It’s no secret that Capcom botched the Super Nintendo port of Final Fight in a pretty big way. Who on Earth could have thought it was a good idea to remove multiplayer from a beat ’em up? That’s only one of several downgrades, but it’s definitely the most significant. They improved the console exclusive sequels, but they were never quite as good as the Arcade version of the original title. Sega developed the Streets of Rage series to compete, and it was met with wild success. In a rather questionable move Sega opted to, instead of making a new installment in their own series, create their own licensed port of the original Final Fight on to their struggling add-on the Sega CD. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I’m glad it happened because this is easily the best version of Final Fight by a country mile.
The game stars three protagonists. You have Haggar, an ex wrestler turned mayor or Metro City, his friend and future son in law Cody, and their friend, a ninja named Guy. Final Fight CD begins as the ripped mayor receives a phone call. It’s the local crime syndicate; the Mad Gear gang, and they’ve kidnapped Haggar’s daughter Jessica. The three friends take it to the streets as they fight their way across town to rescue her. What’s interesting about this version of the game is the fact that the introduction is animated and fully voiced. It’s extremely cheesy for sure, but a nice addition nonetheless. Final Fight CD is the only version that has this enhanced opening sequence.
Gameplay is virtually unchanged from the original release. Final Fight CD is a typical beat ’em up game where you walk up, down, left and right as you fight groups of incoming enemies. Each character has a combination attack, jump, a throw, and a desperation move that knocks away all nearby enemies. All three characters play differently from one another, and thankfully no one was omitted from the roster this time around. Haggar is slow but by far the strongest, Cody is average in every area, and Guy is a little weaker but the fastest of the three. While I only ever play as Cody or Haggar it’s still nice to have Guy as an option. Especially now that you can play with a second player.
What I’ve always liked about Final Fight is the challenge the game offers. You’re always outnumbered (even when fighting with a second player), and the enemies feature very distinct attack patterns. The normal foes simply walk up and start punching, but others flip through the air, throw explosives, and more. The enemy roster is very diverse and quite interesting. My favorite enemy by far is Andore who is an obvious nod to Andre the Giant; the game is filled with a lot of early 90s references and cliches, and that’s one of its charms. It feels like a very Japanese view on mainstream America. It’s cheesy and delightful in this regard.
As I was saying earlier Final Fight CD can be quite difficult because you constantly have enemies coming in from all directions. The bosses in particular can be a little frustrating. They’re often fast and hard to hit, use long ranged attacks, or send waves of enemies at you to give them an unfair advantage. The game may feel cheap at times, but at least this time around you’re allowed to take a friend with you to even the odds. The simultaneous co-op mode is the only way to play as far as I’m concerned. It’s a crime that this wasn’t an option in the Super Nintendo release. It means that this is the definitive home version of the game.
The Super Nintendo version of this game was heavily censored for younger gamers, but thankfully most of the changes here aren’t nearly as substantial. Poison now appears as a woman, and the only major difference is her clothes were made less revealing. In addition the content that was removed in the SNES version has made a triumphant return here. The original home release was missing an entire level, and I’m happy that’s not the case here. The Sega CD version even includes multiple difficulty settings as well as a time attack mode that wasn’t in any other release of this game.
Aside from including missing content and settings the most substantial upgrade was to the soundtrack. Thanks to the CD quality audio Sega was able to completely re-arrange the music to the point that it’s hardly recognizable in the best way possible. It’s as if someone very talented took a modern whirl at remaking the music. It has a heavy jazz influence but that fits the cityscape setting and graphics. It also helps further cement the early 90s feel of the title. This is the only version of Final Fight with this music, and in my opinion it makes it the definitive release even over the original arcade coin-op machine.
Unfortunately this is one of the worst looking versions of Final Fight. The Sega CD unfortunately doesn’t seem as powerful as the Super Nintendo, because it’s even farther from the Arcade version visually. The colors are the major downgrade and the hardware appears to have had problems blending them well. This leads to a pixelated gradient look that isn’t particularly pretty. This causes some loss of detail in the character models and backgrounds, but it isn’t a significant downgrade. Another issue is that the game just doesn’t display as many enemies on-screen at once. This isn’t a huge deal, but it’s noticeable nonetheless.
The intro and ending sequences look… well… okay. It’s about what you would expect from animated sequences on the Sega CD platform. They feature only a little more animation than the original arcade release. I’ve always enjoyed the grungy early 90s art style of Final Fight. This version retains that look rather well. Final Fight CD falls short of Streets of Rage 2 visually, but it more than makes up for it in style. This is a pretty good looking release by 16-bit standards though I generally expect something a little more from the Sega CD to be honest.
The music is simply amazing here. Every single composition has been completely remixed, and it sounds incredible while still being memorable. There’s a lot of really solid instrumentation used here; from screeching electric guitars to drums it all sounds remarkable, and everything fits the game extremely well. My absolute favorite track is the subway theme with it’s rock and jazz fusion it is easily the standout track in this package. The sound effects unfortunately haven’t been upgraded for this release and sound muffled. They’re okay, but Sega should have re-recorded them to take advantage of the more powerful audio hardware. The voices are, as I’ve already mentioned, extremely cheesy. It fits the early 90s motif extremely well and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Overall the audio is well done and this game has one of the best soundtracks ever.
Final Fight CD is easily the very best version of one of the greatest beat ’em up games of all time. Every mistake made with the SNES release has been rectified here, and the improved soundtrack actually pushes this one above the Arcade version for me. The new additions and fixes more than make up for the slightly downgraded graphics, and every one who owns a Sega CD needs to add this to their collection. This is the definitive version of Final Fight, bar none.
