Mar 1, 2012

Final Fight

Promo Poster.

The exploitation genre is not reserved to film makers only, there are plenty of other places where you can find hints of the many tricks that define exploitation as a genre itself. For instance, we have exploitation in music, with boy bands, fake singers, Disney singers, and so on. Also, exploitation can be found in the world of comic books, fashion, and almost everything that can be sold to us, the unaware zombie audience. Today's entry is about a fond memory from the not so distant past. Gee, how long has it been since Arcade centers were out of business for good. When did that happen? was it because of the home videogame consoles rise? Probably. 

Final Fight's arcade machine.
Guy was always my favorite character.
The action & scenery resemple a lot of 80's b movies.
The problem was fighting several enemies at once.
Arcade centers in the 80's decade where the go to place for millions of people looking for some electronic entertainment at the very affordable toss of a coin (or two) Capcom, the japanese videogame manufacturer,  delivered plenty of succesful games for home videogame systems and of course the arcade centers. Only a moron would'nt know Capcom created Mega Man (known as Rockman in Asia) Street Fighter, Ghouls & Ghosts and 1942 to name a few. Today's entry though, will be about another great videogame full of action and with a very interesting storyline: Final Fight.

Final Fight (Japanese: ファイナルファイト?) is a side-scrolling beat-'em-up game where the player takes control of one of three vigilantes who must rescue a kidnapped young woman from a ruthless street gang.

The game was originally conceived as a sequel to the original Street Fighter titled Street Fighter '89, but the title was changed before its release when the game's genre changed from a one-on-one competitive fighting game to a side-scrolling action game similar to Double Dragon or Golden Axe. Final Fight was ported to various platforms from that time, such as NES, Super NES and Mega-CD, since its original coin-op release.

This bonus stage was borrowed from Street Fighter.
Nasty.
Air kicks always ruled.
This stage is very difficult, mostly due to the unwanted flames.

Final Fight was followed by a series of sequels that were produced primarily for the home console market, and some of the game's characters would reappear in later Street Fighter games. 

The plot line is chronologically set during the time of the original Street Fighter, Final Fight is set in the fictional American metropolis of Metro City, based on New York City. A former professional wrestler named Mike Haggar is elected as the new Mayor of the city, promising to handle the city's criminal problem in his campaign. The Mad Gear gang, the dominant criminal organization of the city, plots to bring Haggar under their control by kidnapping his daughter Jessica and using her as leverage against him. Enlisting the help of Cody, Jessica's boyfriend and a Martial Arts master himself, as well as Cody's sparring partner, a ninjutsu master named Guy, Haggar opts to fight the gang instead in order to save his daughter. 

Cosplayers rock.
Hit me!
Poison like you've never seen her before.
Nice twat poison.
dear oh dear.
After the golde ange of arcade, this game, like many others fell into obscurity and was stored in Capcom's vault for more than 20 years. It was not until very recently that Capcom decided to give the game a second chance by releasing it for the iPhone/iPad just like as it was released in 1989, no changes, no updates, just the original game and the big nostalgia within. I own it and I gotta tell you is worth the money, as you'll spend hours and hours playing this masterpiece. Now, if you don't own an apple gadget, I'm sure you know how to play it through your favorite arcade/console emulator.

Final Fight has a big tribe of fans around the globe, specially the ladies that dig cosplaying the mean gals characters of Roxy & Poison.

Here an interesting Final Fight's game play video collection:

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