Final Fight

I recently got the Capcom beat-em-up collection for the Switch, which is such an interesting look into where games were heading in the late 80s and early 90s. 

Games like Double Dragon and River City Ransom took the world by storm and it seemed like as long as games were on a 2D plain, beat-em-ups were going to have a place in the world. 

I returned to Final Fight for the first time in probably 20 years at this point, and I got thoughts.

The Story 

I had a vague memory of the storyline and thought maybe my childhood imagination made up some of my details. No, it's as wild as I remember it. 

Ex-pro-wrestler, current mayor, Mike Haggar's daughter is kidnapped after he refuses a bribe from a crime lord. 

So Mayor Mike recruits his daughters boyfriend, Cody, who happens to be a fighter, who also happens to be best friends with a ninja in training, Guy, who has nothing better to do than fight across Metro City with these two other crazy people. Got it? OK, let's move on.

Weapons

Our group of protagonist only need fists as weapons. So Haggar tears off his button down shirt and they go on a vigilante justice campaign.

The enemies though, these crazy bastards be thinking, "Hey, I'm going to go get into a fight... probably... idk, maybe in case I run into an ex-wrestler beating up my friends on the street, might as well grab a few dozen knives just in case."

"Knives are pretty cool, but have you thought about recklessly throwing Molotov cocktails into crowds of mostly our own people?"

"I'm going to go ahead and store pipes in these giant barrels we have laying around everywhere."

The Rip Offs

In true 1980s/90s Japanese game company fashion, they ripped off American icons left and right. 

You've got Andore, who is very obviously Andre the Giant. At first Andore is a boss early on, soon he becomes more of a common nuisance. 

Abigail is another hulking monster of a boss. He's supposedly based off of Canadian pro-wrestler Édouard Beaupré 

There's Axl and Slash, both inspired by Guns N' Roses. 

Streets of Fire, the rock musical about growing up on the mean streets and fighting also inspired both Jessica and Cody. 

I just love games coming out of Japan at the time. There was almost no regulation at the time. No one really paying attention to these cute little videogame toys. Meanwhile, you had people like Kojima ripping large parts of Metal Gear straight from American action films. 

Summation

We may never know why the trio decided to fight their way on foot across Metro City instead of taking a car. We may never know if Bill Bull and Wong Who were just dock workers earning a pay check when Cody showed up and started fighting them. 

Metro City is just built differently man. If the FBI would just recognize it, Metro City would beat out St. Louis and Detroit as the most dangerous place in America. There's MFers wandering around with swords and eating apples off the concrete. 

You can't tell me they aren't made differently in Metro City. 

I'm glad to hear from early reviews that Capcom has some of this goofiness in Street Fighter 6. There was a moment where everything went from light hearted to just the darkest of dark and serious storylines. Sometimes you just want to beat the shit out of Mike Haggar's car for bonus points... because reasons.