Mobile Games

Something seems to be missing

After starting out life in the arcades, Final Fight has been gradually getting smaller and smaller, going to the 16-bit consoles, down to 8-bit home computers, then hand-helds, and now has finally ended up on mobiles. Of course, with the way that mobile technology has moved on these days, you'd expect an arcade-perfect conversion to be possible now, wouldn't you?

Sadly, this just doesn't seem to be the case, or at least it isn't where the k800i version is concerned. The character sprites are perfect, identical in every way to those that have come before them, but the actual levels themselves are little more than pale imitations, which apparently can't even fit the screen, with a border system implemented on the top and bottom. Perhaps even more annoying, each section of a level is now separated by loading screens!

Game play relied on a number of buttons, which have been mapped around the controller and the numeric keypad. However, it soon becomes clear that simply tapping the main attack button will be enough to deal with most waves of enemies. Chances are that you will take a bit of a beating from time to time, but health power-ups can be found in the form of food, hiding underneath punchable crates and drums.

The options menu in the game features an option regarding Attacking, which can be set to Auto or Manual. The different that this makes is fairly minor, as with Auto selected, you can hold down the attack button to have your character repeatedly perform moves, while with Manual select, you need to keep tapping the button in order to get your shots in. The Auto option does seem rather useful for when playing the game in a public situation, especially if and you don't want to annoy others around you by tap, tap tapping on the buttons all the time.

It's a mixed bag situation all in all, because as far as side-scrolling fighters go, this mobile version of Final Fight isn't exactly bad. As mentioned, the characters and enemies look perfect, and the actual game play is faithful to the source material. However, it just lets itself down by stripping down the levels themselves to their most basic form. Imagine trying to play Sonic the Hedgehog with a perfect looking Sonic, but levels that look like cheap knock-offs of the original. It just wouldn't be right.

But the thing is, we've already seen Sonic on mobiles, and the levels are perfect recreations of the originals. The same goes for many games converted over from the 16-bit era. So why exactly has Final Fight been forced to suffer? If you're an absolute die-hard for the game, then maybe you could get a level of enjoyment from it, but if you're looking for a true, hand-held representation of the game, you're better off tracking down the GameBoy Advance edition.