Welcome to the Retro Arena and it is a new segment where we pit a pair of similar classic games against each other. During the Bit Wars, competition between Nintendo's Super NES and Sega's Genesis raged on throughout the era. Both consoles always had games similar to the other but had different characters and themes. Of course, each system received exclusive titles as the Super NES port of Final Fight, and Streets of Rage for Sega's Genesis holds true to that. The 80s and 90s for the brawler genre were its golden age as many titles filled both the arcades and the consoles. For companies of Data East, Capcom and Sega were usually their bread and butter as these games were sought after the most. The only thing left of this genre today is mostly through Indie games like Double Dragon Neon and Fight'N Rage. At least newer studios like WayForward are still taking it seriously in a sea of the latest Call of Duty/Elder Scrolls type releases. In Retro Arena, I will compare Gameplay, Graphics and Features and then give a final resolution to which game is superior. Gameplay Final Fight In comparison to its arcade counterpart, the Super NES port manages to keep its key gameplay features. The gameplay has your standard brawling mechanics of punching, kicking, throwing and using weapons against enemies. I can't say Capcom did a lousy job porting this to the system as many mechanics and the enemies were still retained. However, they removed the backbone of these games with a local two-player co-op. As mentioned in the review, removing co-op in brawlers is the dumbest idea a studio could do. It ruins the replay value considering these games were actually built around teaming up with another gamer. They also removed Guy — that was my personal pick because he was balanced — leaving the power hitters of Cody and Haggar. It's bad enough a couple of levels were cut which again shows how quickly Capcom wanted this to hit stores. The port had the potential to retain its arcade counterpart's features but the company's laziness only hurt it in the end. If there is one thing Capcom’s own has over Sega’s is the levels actual transition to new areas. It creates a diverse challenge while changing the scenery up to feature different enemies and weapons. That is what Final Fight had over the competition’s beat ‘em up and the first caption highlights a transitional area. The Subway level begins at the station where you fight until every baddie is beaten. Then you get taken to a transitional area of the stage where the challenge is changed. Now, the second caption shows Katana as the bosses in these old brawlers weren’t easy to contend with. If one thing annoyed me is when performing a three hit attack or using a slam would cause these asses to get up and charge at the player. Even after you back away to use a melee weapon to anticipate this tactic, they somehow reach you despite being perfectly inline. The same thing happens in the Downtown stage when facing the two Andores. Streets of Rage Sega throwing their hat into the mix wasn't much of a surprise as it was a popular genre. However, unlike Final Fight, which was a port, SOR was actually a console exclusive developed solely around the Genesis' hardware. The gameplay is nearly the same as most brawlers released in the 90s with a 3D plane and facing waves of enemies. One thing Sega got right unlike Capcom was actually developing a strength versus weakness system for each character. You have Axel the power hitter, Adam the balanced fighter and Blaze the speedster. There are three ways of completing this game and each brought a different element to face the challenges. Of course, Blaze was always my pick as she played similar to Guy from Final Fight. The enemies are about the same as you would see in most beat 'em ups between the common ones and the bosses. However, one thing it has over Final Fight is a two-player co-op which is a selling point for many. At the same time it also lacks a level being broken up into small sections. Back then, SOR was my go to series for co-op multiplayer and I spent many hours with others. Just like Capcom had transitional areas, Streets had tag team attacks, especially when the enemies grabbed the player from behind. The left caption shows Axel getting grabbed from behind as he uses his feet to attack other enemies. The was a thing these brawlers had over the other by having exclusive mechanics. Even the sequel did this more fluently, but it was a great way to implement multiplayer mechanics into the design. Of course, the bosses weren’t challenging compared to those from the Super NES game. Despite them also being hugely menacing most of them had an easy exploit in their tactics. The wrestler boss always rushed at the player in a straight line without deviating from this attack. The twin sisters were the ones to not have a design exploit between their flips to dodge and then throwing the character around. Conclusion: Even though both titles came out the same year from two notable companies Streets wins this round. Streets had superior features to Final Fight in many ways from its multiplayer to the three characters with different attributes—That truly makes up for no transitional areas in any stage. It's the reason this series was the best of the genre compared to most in the 90s. The problem for Final Fight is it removed the two-player function and took out Guy who was my favorite pick. That's an important feature to have in these games and removing such content waters down the arcade experience. Graphics/Presentation Final Fight If there's one thing the Super NES port did right was keeping most of the graphical elements from the arcade version. Not only that but the environments and sprites were taken from the original game. A few animations were actually cut from the sprites — something that's expected to happen — when it comes to porting to a weaker system. In fact, the broad detail is mostly retained and above SOR thanks to the Super NES's supporting 256 colors simultaneously of 32,000. Capcom even left in the background animations as seen in the Subway areas. They would leave the train's windows passing graffiti walls as the vibration of the vehicle showed animation. The music sounded generic especially compared to Double Dragon. It really wasn't Capcom's best soundtrack when other games like Breath of Fire had this more effectively. There's nothing engaging about these songs since I never felt pumped up when fighting waves of enemies. Of course, I can't bring up Final Fight without talking about Poison getting censored into a male street punk. The series from 1989 to the mid-90s had Poison as a transvestite but today she is a transgender woman. However, during that period Nintendo was all about censoring "controversial" stuff. Of course, censoring eventually bit Nintendo in the ass with taking out blood and gore from Mortal Kombat when it came to the Super NES. That is the beauty of 16-bit consoles as they were technically able to do what their 8-bit predecessors before them couldn’t. Capcom’s port does that by nearly bringing the visuals of the Arcade with these broad visuals to the home console. The Downtown area shows a bunch of cars parked on the side of the restaurant while large sprites are on the screen. It was also the small details that also gives life to these places as the second caption shows the background moving. Then when you include in the rumble of the train bouncing a little, only added to the detail. Streets of Rage Unlike its rival, SOR was developed on the Genesis' hardware instead of being a downgraded version. The graphics weren't as broad as Capcom's brawler since it didn't have that luxury. I mean the Genesis only supported 512 colors, a far cry from the Super NES and even the CPS-1 system. That's not to say Streets is worse as it looks good and follows the quality standard Sega set forward on their console. The environments were designed in a stylish manner that reflected a much darker theme. The levels also reflected the underground tone of pop culture during the late 80s and early 90s. However, the environments had an ambiance as shown from stage 2 with the quietness of the streets in the middle of the night. Sega even incorporated features like waves brushing up on the beach or wind blowing along the streets. The presentation was truly above the other brawlers and the music only added to it with the underground club style. Of course, Streets has its faults as the graphics were a little choppy especially on the sprites. Those early Genesis titles always had that problem, and it wasn't until 1993 when most developers improved their efforts. Now, the Genesis was usually known as the weaker of the two to some extent based on supporting 96 colors simultaneously of 512. Here is where Sega exceeds with SOR and it is through a stylish presentation that takes advantage of the system. That was always a thing Sega used to get around the limitations if it meant producing quality visuals. The third stage in the left caption has Blaze on a shoreline as waves crash along the beach. It was even better to showcase parallaxing with the billboards while some rain came down. Then on the fifth level is a bridge where Blaze fights her way through, and the city is shown during the evening hours in the distance. It is this attention to detail that I can’t get enough of especially when you have a great soundtrack from Yoko Koshiro. By those tracks playing when traversing each stage provides us lively environments. Conclusion: SOR once again gives another beat down on Capcom as it did many things right. Sega’s beat ‘em up lacked the broad detail of its rival with having bigger environments and sprites. However, the game compensates by having both a stylish underground theme and a quality soundtrack that is added to the presentation. It truly made that up by implementing such a concept especially with the use of element effects and the small details. The issue with Final Fight was its only redeeming factor is the broad visuals from the original. Now the presentation in the theme and the soundtrack came off generic by saving a damsel. The music sounded uninspiring as it lacked any true identity to separate this title from the others. In SOR, you take the role of Blaze, a strong female fighter who was one of the lead characters that tries stopping a crime lord. Even by the early 90s, these studios were starting to move past the damsel theme by having more strong female characters. It's too bad Capcom designed that originally with the arcade game while Sega managed to get that right. Features/Content Final Fight As already mentioned, the content was limited since Capcom was too busy being concerned about getting the game out quickly. I highly doubt the cartridge space was the issue since the ones on Super NES supported up to 4 MB. The only other reason is Capcom was being lazy and needed a few launch titles for the console. Removing Guy was a massive pet peeve of mine for this port as his balanced attributes made it easier to get by. It's true you could pick between Cody and Haggar, but they fight like heavy hitters. They didn't stop there as removing the two-player features flat out ruins the replay value. The studio left one thing in, and that's the bonus stages in-between levels. These bonus rounds are to earn more points by having players destroy something like a car—It's obvious where Capcom got these from when they developed Street Fighter II. The bonus rounds are the only thing Final Fight has over the game's competitors. Then we have the cheat Options that allows you to add extra lives considering this port’s difficulty. It’s probably the best feature here as you can even lower the difficulty down further. You remember those bonus rounds where the character had to destroy a car in Street Fighter II? Well Capcom started it here as the premise is the same with smashing the car until the thing is totaled. There is also smashing rows of glass sheets that acts like the barrel smashing bonus too. These were a nice break in-between the levels to earn points and a possible extra life. Streets of Rage Sega did pay attention to the standards of the genre by providing better replay value. There are about three ways to play the game and choosing between different characters only made this evident. The players can even mix and match between them which provide different ways to replay. Another feature that adds to this is the option at the end of the last stage with Mr. X. Whether the players choose to join him or not creates multiple endings so you could see how it plays out. There wasn't a brawler I could remember that offers this feature but a single ending of saving the day. It's a lot better than in Final Fight where Cody and Haggar save Jessica. The fact you could choose to join the main antagonist makes this an interesting feature. Of course, the two player mode being added shows Sega put effort into this unlike Capcom. Similar to the competition, SOR also has cheats of its own where the player can pick any stage or add extra lives. It is a textbook definition of a cheat code and that could make this easier for people starting to get into the genre. The content is also where Sega shined with this series and each character gives three different ways to complete the game. The first caption shows the character selection screen as it features the stats of each fighter. Their competitor barely showcased such a thing and the only information we have was the fact Haggar and Cody were different sizes. There was more of a balance between the three fighters where you can pick based on your preferences. Conclusion: Sega can't stop beating Capcom and it all came down to using common sense. Streets had more replay value from choosing three different ways to complete the game to its two-player function. Final Fight truly lacked these features with this being a one-player game. With the removal of a couple of stages and Guy makes you wonder how these were left out. Then we have the multiple endings in SOR that gave the players another option instead of seeing it end in a typical manner. Of course, both did have similar cheats to the others however, that helped Final Fight more than SOR. A missing feature that is also the backbone of beat ‘em ups shouldn’t have been taken out for a rushed job. Final Conclusion Brawlers have gone through many changes by 1991 as Technōs Japan set that standard with Double Dragon. Unfortunately, Capcom dropped the ball with this arcade port in more ways than one. I'm actually confident they could have gone the extra mile with programming these features. The publisher’s studios have ported many arcade games, so this came down to the company using a lazy mindset of not caring. Sega's efforts were like day and night for SOR as they produced a superior title to Final Fight. The House of Sonic developing exclusively to the system wasn't the sole reason for Streets being superior. The gameplay used the arcade standards among games similar to its kind like the two-player co-op and three characters with various attributes. It came down to execution as Streets had a better presentation between its soundtrack and theme. Final Fight obviously had better detail for its visuals as the sprites and backgrounds were close to the original. However, that's pointless when the soundtrack came off generic while SOR executed the design in a more excellent manner. As you can tell this truly was Final Fight’s last battle. Winner: Streets of Rage
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Retro Gamer has over 25 years of gaming experience and played many classics since the Golden Age. She has been an avid fan since the day the NES graced her life and changed it forever.
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