Final Fight

STORY / GAMEPLAY
The game is set in the fictional Metro City and the story centers around the kidnapping of the recently elected Mayor's daughter, Jessica, by the dominant street gang in the city known as Mad Gear. Mad Gear seeks to bring the Mayor under their full control and the Mayor, a former pro wrestler named Mike Haggar, refuses to give in the gang's demands and sets out to rescue his daughter with the help of her boyfriend, a martial arts fighter named Cody, and his friend, a modern-day Bushin ninja named Guy. You can choose between one or two players fighting and killing all the enemy characters that try to stop you, until you finally confront a stronger boss character at the end of each level. Once that boss is beaten, the players automatically move on to the next stage.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
Unfortunately, the Amstrad CPC version looks like a direct ZX Spectrum port and thus the gameplay is slow with several problems in its scrolling and sprite animation. At least the CPC uses some proper colors that resemble more accurately the original coin-op graphics (when compared to the, way smoother and more playable, C64 version). The sprites move really slow and, at times, gameplay gets frustrating. The game's sound is OK though, offering the original introductory tune while the in-game effects are rather poor and dull. Overall, I think the CPC conversion could do better but the devs choose to make direct CPC ports from the little Speccy and make things look and play badly on the CPC hardware!