There’s an Arcade mode too, which is more the style of the original games – no fetch quests, just straightforward, linear, two-player brawling. On the outside, yes, it looks like another edgy open world game, but there’s a bit of spirit lying underneath. You even get to fight classic characters like Andore and Cammy in the fighting arena. With all the adventure elements and mini games, it almost feels like a missing link between Shenmue and Yakuza. There are a handful of strange mini-games, including a roach stomping quest, a button-masher where you repeatedly slam a door on one of the bad guys’ head (this happens twice throughout the game, the second time in a garage door), and the classic car-bashing fest. By running quests and beating up bad guys, you’ll gain Respect points, and the locals will run up to you and cheer you on with the most bizarre sayings (“What color do you think I should paint my room, Kyle?” or “Where’d you get that shaving cream, Kyle?”) All of the bad guys have silly gangsta parody names (one dude is named “World O. While the tone is relatively serious, there’s a bunch of random goofiness the designers tossed in which livens things up. Of course, the story mode is single player only, which is a bit of a bummer. However, the fighting engine is remarkably solid, compared to lesser games like the Cavia-developed, Capcom-published Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance, released around the same time. Despite the lack of a jump button, it’s quite and snappy, just like the old games, with a bit of added depth and variety, including the ability to block and count. It does feel strange to be playing a Final Fight game where you spend more time running around and talking than beating people up. The story mode lets you walk around town, running mini-quests for people (such as chasing down muggers), train at the gym to earn new moves, earn money in pitfights, and follow the plotline.

The finale pits you up against Father Bella, the younger brother of Belgar from the original Final Fight. After enlisting the help of Haggar (who’s quit his job as mayor and started up his own gym) and Guy (who’s now an honorable gang leader in the city’s Japantown district), you have to untangle the mystery and save your brother. However, Cody gets kidnapped due to his association with some strange zombifying drug called GLOW that’s hitting the streets. The story starts with Kyle Travers training underneath his brother Cody. Rather than belt-scrolling beat-em-up or a 3D arcade fighting game, this entry is a gritty open world brawler, inspired by games like Grand Theft Auto and other similar games that were popular in the early 2000s.

Final Fight Streetwise is another attempt to soft reboot the series, which like Final Fight Revenge, was developed by US-based Capcom Production Studio 8.

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