Final Fight

The Good
Final Fight CD is was the best version of Final Fight to hit the home console market until 2005 when it came out for the Playstation 2. It has many features missing from the Super Nintendo translation such as the missing level, the female characters, and the missing playable character, Guy.

There are some extra features and graphics not found in any other version of Final Fight such as additional into screens. There are also three timed levels with new backgrounds that are not found in the Arcade. I would rather they had incorporated them into the main part of the game as extra levels than making them selectable demos, however.

It is better than Final Fight for the SNES, better than Streets of Rage for the Genesis, and better than Final Fight 3. It is inferior to Streets of Rage 2 and about on par with Final Fight 2.

This was the best fighting game for the Sega CD and was among the main reasons many purchased the Sega CD system (which had few merits).

The Bad
The color pallet on this game is tremendously reduced from the arcade game, making the graphics inferior to its SNES counterpart.

This is not excusable because Sega's own Streets of Rage 2 had far more colorful graphics than Final Fight CD. Final Fight CD has all of the muscle of the Sega CD's extra processor and extra storage capacity leading one to believe that the only reason it could possibly have such a washed out color pallet is due to lazy programmers.

The music tracks are silly. I would rather have had a duplication to the Arcade game than the silly jazz tracks they put on this CD. The voices are also campy and poorly acted.

The game is has worse play control than the arcade resulting in difficult situations in which it is impossible not to get killed (in later stages).

The Bottom Line
This is arguably the best version of Final Fight to come to home systems prior to the Capcom Classics Collection for the PS2. It has some extra features seen in no other version of Final Fight making it worthwhile for collectors. I'd recommend the PS2 version over this one, however.

If you like this game I would also recommend the following: Streets of Rage 2 (Genesis) Final Fight 2 (SNES) Captain Commando (SNES) Capcom Classics Collection (PS2) *Streets of Rage (Genesis)