Intro
There are about 5 gazillions beat'em up on the Super Nintendo. No seriously you can look it up. If you try and count how many there are you'll just stop counting give up and say there are 5 gazillion of them just like I did.
It makes sense that there would be so many because they're such simple games. Button mashing at its finest.
So what makes any particular beat'em up better than another one? Well, for a game to be as repetitive as a beat'em up you need a "hook", you need something to get people addicted to doing the same thing over and over. That's because it's all you really do in games like this.
Music and sound
Final Fight is one of the best beat'em ups because its "hook" is the extremely satisfying sound of punching the shit out of some random shitbag. It really is that simple.
The sound of this game is so good we just want to keep kicking people's asses just so we can listen to it. Seriously when Hagar or Cody has a pipe there's nothing as satisfying as smanshing the shit out of some bad guys and hearing the sound of steel meeting bone. You have to play it so you would feel it.
Gameplay
But there is something inherently silly about beat'em up games and Final Fight captures the ridculouness perfectly. You gotta love being able to beat up a car with your own bare fists.
I always enjoyed the beat'em up staple of seeing the same guys over and over again. Maybe it is some weird cloning experiment going on in this games or maybe they are triplets that enjoy dressing the same skin tight leather. I also love the absurdity of seeing these guys getting stabbed with a knife but they keep getting up like zombies as if they are totally unaffected only to lurch right back into another stab to the face. It is so great!
A mechanism that Final Fight does really well is the ability to switch fighting from left to right. You're able to shoulder toss or back suplex to the other side really smoothly. That way you can get everyone on the same side and noone could sneak attack from behind. This flexibility is a key in the beat'em ups. Plus there's a variety of moves you can destroy people with.
Graphics and presentation
Final Fight perfects all the technicals aspects of the genre as well. You have gigantic colorful sprites, look at Super Double Dragon to comparison's sake. I also love how huge the bosses are. All the characters are fluid and expressive, the collosion detection is great.
Final thoughts
Unfortunately Final Fight on the Super Nintendo is not multiplayer. To see that you could play the Sega CD version but I find this version a little slower than the Snes counterpart.
