Final Fight Review - Screenshot 1 of 1

Final Fight is one of those coin-ops that defines a generation. It was simply the only arcade game to be seen playing in the late 80's/early 90's. When the SNES conversion was confirmed, I was heartbroken - being a Mega Drive owner, I had hoped that the (false) rumours of a Sega port were true (Sega fans had to wait until the Mega CD before they got this classic brawler), but with Capcom jumping into bed with Nintendo it seemed impossible. All I could do was pray to the big console God in the sky that he, in his infinite wisdom, would deliver unto me a shiny new SNES when Christmas came around.

As luck would have it, I got one when they were launched in the UK, and Final Fight was one of the first games I got my hands on. The shock of seeing such massive, arcade perfect sprites beat the seven shades of snot out of each other was dampened slightly by the disappointment of the missing two player option (one of the biggest draws of the arcade original). The fact that the game was also lacking Guy and the factory level didn't help, but thankfully enough of the Mike Haggar-inspired magic was present to make this a must-own.

Conclusion

It really is amazing how close this conversion is to the original game, and it also displayed the gulf between the Mega Drive and the SNES at the time. Thankfully Sega saved face with its own brand of street fighting — notably with the Bare Knuckle/Streets of Rage series — but even the most hardline Sega fanboy would have to admit that in the early days of the SNES/MD war, this game was a sore point.

Envy is a terrible thing, after all.