Streets of Rage vs. Final Fight

Exactly what it says on the tin, folks.

Which game series/trilogy was superior: Nintendo's Final Fight series, or Sega's Streets of Rage? Looking at characters, stages, bosses, gameplay, and storylines of the two games which were rivals representing their respective companies - let's compare and contrast the two sides from all angles! (Note: Regarding the SOR series, we're talking about the original trilogy, not the remake.)

I think you'll find we're a bit biased here on the SoRR community forum. Overall SoR is just a better package imo, counting 1,2 and BKIII.

I love Final Fight though, and I love that Capcom is keeping the series alive through other games like Street Fighter and MvC.

believe it or not I feel like it's apples to oranges, both games are good for their own reasons, reasons that are pretty much opposite to one another
FF - 80s motive until FF3
SoR- sorta 80s in 1 more 90s in the rest

Both gameplay mechanics work well for what they are it all boils down to what you're used to, I can play both back to back no problem.

SoR does better in the music department but I do enjoy FF music for what it is, especially FFCD and FF3

Cast is awesome in both series, I don't particularly have a character in either series that I can't stand or wouldn't use, SoR is more diverse however.

Shadow Fist King wrote:Which game series/trilogy was superior: Nintendo's Final Fight series, or Sega's Streets of Rage?

Wat?!


BK3 Blaze's and Lucia's stance poses looks same

Yeah, I guess I should've expected there would be some bias, given the main focus of the forum.  Still, for me, the SoR series has significantly more colorful bosses, but many of the FF characters get a bit more character development (Cody, Guy, Rolento, Maki, Poison, Sodom, Hugo, even El Gado and Two.P!) than their SoR counterparts. And yes, the FF characters are getting plenty more exposure through the various fighting games, especially Street Fighter as of late. I do think Capcom dropped the ball with FF3, though, in hindsight.

As for the reactions I'm noting to my use of the word "Nintendo," yes, I probably should have stayed company-specific and said Capcom instead. I was thinking consoles in general, not companies.  

You might misunderstand the "shocking gif" of our friends here since they may refer to the "CPS-1 ".

I even know people who consider Final Fight to be a one shot (not a series) that only work on CPS-1.
Why? Because the super nintendo adaptation what a pretty bad release compare to the original which is consider by many gamer as a Classic; and that FF2 et 3 are just off topic comparing to the CPS-1 FF.

Now to get back on topic, badjab and Mr Din post sum up pretty much my opinion.
few inputs about FF:
I love Final Fight Tough despite some of it cons (backdash cancel anyone?)
Final Fight CPS1 is one of the very first game I played when I was a kid so nostalgia could biased my point of view
Final Fight 2, meh, I prefer don't speak about it.

few input about SoR:
The two first one are awesome though diffferents. They both try to make a new gameplay system for sidescroller, and not a regular 1989 final fight's clone that most game by this time tried to do.
I'm still a bit confused when speaking about BKIII/SoR3. Both of them have pros and cons, and they feel more rushed than the others.

Final verdict:
Both series are awesome and I think they have to stay in the early 90's. The video game nowdays have change and I think that trying to pursue the series will just not fit.

I'd like to take a moment to talk about the bosses between the two series. Personally, I think I'd be hard-pressed to find proper equivalents for each side, but I'll try. I'm also bearing in mind that there's one very well-received mod, the Final Rage trilogy, where the different SoR bosses were used as equivalents, but one or two of them I personally don't agree with (but that's just me). Some of the ones I'll list below may mesh with the equivalents that were given in that mod.

For the FF bosses, here are the ones I think would be good equivalents:

Damnd/Thrasher <=> Jack (the knife-wielding nut)

Sodom/Katana <=> Yamato

Edi.E <=> Nora in blue palette swap as a female equivalent (she looks more like a cop than anyone else among the SoR enemies

Rolento <=> Zamza

Abigail <=> Abadede

Belger <=> Mr. X

Won Won <=> Juggler (maybe)

Freddie <=> Big Ben in green color scheme

Bratken <=> R. Bear

Philippe <=> Bruce/Danch

Retu <=> SOR1 Hakuyo

Dave <=> Trucker

Callman <=> Barbon

Caine <=> possibly SOR3 Jet

Drake <=> Ash (maybe)

Wong <=> SOR2 Hakuyo

Stray <=> SOR1 Souther

Black <=> SOR3 Shiva

Both game series are great for me. Period.

And lol/facepalm to the Nintendo's Final Fight!

Don Vecta wrote:Both game series are great for me. Period.

And lol/facepalm to the Nintendo's Final Fight!

Right, right. I can take a ribbing.  

Yes, both game series are certainly great. I just wish they could have done a better job with the storylines for FF2 and FF3/Tough, as well as kept the original Japanese story for SoR3/BKIII instead of changing it so drastically. But I guess that's what Americanization does.

I prefer Final Fight 1 over any of the 3 SOR games anyday but if I would have to look at them as a series (counting the main 3 games), SoR is the better overall series.

Final Fight 2 gets horribly stale fast and Final Fight 3 slowed down things so much that it's a chore to play through. SoR had a fun first game, improved it vastly with the second game, and then added more things to make the gameplay better in SoR3.

Feels like SoR increased per game and FF lost its value each game, but that's just me.

Lithium Flower wrote:Feels like SoR increased per game and FF lost its value each game, but that's just me.

I agree that FF1 was the best of that game series, but as far as the SoR series goes, I favor SoR2 the most. Sor3 was a case of high difficulty meshed with sketchy storyline (I've never played the original BKIII), and SoR1 was a case of poor graphics to me (I played SoR1 long after SoR2 and 3).

Concerning FF1, there's really no way to replicate the smooth look of that game's graphics or its bosses (the only reason Rolento was in FF2 was as an apology to fans since he couldn't be included in the SNES port of FF1 due to space constraints).

I think the context is really important here. Reguarding graphics, in the early 90's, people use to not compare CPS-1 Arcade and 16 bit home system (adaptation/ports excluded since it force comparaison). We use to go in the Arcade to have "high quality", a bit like nowday, you go to the 3D cinema since your TV HD does not match up, but no one say HD TV is poor quality.

It is like nowday, we don't say "this 3DS Game looks ugly compare to this Xbox360 game", since it is out of place and it does not match up but we would if it is the same game that has been port on both machine.

So at this time SoR1 look pretty good for a Genesis/Master System game. People enjoy it a lot, and it is sure that when SoR2 cames out, SoR1 old ages (gameplay wise and graphic wise).

The specific FF1 problem is
1/ Adaptation of CPS-1 game
2/ Poorly done graphicly but most importantly, gameplay wise.
This is what make this port his bad reputation.

Look at SF2 SNES it is ugly if you watch CPS1 version, but as the gameplay do not suffer, people enjoy snes version.
But when Champion Edition genesis came out, this was a bit tough, because
=> Graphics not as good as SNES
=> Sound not as good as SNES
=> Controller does not fit the gameplay.

That's my own point of view of course.

I've been discussing this with many beat 'em up enthusiasts and we concurr that the reason why FF2 and FF3 are so lacking is because they never got released in arcade first. I'm sure the games would have been highly upgraded in quality and style if they were produced in CPS1 or 2.

Am I really the only one who thinks FF3 is the best in the series?

I mean don't get me wrong, the characters and stages from FF1 and 2 are pretty cool. But gameplay and animation wise FF3 is amazing. FF1 and 2 both get really repetitive pretty early on due to the limited moveset. But FF3 has many many more ways to fight and much cooler ways to do it.

badjab326 wrote:Am I really the only one who thinks FF3 is the best in the series?

I mean don't get me wrong, the characters and stages from FF1 and 2 are pretty cool. But gameplay and animation wise FF3 is amazing. FF1 and 2 both get really repetitive pretty early on due to the limited moveset. But FF3 has many many more ways to fight and much cooler ways to do it.

I personally think that FF3 is definitely better than FF2 gameplay-wise, but animation-wise...it looks a bit more cartoony than the previous two games. Plus the enemies' color schemes don't show a whole lot of variety, unlike the other two games. When I first played FF3 on the SNES console, I was full of the hype of playing the latest in the FF series, but nowadays, in hindsight and after having played it on the ZSNES emulator countless times, I can only say 'meh' in response to it.

Plus the sound effects of beating up the mooks and bosses from FF1 are FAR superior to those in the two sequels. FF3, in particular, the punching and kicking SFX sound muffled, like how it would sound if you hit a pillow, as opposed to FF1's solid whacks.

Personally, I don't think FF3 isn't as lacking as some people make it out to be. It's not the best beat-em-up, but I still think it was rather solid overall. But it is nowhere near the quality that FF1 was.

FF2 though, yeah that game was shit all around. I hated that one.

On the plus side, FF2 gave the world Maki.    And it also gave us what, in my humble opinion, was Mike Haggar's best outfit ever. Knee-pads and gloves + his previous FF1 outfit = YES. His shorts in FF3 =  .

It's always pretty difficult to compare FF1 to the other to me. CPS1 amazing sound and graphic, and FF1 is what we can call a classic, it's a huge step in the beat them up history.

Now if we look at it stoicly, it's aged not this good. Still challenging, but what was considered as advanced BTU mechanics in 1989 is now outmatched by many others Side scroller (especially CPS-2 one like alien vs predator IMO).

while FF2 was a bad clone of FF1 with not a single gameplay improvement, FF Tough did try to integrate advanced mechanics (super jump, run, backdash, super etc). Despite the limitation of the machine reguarding number of mooks, overall speed of the game etc, it did an amazing job to me.

So I think Don Vecta bring a very interesting point about "what would have been FF3 on CPS1/2" and Badjab "tell the truth" in a way while speaking about FF3 being the best of the series.

Of course everything is opinion here, and it's pretty hard to make a clear "best status" between FF3 and FF1. What is sure is that they both try to go on, and not just "copy/paste bad license exploitation".

I like Final Fight just fine. Capcom is an amazing company, and I really dig the entire Street Fighter/Final Fight universe.

But as far as Beat 'em Ups go, Streets of Rage is my series. I just find the game feel to be better in general. Sure, SOR1 was a FF clone with smaller sprites, but it gave us a taste of co-op gameplay at home, something the SNES version of FF didn't. SOR2 was probably the best game in the genre until SORR came out, and Bare Knuckle 3 was also pretty dang good before it got bastardized by Sega USA.

I enjoy all the SOR games, while I only really love Final Fight 1. 2 and 3 are passable, but despite the new moves and characters, they didn't capture my attention as much.

Crash Dummie wrote:I like Final Fight just fine. Capcom is an amazing company, and I really dig the entire Street Fighter/Final Fight universe.

Well, that's one thing the FF universe has over the SoR universe - they were able to branch out into the mainstream Street Fighter universe, while SoR remains inside its own universe without branching out anywhere else. And yet SoR still remains a top-tier game among us fans.  

Yeah, the most fulfilling the story has ever been with Streets of Rage is with the Remake.

I consider it as canonical and as a true sequel to the original series, since we have nothing else, but the facts are that this game "doesn't count".

Crash Dummie wrote:the facts are that this game "doesn't count".

Try telling that to the die-hard fans who've been playing SoRR since its very inception.   

Even I don't want to accept it! I've been playing since V.4 back when I was in college. 

I discover the remake project the day V5 came out, and I still do think it is not canon, though i feel adam story extended/HUNTER/Nightsweeper, as canon.

My very own opinion here, but yeah, SoRR modders manage to do what Bombergames didn't "fanon wise".
Plus, I might be wrong here to, but I think bombergames name their project "Remake" because they don't want to force anyone to beleive it as a part of SoR Canon.