Final Fight One

"It was my first fight! =)"

Introduction
If you know anything about the Final Fight series, you will already know that it is a game in which you have to control a character (chosen from a list of some...) and then use him to defeat tons of enemies that will appear as you hang in the streets. As you may imagine, this game won't change this formula at all...

Gameplay
As I previously said, first you will have to pick your character from a set of 3 (but you can unlock more 2...), each of them with their strong and weak points. Then, you will be hanging in a city full of thiefs and "bad people", which will try to keep you away from your target... It starts by a simple task, but as you advance forward in the game you will notice more things that make your game more enjoyable... If you ever played Street Fighter Alpha 2 (or even 3!) you will recognise some the characters that appear in this game, since you can play as Guy and you will find boss battles against enemies like Rolando or Sodom. However, this game also have some huge flaws... Mainly, the way you control your characters (which is one of the most important things in this type of game) is quite bad, since all of them seem only to have 2 different attacks, being one of them a "special one" (which takes you a small bit of your health) and the other one a punch, which can be increasingly used up to performing a 3 hit combo. Also, if you are hit many times by a specific enemy, your character will be somehow "frozen", making you being hit more times... That's what somehow spoils this game, making it less enjoyable, even for the fans of the series...

Story
Once you start playing, you can watch a small introduction sequence which will make you easily understand the plot... A girl has been kidnapped, and since she was a friend of the main characters of the game, of course you will try to save her. However, it won't be an easy task...

Graphics/Sound
The graphics are good, if you think that this one was one of the first games released for this system. As for the sound, it's somehow good, not boring you but also not making you very happy with it...

Play Time/Replayability
Even on the easy mode, you may have an hard time finishing the game, making it a good challenge for every player who gets in touch with this game. As for replay value, I noticed that there are some things that are unlocked by the number of enemies that you defeat, but unfortunatly I couldn't check what they were...

Final Recommendation
A quite nice game, but mainly only for the fans of the series, as it has some flaws in the controls of the characters, which may not seem nice for players who are not used up to this type of game...

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 05/12/04