Final Fight

The plot remains the same... almost. Belgar has kidnapped Jessica (Cody's girlfriend and daughter of Mayor Haggar) intends to marry her against her will, but Haggar and Cody aren't exactly too pleased with this and intend on taking the Mad Gear Gang out. Along with their friend Guy, players traverse solo through five stages of thugs, all of which have been re-designed from their "bigger" counterparts. A few scenes may look familiar to FF alumni, but 90% of the game is new.

The gameplay hasn't changed that much as it still requires controlling the main characters in their quest to beat down every last thug the Mad Gear has available. Combos are still the best way to complete the task at hand, but a new experience feature allows players to gain new moves as the game progresses. While there's nothing terribly innovative here, it's a nice addition to an already solid title.

The five stages are challenging enough, but the amount of characters crammed into the cart is disappointing. Fans will recognize familiar faces such as Andore, Two P., Abigail, Hollywood, and Sadaam. Unfortunately, that's pretty much the games roster. Belgar of course appears at the games finale (in a new cyborg form), but classic bosses such as the crazed cop Eddi E. are notably absent.

While the NES obviously couldn't handle a perfect conversion of the now classic arcade game, Capcom has shrunk the game and given it a super-deformed-Japanime style. The colors are vibrant and use all of the NES's 16-color palette. Flicker is evident on nearly all the characters and the age-old console can only handle 3 characters at once (seriously depleting the challenge level), but this is easily one of the best looking games in the consoles long history. The bonus stages now consist of punching moving barrels instead of busting up a car, obviously due to the limitation of the console, but these are much more challenging than breaking a stationary car.

Music from Final Fight is quite memorable, but Capcom has changed it all for the NES version. None of the tunes have been repeated from the classic versions, but the mixes are a nice compliment to the onscreen action, easily as addictive as the older soundtrack. Recycled sound effects from numerous other games fill out the rest of the soundtrack, not that much more could be done in this area.

Taken as a whole, MFF easily stands out as an awesome NES title. It's short length and occasional cheap boss patterns bring it down a notch, but it's a nice gesture from Capcom for NES fans who weren't ready to upgrade at the start of the 16-bit era. While most would prefer the flawless Sega CD Final Fight, Mighty stands alone as an interesting diversion from those who have simply had enough of this game in their diet over the past 10 years. Actually, if it wasn't for River City Ransom, this would easily be the best side scroller on the console. That says a lot when there's over 700 games for a system.