Vote Haggar
In the debate between 1989ās Final Fight and 1991ās Streets of Rage, Iām in the latter camp. Donāt get me wrong, I love Final Fight and understand that Streets of Rage was just Segaās answer to Capcom porting their seminal brawler to the SNES. I also realize that Streets of Rage is a blatant rip-off of Final Fight. However, I just love the sense of style and the fact that itās better suited to consoles.
However, Streets of Rage doesnāt have Mike Haggar, former pro-wrestler and beloved mayor of Metro City. Haggar is amazing not just because heās built like a pizza oven, but also because his backstory is so sparse you can apply whatever features you want onto him. Is he a mayor who only knows how to address crime with his fists? Maybe. Or perhaps he was working on addressing crime through social support programs to help the vulnerable population and guide them to making better choices than crime. Then Mad Gear kidnaps his daughter, so he has to put that on hold while he pile-drives some punks. He doesnāt negotiate with terrorists.
Unfortunately, Final Fight was clearly made for arcades, which made its Super Nintendo port a bit of a disappointment. It was made to eat quarters, and when you add on limited lives, it becomes a near-impossible endeavor. Also, it was single-player, which is just bizarre.
Final Fight would get two sequels that were exclusively on the SNES. Thereās a good reason why theyāre not quite as well-remembered as the original, but Mike Haggar is still in it, so I donāt care.
Guy’s Fiancee’s Sister
Iām not going to try and convince you that 1993 Final Fight 2 is as worth playing as the original arcade title, but there are two ways that itās better than the original SNES port. First, it has two-player co-op. Beat-āem-ups are best enjoyed with friends, always. Secondly, one of the playable characters is a female ninja. The first game completely omitted the fairer sex when it comes to playability. However, this doesnāt really matter much because Iām only interested in playing as Mike Haggar.
This time around, the whole kidnapping thing is a mess. Guyās fiancee, Rena, has been kidnapped along with his sensei. So Guyās fianceeās sister joins Mike Haggar and some other dude to get them back. Itās the Mad Gear gang again, but rather than just being some local roughs, theyāre all over Europe. That kind of international expansion seems like quite a step up.
Itās really just an excuse to have Mayor Fridge pile-drive abroad. Unfortunately, the locals are kind of lame. All the colors are muddy and washed out, and Holland is full of landmines for some reason. I dunno. I guess riding a train through London might be a bit better than suplexing Beefeaters in front of Buckingham Palace. Wait, no it isnātā¦
Chest Toupee
Itās a lot more monotonous than the first game in the series, which wasnāt all that varied, to begin with. Thereās a very small collection of enemies, and while Andore/Hugo shows up, Poison doesnāt. In fact, no women do in the North American version. I understand that Nintendo was pretty cagey about having women as villains in fighting games, but it doesn’t really help the visual diversity when every dude’s a dude.
Even the bosses arenāt all that special. Sometimes, I wasnāt even certain I was fighting a boss at all because the music wouldnāt change. The second boss looks vaguely like Macho Man Randy Savage with a chest toupee, but thatās the only reason I remember him.
Speaking of the music, itās awful. I donāt usually bring up soundtracks unless theyāre really good or really bad, and Final Fight 2 fits into the second category. I donāt know how this happened, as it was created by a group of Capcom composers, many of whom worked on the publisherās Mickey & Minnie games. The tracks just seem to be meandering messes with no core theme. Not that I really remember Final Fightās soundtrack very well, but I donāt recall it being this bad.
Doable difficulty
On the plus side, however, Final Fight 2 is a perfectly serviceable beat-āem-up. While I have my complaints, there are ones out there that are substantially worse. The gameplay in Final Fight 2 is in the upper regions of okay. The grabs have always been my favorite part of the series, and Final Fight 2 allows Mike Haggar to grab an enemy, then jump high into the air to slam them back down in a spinning piledriver. Yes. Even if the overall package is a little bland, I canāt knock the combat.
Plus, as I mentioned before, this supports a second player, which means itās a great little title to break out in the afternoon with a chum. Unlike the SNES port of the original game, getting through it on its default difficulty is totally doable. A little tricky but more in line with the difficulty of other console beat-āem-ups.
The greatest
Final Fight only had one true classic in the series, and that was Final Fight. But if you want more than that, the SNES sequels are as close as youāll get. Theyāre not bad. Theyāre just not great, either. I kind of wish Capcom put their whole ass into creating some great platforms to showcase Mike Haggar, but we remain to be weirdly deficient.
And thatās a shame because Mike Haggar is the greatest. What they really need to do is add Mike Haggar to Streets of Rage 4, because then weād have the perfect beat-āem-up. Iām not sure how anyone would make that happen, but if I had three wishes, that would be one of them. The main reason why I chose this game for my column was so I could talk about Mike Haggar. You can mark my words that this wonāt be the last time you find me writing about Mike Haggar. Vote Mike Haggar.
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Published: Dec 9, 2022 04:00 pm