"Snap Into A Slim Jim!"

Since Cain first turned to Abel and hit him with a rock, people have enjoyed hitting people. The Final Fight games have been letting people beat up other people and eat random ground meat for years. Most gamers are (or should be) familiar with the story of Mike Haggar, Cody, and Guy’s quest to walk to the right and pound people in the face, and to save Haggar’s daughter/Cody’s girlfriend. Most either experienced the sweet multiplayer joy of the arcade or at least the fun solo SNES experience. What most folks don’t realize is there was actually an NES version of “Final Fight”. Read on to learn about this lesser known member of the Final Fight family.

“Mighty Final Fight” came out in 1993, long after most gamers had moved on to the SNES. It is a side scrolling beat-em-up, much like its brother, but it has a much more lighthearted tone. The characters are super-deformed, with massive heads and tiny little bodies. I think of them as Human T-Rexes (T-Rexi? T-Rexs?). Graphically, the game is closer to the original “Double Dragon” than the original “Final Fight.” However, even with the limited 8 bit graphics, the faces all manage to convey a lot of personality. Being a NES game, though, the animation is limited. Most punches have 2 or 3 frames, but you are usually too busy knocking people out to worry about it.

The game actually has all 3 characters from the Arcade release (the SNES version did not have Guy). Sadly, multiplayer is still sorely lacking. The 3 characters are all fun to play, although I am partial to the greatest Mayor in history; Mike Haggar. Guy is super fast, Haggar is super strong, and Cody strikes a nice balance between the two.

The gameplay is similar to most beat-em-ups; Walk right, punch people until they are all knocked out, then proceed right some more. The game manages to pack quite a few moves into the two buttons. You have your standard punches and jumps, as well as jump kicks, and a life depleting super move that knocks everyone around you down, but saps your life bar. There are also some sweet throws and pile drivers, but I couldn’t get them to work consistently. The best strategy seemed to be jump kicking back and forth across the screen.

Where Mighty Final Fight actually expands upon its SNES counterpart is the way your characters level up as you play. Each bad guy you beat up gives you a few experience points. Each time you level up, your health is refilled and your character gets a little stronger and faster. By the time you reach level 4, you unlock the secret move. It is weird, but you can also get unique weapons by punching the random oil drums that roll down the street. I guess Mayor Haggar was just too busy being awesome to worry about the gang and oil drum problems.

Due to the limitations of the NES it seems like no more than 3 bad guys appear on screen at once. This makes it a little easier to keep from getting surrounded.

The game is fun and, had it come out earlier in the console’s life, it would probably be looked back on as a classic. As it is, the game is little more than an odd curio. One of those strange releases from the death throes of the NES. Not quite up to par with its older brother, but a fun diversion. Here at Wingdamage.com we don’t believe in numerical scores so I give it a Rambo III: Rambo Boxes Afghanistan (try to metacritic that!).

Tags: Beat-em-up, Cody, Guy, Haggar, Mighty Final Fight, NES

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.