bonuses to keep you playing. There's a meter in the game's option menu that keeps track of how many bad guys you take care of. Waste so many, and a new option appears. With persistence, you'll unlock more lives, more continues, new colors for your characters, Guy's costume (and some moves) from Street Fighter Alpha, Cody's outfit (and some moves) from Street Fighter Alpha 3, a stage select and a rapid-punch option. I know it's asking for a lot, but it would've been cool if they threw in Haggar from Saturday Night Slammasters. Oh well, at least you can link up a Japanese cartridge with the American release.

Let's face it, you know you want Final Fight One. You long for those glory days when all a game required of you was to walk down a virtual street and push the punch button a few thousand times. If you dig beat-em-ups, then Capcom has a game for you. Now where's my Alien vs. Predator?

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/12/09

Game Release: Final Fight One (US, 09/26/01)