Final Fight: Streetwise
Old-school developers, take note: this is how you do a remake.
Published: March 13, 2006
I've had to slog through so many crap beat-em-ups from supposedly solid development teams that I wondered if we'd ever even get a good update to those old-school brawlers. It's not like some of them were all that good back in the day to begin with, but when I threw Streetwise in for a quick game before heading out to grab some dinner and promptly lost about four hours, I realized something good was happening here.
I shouldn't be all that surprised -- this is the Maximo team at work here, but it was just so damned nice see something that stuck to the essence of the original game without trying too hard to be something it wasn't. Streetwise has a lengthy storyline that manages to bring nearly every major character and enemy from the original game back in 3D, offers a combat system that's instantly accessible, but offers tons of depth thanks to unlockable moves, and loads it up with enough mini-games and side quests to turn a shallow beat-em-up in to an honest-to-goodness action adventure.
It begins in a dank pit fight with Final Fight and, more recently Street Fighter Alpha 3 playable character Cody's brother Kyle getting the snot kicked out of him. Kyle narrates the game with an internal monologue spiced up with lots of cussing and a little Snatch-like stylized freeze frame introducing each of the major characters in the game. Thanks to you, your opponent, Handsome Rob, gets about 50 fist kisses and you walk away with a little money, but not before getting a vague pep talk and "you've gotta shape up and be a real fighter blah blah" speech from the big bro.
After a getting familiarized with Kyle's hood, picking up a few new moves from the gym (purchased with money picked off local gangs that thought they could jump you or cash that's just, well, laying around everywhere), meeting some other characters like the lovely Vanessa (Kyle's got the hots for her), Cody suddenly goes conveniently missing, and Kyle sets out to figure out why he disappeared and what was up with this whole "gotta get back in to fighting whatever the cost" stuff Cody was spouting before he took off.
Metro City (yes, the same one from the original game) is split into four areas; Kyle's Hood, Little Italy, Japantown and The Docks. By beating the hell out of local gangs in each area, you'll build up respect, which in turn... well, it means follow you around until you stop, then pump their first in the air and tell you how awesome you are. Littering each district is an electronics store for buying new tunes, a pawn shop for buying basic melee weapons, characters you can recruit to fight with you for a fee, a weapons dealer if you should need a pistol or shotgun, and a gym where you can learn new moves.
There are also a handful of random people on the street that will let you do everything from play Three-Card Monte to ask you get soften up the face of a purse snatcher to play target practice to trash an SUV to buy them liquor. They're all quick, minor tasks that'll get you money (or, as Kyle says, "mmmmmonaaaay") which you can use for music or moves or what have you. They're entirely optional, but only take a few minutes and add quite a bit of variety to just running around.
Eventually, though, you'll have to run to the next major plot point, and from there the story will move along in prototypical action movie fashion, with no end to the cussing or the clichéd dialogue as the city slowly falls under the sway of Glow, a new drug that's turning the junkies into stunt doubles for The Thing with glowing eyes to boot.
Is it predictable? Sure, but it's also fun to lose yourself in the cookie cutter tough guy machismo Kyle relentlessly belts out. This is, much like BLACK, meant to be mindless action movie fare, and in this respect the game pulls it off perfectly, balancing combat that's lifted straight from the old game with plenty of cutscenes and an over-the-top climax that... well, let's just say the plot never really gets especially deep, but at least it's entertaining.
The boss fights are usually pattern-based, simple affairs, but save for the final four or so, they're not terribly tough to get through. Some of the later pit fights are actually tougher, but this where some of the more advanced parts of the combat come in handy. Most common thugs, just as they were in the original arcade game, are dispatched with simple punch combinations, but tougher enemies can be countered and dodged quite nicely. By tapping the block button the a split-second before a blow connects, it'll counter the blow and slow things down long enough to return a big attack (or, if you've bought it, a signature counter like a Ken/Ryu Hurricane Kick).
I shouldn't be all that surprised -- this is the Maximo team at work here, but it was just so damned nice see something that stuck to the essence of the original game without trying too hard to be something it wasn't. Streetwise has a lengthy storyline that manages to bring nearly every major character and enemy from the original game back in 3D, offers a combat system that's instantly accessible, but offers tons of depth thanks to unlockable moves, and loads it up with enough mini-games and side quests to turn a shallow beat-em-up in to an honest-to-goodness action adventure.
It begins in a dank pit fight with Final Fight and, more recently Street Fighter Alpha 3 playable character Cody's brother Kyle getting the snot kicked out of him. Kyle narrates the game with an internal monologue spiced up with lots of cussing and a little Snatch-like stylized freeze frame introducing each of the major characters in the game. Thanks to you, your opponent, Handsome Rob, gets about 50 fist kisses and you walk away with a little money, but not before getting a vague pep talk and "you've gotta shape up and be a real fighter blah blah" speech from the big bro.
After a getting familiarized with Kyle's hood, picking up a few new moves from the gym (purchased with money picked off local gangs that thought they could jump you or cash that's just, well, laying around everywhere), meeting some other characters like the lovely Vanessa (Kyle's got the hots for her), Cody suddenly goes conveniently missing, and Kyle sets out to figure out why he disappeared and what was up with this whole "gotta get back in to fighting whatever the cost" stuff Cody was spouting before he took off.
Metro City (yes, the same one from the original game) is split into four areas; Kyle's Hood, Little Italy, Japantown and The Docks. By beating the hell out of local gangs in each area, you'll build up respect, which in turn... well, it means follow you around until you stop, then pump their first in the air and tell you how awesome you are. Littering each district is an electronics store for buying new tunes, a pawn shop for buying basic melee weapons, characters you can recruit to fight with you for a fee, a weapons dealer if you should need a pistol or shotgun, and a gym where you can learn new moves.
There are also a handful of random people on the street that will let you do everything from play Three-Card Monte to ask you get soften up the face of a purse snatcher to play target practice to trash an SUV to buy them liquor. They're all quick, minor tasks that'll get you money (or, as Kyle says, "mmmmmonaaaay") which you can use for music or moves or what have you. They're entirely optional, but only take a few minutes and add quite a bit of variety to just running around.
Eventually, though, you'll have to run to the next major plot point, and from there the story will move along in prototypical action movie fashion, with no end to the cussing or the clichéd dialogue as the city slowly falls under the sway of Glow, a new drug that's turning the junkies into stunt doubles for The Thing with glowing eyes to boot.
Is it predictable? Sure, but it's also fun to lose yourself in the cookie cutter tough guy machismo Kyle relentlessly belts out. This is, much like BLACK, meant to be mindless action movie fare, and in this respect the game pulls it off perfectly, balancing combat that's lifted straight from the old game with plenty of cutscenes and an over-the-top climax that... well, let's just say the plot never really gets especially deep, but at least it's entertaining.
The boss fights are usually pattern-based, simple affairs, but save for the final four or so, they're not terribly tough to get through. Some of the later pit fights are actually tougher, but this where some of the more advanced parts of the combat come in handy. Most common thugs, just as they were in the original arcade game, are dispatched with simple punch combinations, but tougher enemies can be countered and dodged quite nicely. By tapping the block button the a split-second before a blow connects, it'll counter the blow and slow things down long enough to return a big attack (or, if you've bought it, a signature counter like a Ken/Ryu Hurricane Kick).
