Review: Final Fight — Double Impact (360)

If you were a kid in 1990, there wasn’t a pizza joint around that didn’t have a Final Fight arcade game. This game didn’t invent the “walk to the right brawler” genre, but it definitely popularized it to the point that the ’90s arcades were filled with them.

Given the throwback feel of many console downloads, Final Fight is right at home among the crowd and the thrown in adventure arcade title Magic Sword sweetens the deal. Final Fight: Double Impact features the original arcade versions of both titles in one bundled package. Capcom has been faithful to both contemporary and old school gamers when handling the visuals of these two titles, but it still may not be enough to captivate a purchase.

In Final Fight you play as one of three main protagonists on a quest to save the mayor’s kidnapped daughter. Along the way you will face numerous enemies and bosses that you must beat up to move forward. Basically you’re just jamming down one button over and over until you knock out each enemy — but trust me, back then that was a ton of fun.

The first things I look for in arcade ports are the visual options, of which Final Fight has many including a view that recreates playing the original arcade, complete with banner artwork and a rounded screen. For those of you who want the benefits of modern consoles and HDTV to create a much smoother look, you’re covered as well.

The controls are precise and given that the game only requires a joystick and two buttons it adapts easily to modern controllers. Just like an arcade, the game allows you to play with unlimited credits to make it to the end, and trust me you’re going to need them. Final Fight is a difficult game to beat because it comes from a time where the goal was to get you to feed as many quarters as possible. For that reason you will notice that many of the enemies deal large amounts of damage and come at you in abundance, not to mention the unbalanced boss battles. With unlimited credits you’re sure to make it to the end, but not without dying a lot.