Final Fight is a side-scrolling beat-em'-up by Capcom originally released for the arcades during the very end of 1989. As one of the earliest games for Capcom's CPS hardware,
Final Fight helped popularized the beat-em'-up genre during the early-to-mid 1990's that was previously established with the likes of Irem's
Kung-Fu Master and Technos Japan's
Renegade and
Double Dragon. It was ported to a variety of gaming platforms such as the
SNES (in two different versions), the
Sega CD, and the
Game Boy Advance among others.
In the original arcade game, the Mad Gear gang kidnaps Jessica, the daughter of Mike Haggar, former pro wrestler and current mayor of Metro City, because Haggar would not turn a blind eye to their dominance of the city's underworld, as the previous mayor had. Haggar teams up with Jessica's martial artist boyfriend Cody, and his sparring partner Guy, a ninjutsu master seeking to test his skills, so that they can save the city and Jessica. The game has
life meters not only for the heroes, but also for the villains.
The game's development contains some interesting titbits: the people in charge of Capcom at the time requested a sequel to
Street Fighter (remember, this was a year or two before
Street Fighter II). As such, the game was originally known as
Street Fighter '89, but had its name change before release when the game ended up becoming a side-scrolling beat-'em-up and not a competitive
Fighting Game. Ironically, the
Final Fight universe was eventually folded over into the
Street Fighter canon when characters from
Final Fight started to appear in the
Street Fighter series beginning with Guy and Sodom's appearance in the first
Street Fighter Alpha and up to Cody and Guy's upcoming return in
Super Street Fighter IV.
While Capcom produced several beat-'em-ups for the arcade after
Final Fight, the game itself was only followed by two
straight-to-home console sequels for the SNES before fading out completely. Two
failed attempts to revive the series in 3D were made by Capcom's US branch:
Final Fight Revenge, a
3D fighting game featuring characters from the original game (including a Zombie version of Belger) for the Sega Titan hardware (which saw a
Japan-only home port for the
Sega Saturn as Capcom's final game for the system); and
Final Fight: Streetwise, a
Darker And Edgier attempt to cater to the
GTA crowd that is probably better known for its
gratuitous use of the "F word" than any genuine quality it might had.
This game has examples of: