everyone even the least bit inquisitive about beat 'em ups as a genre should play this, full stop. i cannot think of a more textbook representation of the idea that for a beat 'em up, encounter design is level design; divergence from this principle in final fight 2 results in perhaps the most anemic beat em up i have ever been subjected to. absolutely lifeless brawling in overlong stages as you contend with wall-to-wall waves of three polite barely dissimilar crooks at a time. devoid of any spirit even compared to some of its home console contemporaries. sure FF2 has a couple of things going for it compared to its predecessor but streets of rage 1 came out two years before this and while it is comparably centered around simplistic crowd control, it thoroughly overpowers this game on the basis of its encounter design, aesthetics, soundtrack, pace, etc. shout outs yuzo koshiro. FF2 does have maki though so who can say whether it's bad or not. bring her back in SF6 capcom i'll be very grateful

Reviewed on Sep 25, 2022


2 Comments


1 year ago

As a big 'playing-Final-Fight-at-a-friends-house-on-his-SNES-and-sometimes-at-random-arcades' kid, I remember this is one of the first things I played when emulators started being a thing in Jr. high, I was SO excited to try it. And uh ... yeah. I KEPT trying it, desperate to find something even slightly exciting. All the ingredients were there! But no. Bigtime early gaming disappointment for me.

That said, Maki was,,, important to me, however

1 year ago

she's important to me too brother