Final Fight article

[steven]

Very well done. But one part I'd like to point out and clarify a bit:

<< There are some amusing collisions with reality within Final Fight. Bad guy Andore is obviously modeled after the late wrestler Andre the Giant, although when he was renamed Hugo in Street Fighter 3, probably out of respect to his departed model. And the story of mayor Haggar oddly parallels the story of former wrestler Jesse Ventura, who actually left the world of beating people up to become the governor of Minnesota. Sadly, no one ever attempted to kidnap his daughter, though one might wonder what the world would be like if they did. >>

It should be noted Jesse Ventura did not become a governor til the later 90's, and the Final Fight plots obviously were in the early 90s... so this Haggar-Mayor thing is purely coincidental. I am a big wrestling fan so I felt the need to point that out.

Otherwise, a fab article. Final Fight Revenge is one of my guilty pleasures, and I know I'm in the minority there but I just dig the game for all its silliness.

[MRSKELETON]

You know.
Steven I never want you to use "fab" in a sentence ever again.



Ever.
Interesting theory there though.

[natabuu]

I believe Hugo's full name in SFIII is Hugo Andore. As for the Ventura thing, the phrase "oddly parallels" basically acknowledges that it's a coincidence.

[steven]

mazinsaga said:

You know.
Steven I never want you to use "fab" in a sentence ever again.



Ever.
Interesting theory there though.

LOL, I see what you mean now. Never crossed my mind... I usually use "ace." At least I didn't say "faaaaabulous"...

[steven]

natabuu said:

I believe Hugo's full name in SFIII is Hugo Andore. As for the Ventura thing, the phrase "oddly parallels" basically acknowledges that it's a coincidence.

Ohhhh I see now. Yeah I get what you're saying. My bad, scratch my original post I simply didn't read it thoroughly enough. I see what the author meant.

[ReyVGM]

It should be noted too that haggar stole Zangief's pile driver because Zangief stole his spinning lariat move.

[Ryu the Grappler]

I know this is like a two-year-old thread and I'm not sure if I pointed them out somewhere before, but there's a few inaccuracies I noticed in the article.

The extended scene where Jessica is shown tied-up on a monitor wearing her underwear is actually included in the the Japanese version of the arcade game, so its not an extended scene that was added to the home versions, but rather one which was sort of "restored". Her attire is changed to a red dress in the SFC/SNES/GBA ports (as well as in the Western Sega CD version), while the Japanese Mega CD version actually keeps her in her undies.

The writing makes it seems as if all the SNES versions were censored, when only the US/PAL versions were. The Japanese Super Famicom versions were technically uncensored (unless you count changing Jessica's attire from underwear to a red dress), so they still had Sodom, Damnd and Poison instead of Katana, Thrasher and Billy.

Also Final Fight Guy is not exactly the same as Final Fight for the SNES with one character replaced with another. The enemy placement is actually different, there's some mild enhancements and some new power-ups which were not in the original game (namely the Guy/Haggar doll and the Jessica doll). The opening and ending sequences are also different to reflect the character change and you only get the full ending by beating the game on Expert (a gimmick which was repeated in the two SNES sequels).

And yes, Poison is meant to be a guy. I once had a PDF of the Mega CD version's manual which pretty much confirms it. Although I not sure if they established this before or after Capcom did the home versions, considering Poison's profile in All About Capcom Fighting Games states that she was originally meant to be female until someone at Capcom USA objected to having the main character hit women. Game Over, the David Sheff book, seems to feature a similar story, in which a Capcom USA playtester complained about the female enemies in the SNES version, only to be told by one of the Japanese designers that the "female" enemies were men in drag.

The US version of Final Fight 2 was also censored, albeit not to the same extend as FFight 1. Won Won, the first boss, wields a meat cleaver and the shemale enemies Mary and Eliza were once again replaced. May was kept in Final Fight 3, but only because she's supposed to be a real woman.

I also don't understand why the hell Kurt (or anyone else for that matter) refers to Maki as a "Mai Shiranui ripoff". The only thing is common is that they're modern-day female ninjas that both happen to be wearing red. Their outfits are hardly alike and they don't even have the same fighting style. Not to mention Final Fight 2 came only a few months after Fatal Fury 2.

[ReyVGM]

Also, the Japanese Sega CD Final Fight ending has new scenes not seen on any other version.

[Ryu the Grappler]

Oct 28, 2008 1:40:13 GMT -5 ReyVGM said:

Also, the Japanese Sega CD Final Fight ending has new scenes not seen on any other version.

More accurately, there an extra scene in the Japanese Mega CD version that was cut out from the English-dubbed version, but its not much since its only like two lines of extra dialogue.

After Haggar embraces Jessica, we get to see Cody and Guy staring at the window where Belger falls off. Guy asks Cody if he's going to talk to Jessica and Cody says that she's better off without him.

[steven]

Whoa, nearly two years to the day! Holy crap, haha. Did not expect to see this one again. Ironically enough, Final Fight (SNES) has been reviewed on my website since then. I like the SNES port more than a lot of people, though I acknowledge it should have been soooo much better. Oh well, I still like it a bit, especially for its time.

[daimakaimura]

the Snes port was released early in the life cycle of the Snes-system
and it actually showed wath the system could do, it has way better sound then the Arcade edition
if only they had included the 2P ^^ we still would be playing the Snes then

[Ryu the Grappler]

Oct 28, 2008 7:44:34 GMT -5 daimakaimura said:

the Snes port was released early in the life cycle of the Snes-system
and it actually showed wath the system could do, it has way better sound then the Arcade edition
if only they had included the 2P ^^ we still would be playing the Snes then

I liked the SNES version too. I wasn't aware it was an arcade port when I first played it, so I didn't learn that the game was supposed to have an extra character and a 2-player mode until I read about it on a magazine. Judged by its own merits, the SNES version is pretty decent as far as SNES beat-em-ups are concerned and its actually better than some of the system's later offering.

In some ways, I found Final Fight Guy to be more enjoyable than Final Fight 2, which was obviously Capcom's attempt to compensate for the lack of a 2-Player mode and the absence of Rolento in the first two SNES games. The graphics and music don't seem as good as they were in the original SNES game and IIRC the 2-Player mode would slow down if there were three enemy characters on-screen (its been awhile since I last played it, so I could be wrong). You could also argue that Final Fight for the SNES is more balanced than the arcade version, since there's never more enemies than you can handle.

I'll state it again: Maki is NOT a Mai-ripoff. Their games came around the same time and there's very little in common between them. If Capcom was ripping off someone, it was likely Blaze Fielding from Streets of Rage (another red-clad heroine from a beat-em-up who specializes in speedy attacks), which is only fair since she was the game's female version of Guy, while Maki is a real female counterpart to Guy.

[ReyVGM]

I love the SNES FF too. Specially the music and the bad ass no nonsense sound effects.
I like FF2's look and feel better than the first one, but the abysmal soundtrack and tame sfx didn't do it for me.

[Ganelon]

Oct 28, 2008 1:09:44 GMT -5 Ryu the Grappler said:

the shemale enemies Mary and Eliza were once again replaced. May was kept in Final Fight 3, but only because she's supposed to be a real woman.

Is there a source for the first bit? I thought they were actually female.

And that's why I prefer FF3, the only US Final Fight game that isn't censored. But I was always unsure why they finally included the female enemies, chalking it up to loosening standards of the time.

[Ryu the Grappler]

Oct 28, 2008 11:02:29 GMT -5 Ganelon said:

Oct 28, 2008 1:09:44 GMT -5 Ryu the Grappler said:

the shemale enemies Mary and Eliza were once again replaced. May was kept in Final Fight 3, but only because she's supposed to be a real woman.

Is there a source for the first bit? I thought they were actually female.

I read that in the Japanese-language Wikipedia. Of course, the site is about as reliable as its English-language counterpart, so the editor who added that bit could be wrong. It would be nice if someone scanned the character profiles from the Super Famicom versions of the game, if only to be sure myself.

Mary and Eliza, unlike Poison and Roxy, look very feminine and they even have very feminine (and vaguely erotic) moan when they die.

I don't know why anyone would think Poison is a real girl. If you ignore the concept art they did for the game and go by the sprite, he really looks like a guy with breast implants wearing woman clothing. Even the voice sounds like a guy imitating a woman's scream. When I looked at Poison's sprite for the first time, the first thought in my head was "that looks like a guy".

I was going to point out that the SNES version of Captain Commando kept the female enemies, but then I remember that version came in 1995 (by this time the ESRB already established a rating system).

BTW, Poison Kiss (Poison's counterpart in Mighty Final Fight) is supposed to be a real girl and not a newhalf. She's actually the original Poison's younger sister.