Super Final Fight

Capcom decided to reveal a bunch of new characters for Super Street Fighter IV last week. Well, they're not actually "new" per se, just "new" in the sense that they're "new" to Street Fighter IV. Chances are, if you've followed Capcom games for a long time now, then you're likely familiar with all three of them; or at least two of them. Adon was introduced in Street Fighter Alpha, and while both Guy and Cody were featured in that series - the former for a much longer time than the latter - they existed before that in Final Fight.

The Final Fight franchise couldn't be further from relevant nowadays. Ask someone who's been playing video games for a while, and who perhaps frequented the arcade, and they'll possibly reminisce about the good old days -- like, back when brawlers were good. Though if you find someone that really knows their stuff, they might tell you about how pitiful of a product the Japan-only Saturn fighter Final Fight Revenge was. And who knows, but there's bound to be someone who played Final Fight: Streetwise; maybe even liked it.

(No offense to you if you did, of course.)


Its characters may live on, but news from last week also proved that Capcom is at least still interested in the series. A two-game package featuring both the original arcade Final Fight and Magic Sword is coming to Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network, called Final Fight: Double Impact. (No relation to the movie.) Like any update to an old game released for an HD console, it'll also come packed with a hideous filter -- which sounds like a Backbone Entertainment staple, though they aren't the developers -- but thankfully you have the option to turn it off. It's also online!

The main problem here will be the playability. When I first saw the title, I figured that it was either an adaptation of Final Fight 2 & Final Fight 3 to another console, since the first game has been ported -- almost literally -- everywhere. The second and third games in the series were only available on SNES, with the second game being on the Virtual Console in America and Europe, and the third game on VC only in Japan. It's kind of a pity that it's just another port of the first one, but online should help ease the pain - as long as it's not broken like Gunstar Heroes.

Oh, and I hear Magic Sword is pretty good too. I have no experience with the game, though.

I'm not sure what Capcom is planning to do here. When a company releases a port of an old game, they're usually doing it to test the market and/or generate interest for a revival. As mediocre as it was, Final Fight: Streetwise did have some good ideas in it, the game being developed from the same team responsible for the superlative Maximo titles. I'd like to see what they do with the franchise; well, if they revive it.

(Still waiting on that Strider revival, guys.)

Image courtesy of IGN. But you knew that.