"Mayor Mike Haggar vowed to snatch the streets of Metro City back from the crooks with his bare knuckles! But the Mad Gear Gang snatched his daughter Jessica. Now there's gonna be some bone-crushing dues to pay! Jessica's boyfriend Cody and his friend Guy hit the streets hard with Haggar, denting heads downtown and slugging it out in the slums. Now you're Haggar, Cody or Guy, each with his own fighting style. Demolish gangland henchmen, samurai swordsmen and musclebound crime bosses in a fist-to-nose frenzy!"
Final Fight is a belt-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 popularize the beat 'em up genre during the early-to-mid 1990s 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 Super Nintendo Entertainment System (in two different versions), the Sega CD, and the Game Boy Advance, among others.
In the original 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 and also himself a friend of Jessica, 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 tidbits: The people in charge of Capcom at the time requested a sequel to Street Fighter.note As such, the game was originally known as Street Fighter '89, but had its title changed before release when the game ended up becoming a side-scrolling beat 'em up and not a competitive Fighting Game. The Final Fight universe was later folded over into the Street Fighter canon when characters from Final Fight started to appear in the Street Fighter series.note It has culimated with Metro City, the setting of Final Fight, becoming the central story location of Street Fighter 6. Udon published Street Fighter vs. Final Fight that covers from the first Final Fight to Street Fighter 6 in 2024.
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 attempts to revive the series in 3D were made by Capcom USA: 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, an Open World game and a Darker and Edgier attempt to cater to the Grand Theft Auto crowd.
In April 2010, an Updated Re-release of the first game was brought to Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network featuring remixed music from the staff behind Bionic Commando: Re-Armed, and new HD filters. It also comes with the Capcom's 1991 hack'n slash side-scroller Magic Sword: Heroic Fantasy.
It's also one of seven games included in Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle, a collection released in 2018 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Steam.
This series provides examples of:
- 1-Up: The Guy and Haggar dolls added in Final Fight Guy serve as instant extra lives. The GBA version also adds a Cody doll. The Guy doll also appears in Final Fight 2 as a 1-Up for all three characters.
- Aborted Arc: Dean mentions in his proper introduction that he often fought in the street fighter circuit. It unintentionally makes it amusing that Maki was the one who made the transition into competitive fighters with Capcom vs. SNK 2, followed by 3 alumnus Lucia being introduced into Street Fighter V, and not him.
- Action Girl: Maki and Lucia.
- Adapted Out: Guy and Rolento in the SNES version. Guy eventually got his own version of the game and would later show up in Final Fight 3, while Rolento appears as a boss in Final Fight 2.
- Ambiguously Evil: By the time of the Street Fighter Alpha series, almost anyone who once worked for Mad Gear (with the possible exception of Rolento) seem to have a questionable moral status.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: The GBA version allows player to unlock the Street Fighter Alpha versions of Guy and Cody as playable characters. Even though their sprites are different from the standard selves, their fighting style are the same as normal, but with at least improved stats (those being Alpha Cody being a Lightning Bruiser in that his damage per hit on on par with Haggar and being slightly more durable, and Alpha Guy who is the toughest character in the GBA version.
- Balance, Power, Skill, Gimmick: Final Fight 3 puts Guy as a slightly faster Jack of All Stats, but Haggar, who is a Mighty Glacier, is the main character. Lucia is the Fragile Speedster of the crew. Dean is slow and not as strong as Haggar, but he specializes in ranged grabs.
- Balance, Speed, Strength Trio: The series uses this trope in most of its games:
- Starting with the first one that has Cody (balance), Guy (speed) and Haggar (strength). In an interesting example, Haggar is playing against type, since he's The Protagonist and The Hero of the series, later reusing this formula with another Capcom character: the barbarian-turned-lion Leo.
- The sequel Final Fight 2 has Cody and Guy being replaced by Carlos (balance) and Maki (speed), with Haggar still on the lead.
- In Final Fight 3 and the Arcade Mode of Final Fight: Streetwise, there's a fourth character added to the mixture which have different abilities than the aforementioned trio (Guy becomes this in the former, with Lucia and Dean being the speed and balance respectively; and Cody in the latter, leaving the balance to his brother Kyle), but the pattern is still there.
- Bar Brawl: Stage 3. West Side. Also the first stage of Streetwise.
- Beard of Evil: Belger, Edi E. and some of the mooks like El Gado and Jake.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: Streetwise. The rest of the series are more of Black-and-White Morality.
- Bonus Feature Failure: Final Fight: Double Impact features the Street Fighter episode "Final Fight" as an unlockable bonus when you complete the game. Only problem? It can only be watched in a window, it is in low resolution, and can't be rewound.
- Bonus Stage: The original game has two, each awarding bonus points if you complete it within the time limit.
- After stage 2: Smash a car with your bare hands and/or an available pipe.
- After stage 4: Break panes of glass on rotating hangers, which can knock you back if hit off-center.
- Bowdlerise:
- The Japanese version of the arcade game had a scene in the attract sequence which showed Jessica tied up in her underwear, which was edited out from the U.S. and World versions. The scene was redrawn for the SNES and GBA ports, now depicting her in her more traditional red cocktail dress. The Sega CD port uses the underwear version for the Japanese version and the red dress version for the overseas versions.
- The Japanese version of Final Fight has nude female statues in the top floor of the office tower in the final stage. The US version has statues of robed females in the nude statues' places.
- In the SNES version of the opening, rather than "You son of a...", Haggar simply calls Damnd a fiend.
- Poison and Roxy were replaced by Billy and Sid in the overseas versions of the SNES and GBA ports, all the alcohol power-ups were replaced, and Damnd and Sodom were renamed into Thrasher and Katana (although they kept their names in the GBA version). Sodom's renaming was carried over to the SNES version of Street Fighter Alpha 2.
- In the SNES version, a couple of alcohol-themed recovery items were changed to avoid condoning drinking.
- In the SNES version, after the first bonus level: A hoodlum exclaiming "Oh, My God!" was replaced with "Oh, my car!"
- The Sega CD port was censored overseas, much like the SNES port, although Poison and Roxy were kept this time (albeit with more modest clothing).
- Mary and Eliza, the knife-wielding female grunts in Final Fight 2, were replaced by male counterparts named Leon and Robert in the overseas versions. Unlike Poison and Roxy, Mary and Eliza were never described as transgender.
- The Cameo: Chun-Li is eating in the background of the first stage of Final Fight 2. Guile is seen cheering you on in the France stage when you fight Freddie.
- Canon Discontinuity: The Street Fighter Alpha series pretty much invalidated most of Final Fight 2 by giving Guy a completely different Bushin-Ryu master (Zeku instead of Genryusai), having Sodom lead the new Mad Gear instead of Retu, and having Rolento leave the gang instead of still being a part of it.note With all these inconsistencies taken into consideration, Maki might be considered a Canon Immigrant, but only if you count her appearance in the handheld versions of Alpha 3 as canon.
- Street Fighter V's background material seems to consider Kyle a Canon Immigrant while ignoring the rest of Streetwise.
- Capcom Sequel Stagnation: Despite the popularity of Final Fight at the time of its release, Capcom never really followed through with a conventional arcade sequel. Instead, Final Fight 2 was made for the SNES, which is seen as less of a sequel to the CPS original and more of a third SNES edition of the original (following the original port and Final Fight Guy) that just happens to be an attempt to correct the faults in the first game's port (such as only two playable characters, reduced number of stages and the lack of two-player co-op). Final Fight 3 was also made specifically for the SNES and while it does expand on the formula by giving the player more abilities, including super moves, it still feels rather restricted by the hardware limitations of the SNES.
- Carry a Big Stick: A hammer is available to Haggar as a weapon in Mighty Final Fight, and seen during his animation in his ending.
- Cast from Hit Points: Pressing the Attack and Jump buttons simultaneously performs a "Megacrush" move, a spinning attack that takes out all surrounding enemies but at the cost of the player's health. This became a standard feature in many subsequent beat 'em ups.
- Color-Coded Multiplayer: Final Fight 2 features a cheat code that allows both players to use the same character. The second player character is distinguished with an alternate palette. This feature was carried over to the GBA version of the original game.
- Comic-Book Time:
- The Japanese arcade version was set in 1989, but the international versions and the SNES port changed it to "sometime in the 1990s", which was then changed to 1992 for the Sega CD version (despite being released a year later in 1993). The GBA version (released in 2001) goes back to the original 1989 date.
- Despite changing the year the game was set, Sega for some reason did not change the main characters' birthdates. Instead, their ages were updated by three years: Cody went from 22 to 25, Guy went from 24 to 27, and Haggar went from 46 to 49.
- The Japanese version of Final Fight 2 had Haggar's age as 50, but the English version changed back to his age in the first game (46).
- Combos: In the original game, the player's attacks changes with each consecutive hit after the second one. Final Fight 3 added more varied combos such as dash attacks and super moves.
- Continue Countdown: When one of the characters runs out of lives, the player has a limited amount of time to feed in another quarter and continue the game, with each game having a different, horrible death awaiting the player's chosen fighter if they didn't continue. The first game has them tied up in front of a lit bundle of dynamite. The second game has them stuck in a Drowning Pit. The third game has them restrained under a Descending Ceiling covered in spikes. Continuing will spare them from their oncoming grisly fate by way of a knife dropping down and severing the fuse, the water ceasing to rise, or the ceiling coming to a halt, respectively.
- Covers Always Lie: The series as a whole almost always had this problem:
- The boxart for the SNES version depicts a stare-off between Haggar and Abigail, with three different images between them of a character dressed up like Guy beating up other punks. The first SNES version of the game did not feature Guy.
- The American cover for Final Fight 2 features two different depictions of Damnd (traced over from different sources), Cody, Guy and other characters from the first game that don't even appear in the sequel.
- The American cabinet for the arcade version features enemies wielding lead pipes (only the player can wield pipes in-game) and the good guys fighting multiple opponents in a wrestling ring (when only Sodom appears in such stage in the game).
- The packaging illustration
for the home computer ports by U.S. Gold depicts Cody (with dark hair instead of his usual blond) confronting a group of punks in a train with a few bystanders witnessing the action. In the game, the only people in the train besides the player are all enemies.
- Criss-Cross Attack: Unarmed examples are the "street ninjas", Guy and Maki, in their fighting game versions (Street Fighter IV and Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium, respectively). If well they have Meteor Moves in which they slash the opponent in air to then finish it with an Izuna Drop, none of them use sword or any cutting weapon in their attacks (or in general as characters).
- Cutscene Power to the Max: The opening cut-scene in the Sega CD version has Two.P wielding a knife, Axl wielding a choke wire, and Andore wielding (more like bending) a lead pipe. None of these characters can pick up or carry weapons during game play, except El Gado or Hollywood.
- Cut the Fuse: In the original game's Game Over screen, you're tied up with a bomb next to you. Continuing means a knife drops in to cut the fuse.
- Darker and Edgier: Streetwise by a country mile. Not only do characters curse liberally, with harsher language than most other Capcom games in general, but the game's fights are a lot more down-to-earth compared to the simpler titles, which means a lot of pain going around. It's also Bloodier and Gorier, like with one hapless mutilated victim's body parts being tossed around and only weakly being covered up by their killer on-screen.
- Death Trap: In the first game, when you lost the bad guys just tied you up to a chair with a bundle of dynamite placed in front of you. In the later games, they get a bit more elaborate.
- Die, Chair, Die!: Barrels, trash cans, and such get smashed to bits.
- Difficulty by Region: The GBA version has the difficulties labelled differently by region. Whereas the Japanese version goes from Easy to Super Hard, the export releases goes from Very Easy to Very Hard.
- Dirty Cop: Edi.E, the third boss of the first game, is a police officer who is accepting bribes from the Mad Gear gang. However, in Final Fight Revenge, he double-crosses the organization and starts arresting them. This is also the case concerning Dave, the first boss of Final Fight 3.
- Destination Defenestration: Belger dies by being knocked through a window from his top floor office.
- Disney Villain Death: Belger in Final Fight and Retu in Final Fight 2.
- Dope Slap: When Cody ignores Jessica at the end of the first game, Guy has to intervene by beating the crap out of Cody, auto combo and all. He then gracefully backflips out of frame.
- Dull Surprise: "Oh, my car."
- Dynamic Difficulty: The arcade version adjusts its difficulty based on the player's performance, becoming harder as play time is accumulated or easier every time you lose a life or use up a credit. This is why the game has two difficulty options to adjust: one that determines the overall difficulty and a second one that determines the rate in which the difficulty is increased or decreased. The SNES version uses a similar system, but it can't be exploited to the same degree due to the limited credits in that version, which is why the later Guy version discarded it and featured standard settings instead (easy, normal, hard and expert).
- Easter Egg: When the player picks up Edi.E's discarded gum while at full health, they get 42910 points instead. When arranged into a date, it reads "Showa 42 (1967), September 10th." Said date is developer Akira Nishitani's birthday.
- Elevator Action Sequence: The second area of the Industrial Area round, Italy in 2, and the Skyscraper in 3.
- Episode of the Dead: In Streetwise, the GLOW drug makes people more violent and in high doses they can act like overpowered zombies. This doesn't affect the plot until the end in which a Resident Evil-like mutated monster and a zombified Cody Travers appear as part of the final bosses Kyle has to defeat.
- Every 10,000 Points:
- In the arcade version, the game can be set to allow up to five extra lives (one for the first 100,000 points and the rest for every subsequent 200,000 points), only one extra life for the first 100,000 or 200,000 points or none at all.
- In the SNES version, the player can gain even more extra lives after the fifth one, resulting in a somewhat easier game, but the maximum stock is capped at nine.
- Evil Cripple: Averted with Belger, the big bad of Final Fight. He appears to be a cripple, but when his wheelchair is destroyed, he is perfectly capable of walking.
- Excuse Plot:
- Final Fight: The mayor's daughter is kidnapped by a gang. The mayor, who is a retired pro wrestler, enlists his daughter's boyfriend and his friend. They kick ass and take names.
- Final Fight 2: The mayor's friend's fiancée and master are kidnapped by the same gang he previously fought. He's joined by his friend's future sister-in-law and a Brazilian martial artist. They kick ass and take names.
- Final Fight 3: A gang war erupts in the city. The mayor's friend is back, and they're joined by a cop and a mysterious drifter out for revenge. They kick ass and take names.
- Executive Suite Fight: The final stage of the original Final Fight ends in a heavily-decorated office tower.
- Exploding Barrels: The ones that are on fire, anyhow.
- Fair Cop: Lucia.
- Fantastic Drug: In Streetwise, a drug called "GLOW" is spreading through the city. GLOW users eventually turn extremely violent, wandering the streets like zombies.
- Fight Clubbing: The heroes fight Sodom in an underground fighting ring and the Andore family (Father, Grandpa, and Uncle) in a steel cage match.
- Fireball Eyeballs: In the intro to Final Fight 2, Haggar briefly gets these, which then form the "2" on the title screen logo.
- Flunky Boss: These tend to be common. In the first game alone, Damnd, Edi.E, Abigail, and the Final Boss, Belger, all have mooks helping them. And a lot of bosses in subsequent games do too.
- Fragile Speedster: Guy in the first and third games, Maki in the second game, and Lucia in third game. Each are very fast. However, they can't take much damage.
- Freddie Mercopy: While not strictly based on him, many fans believe that Mike Haggar was modeled after Freddie Mercury, because of his iconic moustache and haircut, which greatly resembles how Freddie looked in The '80s.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: All of the enemies are named and have their own unique bios and personalities, but at the same time, this doesn't mean you won't see two or more of the same person onscreen at once.
- Giant Mook: The Andores are muscular enemies a head taller than regular mooks, and can expectedly tank several more hits before going down. Capcom would notably recycle the template for several later games, notably the Musashi enemies from Captain Commando, Tall Men knights from Knights of the Round and the Fei-fei brutes in Warriors of Fate.
- The Grappler: Haggar, as would be expected of a wrestler turned mayor who decides to beat up street thugs.
- Have a Nice Death: The continue screens in all three games. The first one has the character tied to a chair with a stick of dynamite placed in front of him, the second has the character tied up in a flooding room and the third has a spike trap descending toward your tied up character.
- Head Swap: Most of the enemy grunts except for Poison and Roxy, as well as all the Andores, who are actually palette swaps. Abigail, the Round 5 boss, is a head swap of Andore.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Killing Holly Wood or El Gado with the knives they drop can have this effect.
- Hurricane Kick: Some of the Megacrush attacks. Specifically Cody's Double Kick and Guy's Senpūkyaku, as well as Lucia's Hurricane Spinner. Maki's Reppūkyaku is a variant done while in a handstand.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Finding and eating sushi, chocolate, chicken, beer, spinach, burgers, curry, and more will refill health.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: The GBA and Sega CD versions of Final Fight have one:
- Very Easy.note
- Easy.
- Normal.
- Hard.
- Very Hard.
- Super Hard.note /Mania (Sega CD)
- I Own This Town: The Mad Gears did until Mike Haggar vowed that was going to change. Which started the plot.
- Inexplicably Preserved Dungeon Meat: Plates of meat can be found by smashing open steel drums, phone booths and even found in the wreckage of falling chandeliers.
- Jack of All Stats: Cody in the first game, Carlos in the second game, and Dean in the third game. Each are the most balanced characters in their respective games.
- Kabuki Theatre:
- Retu, introduced inFinal Fight 2, is a Kabuki dancer and the new boss of Mad Gear Gang. He has a large body, long red hair, white horns and a painted face
- Sodom, also from Final Fight, is a Japanese fan with some Kabuki details in personality and theatrical mannerisms in various of the games, mostly his Street Fighter appearances.
- Large and in Charge: With the exception of Rolento, every boss in Final Fight 2 is huge compared to the player characters. The character sheet included with Capcom Classics Collection states that some of the larger characters in the first game weigh as much as 800 lbs.
- Mercy Invincibility: Most of the Final Fight 1 bosses have generous invincibility frames when they recover from a knockdown, meaning hovering directly over them fishing for a grab or combo is a bad idea.
- Mighty Glacier: Haggar in the first and second games. He's slow and does lots of damage. Downplayed in the third game as each character is capable of dashing, though everyone still handily outrun Haggar.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: Final Fight 2 is basically the SNES port of the first game with nation-themed stages and different enemies, along with a full 3 character roster and 2 Player co-op mode brought back. It even brought back Rolento, a boss from the original arcade game who was missing in the SNES port.
- Multiple Endings: Final Fight Guy, the second SNES port of the original Final Fight, along with the two SNES sequels Final Fight 2 and Final Fight 3, each had a segmented ending in which a new scene is added to the ending for each difficulty setting so the full endings are only shown by completing the games on the hardest setting. Final Fight 3 has two endings, both depending on the characters being used and whether the bus stop sign is destroyed or not in Round 3.Note
- Musical Theme Naming: The first game seemed bent on being as much a Rock N Roll Fable as Streets of Fire. Here we've got: Sodom, Poison, Roxy, Axl and Slash, Simons, and Abigail.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed:
- There's a pair of guys, wearing leather jackets, named "Axl" and "Slash" in the first game.
- There's also the Andore family, who bear an uncanny resemblance to André the Giant.
- No Communities Were Harmed: Metro City is very obviously based on New York City. It even inexplicably features the Statue of Liberty in one stage in the first game.
- The location of the Statue of Liberty in relation to it, the Bay Area, seems to place Metro City specifically in Staten Island.
- Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo / Market-Based Title: Final Fight 3 was released as Final Fight Tough in Japan.
- One Game for the Price of Two: The first SNES version did not feature Guy, so a second version, titled Final Fight Guy, was made specifically to bring him back by removing Cody from the roster. There are other minor differences between the two versions, namely a revamped selection of difficulty settings with different enemy placement and new power-up items, but the two versions are otherwise identical save for the character roster.
- One-Man Army: All the heroic warriors are this (at least if you're playing alone).
- One-Steve Limit: There are two enemy characters named Billy in the series, one in the first SNES game and the other in Final Fight 3 (although the former was just Poison's replacement in the overseas versions of the game). Retu, the final boss in Final Fight 2, technically shares his name with Retsu, the Shorinji Kenpo master from the original Street Fighter, as "Retu" is just an alternate romanization of Retsu and both of their names are spelled with the same kanji.
- Pedestrian Crushes Car: There's a minigame where characters can beat up a car with their bare fists or a pipe and there's a time limit. Later used for Street Fighter II, where it's probably more well-known and doesn't have the hapless owner showing up and breaking down in despair.
- Put on a Bus: Cody and Guy in Final Fight 2. Guy came back for Final Fight 3 though.
- Rape as Drama: Well, the implied threat of it.Haggar: You son of a... What have you done to her?Damnd: Nothing yet... but we'd enjoy the opportunity...
- Recycled In Space: Pretty much every CPS beat 'em up Capcom produced afterward is Final Fight with a new theme or popular license (i.e: Knights of the Round is medieval Final Fight, Captain Commando is sci-fi Final Fight, and so on).
- Respect The Pipe: Pipes are common weapons, known for being slow but hard-hitting with decent range. It would later become a staple of Haggar's move set during his appearance in Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
- Rewarding Vandalism: Hungry? Destroy some trash cans and get a whole roast chicken.
- Segmented Ending: Final Fight Guy had one, as did the two SNES sequels.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: From the Game Boy Advance remake:Alpha Guy: As I thought, Jessica is here.Belger: Who are you? You are not listed...Alpha Guy: Maybe... I'm not the same person I was back then. I'm wearing new shoes!Belger: .....
- Shared Universe: With the Slam Masters and Street Fighter series, due to it being a
Divorced Installment of the latter. - She's a Man in Japan: Poison is one of the more (in)famous examples. Capcom initially tried to pass the female Poison and Roxy off for transvestites when they were told that released a game where the hero punches women was considered to be in poor taste in America. In later games, Poison's gender tends to vary depending on the game.note Roxy is implied to be a woman according to her character bio in Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 1, although previous character bios from Japanese guides (such as Tokuma's guide to the Super Famicom version) and one piece of concept art has contradicted this in the past.
- Shock and Awe: Dean in Final Fight 3.
- Shout-Out: The first game takes a lot of inspiration from Streets of Firenote .
- In Revenge, Zombie Belger can do the Thriller dance.
- One of Cody's super moves in Revenge ends with him saying "You Are Already Dead" as he walks away from an opponent getting hit by invisible strikes.
- The Mad Gear gang's name directly taken from an older Capcom game with the same title.
- One stage in Final Fight 3 has a Power Loader in the background and sets of guns in glass cases, all taken from Capcom's Alien vs. Predator arcade game.
- Sinister Subway: The second stage in the original game.
- Sleeves Are for Wimps: In the original three games, none of the playable characters have sleeves.
- Stock Money Bag: Gives a continue in Mighty Final Fight.
- Super-Deformed: Mighty Final Fight is essentially the original Final Fight converted to the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System with an experience points system and chibi characters and a more humorous plot.
- Unbuilt Trope: Remember the car-smashing minigame in Street Fighter II? Well, somebody actually owns that car in the first Final Fight, and they come back just in time to see what you did to it.
- Unique Enemy:
- The "regular" and Junior versions of Andore are very common in the original arcade game, but the Father, Grandpa and Uncle variants are exclusive to the cage fight scene in Round 3 (and Uncle only appears if a second player is present).
- In the original SNES version, only Grandpa and Uncle appear (Father was cut). In the Guy version, the player fights Father and Uncle first, and then Grandpa and Uncle again on the harder difficulties.
- All three unique Andores appear in the Sega CD version during Time Attack mode.
- Urban Hellscape: The game is built on this premise, with crime running so rampant that even the mayor himself has to step out of office and take to the street to beat the thugs with his own two hands. Naturally, the criminals are all punk-styled and have little in the way of characterization (granted, the heroes don't either, but still).
- Urban Segregation: Metro City has different districts from the slums to uptown.
- Vague Hit Points: Enemy bosses have a health bar, but extra health beyond the bar's normal range is instead represented by a colour.
- Vice City: The Mad Gear gang pretty much ruled Metro City because they had all mayors before Mike Haggar on the take. Haggar, however. couldn't be bribed, and had big plans to fix up the place. Thus initiating the original plot.
- Villains Out Shopping: Some of the gang members are just hanging out in the subway train and Bay Area before encountered. Bred was shopping inside the gas station while his car got mauled by the heroes.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Sodom from the first game. His dual katanas make him hard to attack normally without getting sliced into pieces, and even if he loses one or both, he can deliver a running headbutt that's very hard to dodge.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Guy gives Cody a rather physical version of this at the end of the first game when the latter ignores Jessica calling out to him. Guy, annoyed at Cody not bothering to talk to Jessica after all they've been through, beats Cody up so Jessica can catch up to him before leaving them be.
Out of context, this gets regularly misconstrued as Guy being jealous of Cody for being passed over by Jessica. - World Tour: The second game features levels in Hong Kong, France, Holland, England, Italy, and Japan.
- Would Hit a Girl: Subverted in the original game due to the ambiguous nature of Poison's and Roxy's birth sex (although the player can still punch Jessica when she's being used as a shield by Belger). Played straight with Mary, Eliza and May (not to mention Maki and Lucia) in the SNES sequels.
- Yellow Brick Road: The Ur-Example within the beat 'em up genre; the characters go through a single path from place to place.
