Okay, hands up everybody who was disappointed by Final Fight on the SNES? I’m expecting everyone who bought the game to have their arms in the air.

Basically, if you wanted to own a kind of complete, but co-op-lacking version of Capcom’s side-scrolling brawler on your SNES you would have to buy the original Final Fight, which featured the characters Cody and Haggar, but lacks Guy, and then fork out another 50 or so quid to purchase Final Fight Guy on import, which added Guy and then pointlessly omitted Cody.

There’s no reason for Capcom’s cynical mistreatment of Final Fight, and to make matters worse it made no effort to rectify things with its SNES-exclusive sequel either.

Final Fight 3, however, despite a few issues, is by far the best of the three-and-a-half game series. Final Fight 3 (released under the misleading title of Final Fight Tough in Japan) proved to be a vast improvement over its predecessors.

After the Mad Gear Gang’s reign of terror is brought to a violent end by Maki, Carlos and Haggar, a new gang emerges and quickly begins terrorising Metro City. This time, fan favourites Haggar and Guy return to the fight, although Maki, Carlos and Cody are seemingly nonplussed by it all. We’re also introduced to two new faces – police officer Lucia, and Dean, who resembles Super Joe from Bionic Commando.

Capcom also attempted to right a few wrongs by adding an auto co-op option. This mode allowed your SNES to battle through the game, with you controlling the second character, and blessed each player with a dirge of moves and a super bar, and then served up hordes of new enemies for you to test your new moves out on.

Although none of the Final Fight games to appear on the SNES have ever really been much good, if you’re a fan of the Final Fight series, then this one is certainly the one worth seeking out. It’s not exceptional by any stretch of the imagination, but at least Capcom seemed to be having a pretty good stab.

Tags: Capcom, cody, final fight, guy, haggar