Power Hour Review - Final Fight (Famicom)

Welcome to the first “Power Hour”!  Thanks to my hubby for the name idea J  I have a lot of games so figure if I play them for at least an hour I could give my thoughts and feelings based on that first impression I got.  Plus it’s a lot easier for me to find an open hour in my schedule than a full day to dedicate to playing one game.  I’ll go over the usual things like graphics, sound, story, and controls and I will also talk about if this game within this first hour made me wanna play more or put it back on the shelf to collect dust.

The first entry for Power Hour is Mighty Final Fight on the Famicom.  It was released on both NES and Famicom, but the Fami version was cheaper to pick up so that’s the one I have.

Unfortunately I don’t have much of a personal history with the Final Fight franchise. I never played it as a kid but luckily I saw it featured on one of Nathan’s blog posts on videogamesarerad.com.  Wow I’m so glad I finally picked it up and gave it a try!  In my mind Final Fight is a better version of the original Double Dragon, from the 1 hour I put into it on Saturday.  Looks wise it reminds me of games like River City Ransom with the kind of chibi like deformed characters.  Then the experience point system is reminiscent of the one used in Splatterhouse and a better version of the Double Dragon one. 

The story is nothing really unique.  The mayor Metro City (Haggar’s) daughter Jessica, who apparently is so amazingly beautiful she gives the citizens the power to survive, and a villain (Belger, the leader of the Mad Gear Gang) decides he wants this beacon of light all to himself, how selfish! Apparently he loves her too.  Man when I see her she better be drop dead gorgeous, nothing like setting the bar for my expectations super high!  It’s a 1 player game, which kinda sucks but the game gives you a choice of three different characters, Cody, Guy and Haggar.  All three control very different so it really matters who you choose to play the level with, it’s not just a different looking sprite who is exactly the same.  Cody is a tough street fighter who is good with knives, Guy has great agility as he is descended from ninjas and Haggar is a hot tempered wrestler.

I really appreciate how they show exactly how many more experience points you need to level up, and how it makes a chime sound when you level up. The amount of experience points you earn is all based on what attack you use to finish off the bad guy.  The stronger attacks will earn you more points than using a weak one to finish them off.   Whenever the character gains a level they become more powerful and their vitality is increased. There are 6 levels in total.  When you start the game with Cody or Guy you start at the first level, but if you start with Haggar you are automatically started at  level 3.  As you gain level you will learn a new special attack when you reach Level 4.  Each character has their own unique attack that can be performed by pressing the directional pad left or right rapidly and hitting the attack button at the same time.

The game was made by Capcom and based on the catalogue of games they put out on the NES such as Mega Man you know at the very least the controls will be good.  They definitely don’t disappoint.  The controls are very easy to pick up on and it’s very easy to do combinations and pull off the moves each character has.  You can do flips, throws, punches, flying kicks, use weapons and special attacks.

The interactions you have with the bosses.  I have the Famicom version so I’m not totally sure what they are saying so when they asked me a question, but I would always answer hai (which is yes in Japanese).  After looking on YouTube I was apparently agreeing to bow down to them.  Despite this they still wanted to fight, you think they would be happy I was agreeing with them.

I like the variety of bad guys that you have to fight during the levels.  It’s not the same two bad guys you fight for the whole level.  There is a guy in a toque who looks like a bum who throws knives at you, some tough purple haired chicks with high heels, spiky haired guys, guys in capes and the usual huge buff dudes.  The level bosses are pretty cool too with a guy dressed as a samurai, long haired dudes with sunglasses and no shirt,  

In going through the levels you don’t get health energy from the guys you are fighting but from barrels that are being rolled at you.  When you break open the barrels sometimes it will drop food or things like meat that you can pick up and top off your energy, and other times you will earn a bunch of experience points to use towards leveling up.
This game is really good and it's addictive to play so you always come back for more!  I highly recommend picking this one up, you will not regret it!