#169 Final Fight

Posted: 11th February 2018 by Jeroen in Games
Tags: , , ,

670th played so far

Genre: Fighting
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1989
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom

Final Fight is not a one-on-one fighter (as I thought for some time) – instead it’s another beat ’em up like Double Dragon. I guess it’s just one to experience.

Our Thoughts

This mostly felt like a pretty straight forward beat em up. You get your enemies storming you, you beat them off and keep going until they’re dead or you move ahead far enough. It uses props – showing how there’s more sophistication and use of the environment here – including chandeliers, but it’s not extensive enough to really have an impact. I never felt they helped me much, it was just an extra hit that got me.

It didn’t help here that I felt locked into my animations several times, with the game forcing animations to finish before I could continue acting. It made the game feel sluggish and frustrating, rather than fast as you want in situations where you get swarmed. Add to that a slightly awkward control scheme with not enough buttons – attack and pick up on one button being one of the compromises that don’t feel rightย  – and I had were a bunch of times where the game just felt frustrating.

There’s some interesting things – health pickups in the form of food feel a bit rare in this game – but despite some good ideas and a good basic setup, the game never took me from fine to memorable. To me, that’s unforgivable for this list.