''It's all about love... ah, who the hell am I kidding? It's all about kicking ass!''

Alright, the story starts in the coolest way possible. Former street-fighter Mike Haggar, who is now the Mayor of a city which name now escapes me, is sitting in his office, and the phone rings. After answering, he partakes in what may be the single greatest conversation in the history of all conversation. He's told his daughter was kidnapped, then is prompted to turn on the TV, where it shows on a random channel his daughter, Jessica, tied to the manliest stake I've ever layed eyes on. No, not Lexington Steele's tube-steak, but this awe-inspiring stake which has Haggar's daughter tied to it; after that it shows a close-up of the greatest man to ever live -- some huge guy with dreadlocks and bad-ass glasses, who is, oddly enough, the first boss (does that make any sense?) -- and he laughs, and says to let the Mad Gear gang to do what they like (drug deals and beat downs!), and they'd give Jessica back, and throw in a monthly bonus. With his daughter's life at stake, Mike Haggar makes the wisest possible choice: Go ahead and plow through a bunch of levels, kicking ass, and not even bothering to take names! Of course, he has to call up Jessica's boyfriend, Cody, and alert him. Cody has a towel around his neck, and gets mad, except he still looks like he belongs in an 80's b-movie (well, Final Fight IS like an 80's b-movie!). Where is the bad-ass ass-kicker Guy though?! I guess Capcom thought it would be to much for the SNES or something, so they opted to remove him. Coolest character too, but it's ok, because the sheer machismo of Final Fight is left intact, WHICH IS A GOOD THING.

''CLUB EM' IN THE JAW!''

Ok, well, the plot is a saturated with manliness, so what about the gameplay? SMASH HIM IN THE HEAD! It kicks more ass than a huge Polish guy at an ass-kicking convention! Ok, you can pick Cody, with his ubiquitous All-American charm, or Haggar, the brute who just beats down people that don't address him as ''Sir Pulp-the-hell-out-of-everyone''. Then you stride through the streets of whatever the hell the name of this city is (it's on the tip of my tongue, but I don't want to bite it off, so DEAL WITH IT), and you beat the holy hell out of a bunch of thugs. You can punch them, connecting multiple punches giving you an uber-manly looking combo, jump kick them, or you can approach them from an angle, which will have you grab them, at which point you can smack em' up real good (with knees to the face or head-butts (!!!) to the sternum), or throw them. Of course, Cody only gets a normal throw, while Haggar PILE-DRIVES them, and if you jump after grabbing them and hit punch, you do a massive flying pile-driver, and it just plain rules over the land of ''SPECTACULARNESS'' with an all-encompassing iron fist. Of course you have your special attack, which removes a bit of life, but is quite powerful, and clears the area around you.

If you think your fists of steel aren't enough, you can also pick up weapons. What are these weapons, pray tell? Well, you have the studly knife, the awe-inspiring Masamune (a samurai sword), and the Manly pipe (yes, I capitalized manly because it needed to be showered with an accolade far surpassing just calling it manly), which for some reason, does just as much damage as the sword. Oh well, manliness rules supreme again; sure, you could hack and slash your misbegotten foes, but isn't it funner to just bash them with a big old pipe? WELL ISN'T IT?!?! Anyways, so the game is just basically beating up loads and loads of tough thugs, until you reach an even TOUGHER thug (the boss), who you then beat, then advance to a different level. It may sound neanderthalistic, but it still manages to rock our collective worlds like Black Flag playing at a Christian Coalition convention, which is impossible because they're not a band anymore, but they're the best band ever, and therefore MUST be mentioned!

''What a sight for sore eyes... OR MANLY ONES!''

Ok, the gameplay is so saturated in manliness I actually grew chest hairs just by playing, but do the graphics have that same level of macho-killer MACHONESSITY of machoness? IT SURE DOES! Final Fight looks positively succulent (a very unmanly word, but if I can use an unmanly word to describe something in a game as manly as Final Fight, you know something's good), and to think this was a very early Super Nintendo game! BLAST PROCESSING CAN KISS MY MANLY ASS!!! While things don't look as good as they do in arcades, it's still damn good. The sprites are large, and highly detailed (check out some of the bosses), and the backrounds are really impressive, especially when the sun starts to rise in the fourth level (watching the sun rise is for sissies... except in Final Fight, where the insane amounts of manliness overwhelm and cancel out the chances of you being sissified). The best part about the graphics aren't the amazing sprites, the rock-solid backrounds, abundant color, or decent animation (a small, if slightly annoying flaw, actually); it's the character designs! No, you might think that falls under sprites, but I'm not talking about the size or detail; I'm talking about the amazing designs of the denizens in this dithered dump of a den, one which names which name escapes me at the moment (the alliteration's getting a bit goofy... I SHALL UPDATE THIS REVIEW EVENTUALLY, AND UTILIZE THE POWER OF A THESAURUS!).

How on earth can you NOT love the stupendously stupendous work Capcom did in this area?! I mean, how cool is it to beat up a guy in red suspenders, nicknamed ''Dug''? Or tossing around the giant in a leopard-esque leotard named ''Andore''? How about pummeling a guy who looks incredibly similiar to Doug, just with hair, no sunglasses, gray overalls,and the nickname ''Bred''? Well, I'll give you the answer... VERY!!!!!! Still, the design of the bosses is the best; that first boss alone for the Slums is sheer brilliance. A huge guy who does flips an crap, and has dreadlocks? SIGN ME UP! Then there's that bad-ass samurai champion, defender of the Subway, who has some of the coolest theme music in any game ever (not really his theme music, but it's nearby, and the constigation I shall recieve for referring it to as anything but would be far too harsh for me to take). Of course, how could I forget the crooked cop who you meet at the end of the Inner City (EAT HIS GUM!)? Then there's the true hard-ass of Final Fight, Abigail, boss of the Bay, who without using a relatively cheap strategy, is unbeatable. The last boss, well, he's not as cool as the rest... at all. Still, he dies cool, and THAT'S what matters.

''It rocks more ass than Space Ghost''

Ok, the manliness is starting to get to the point of unbearability, but the line between unbearability and total nirvana is a shady one indeed. All that's left is the sound. Will the sound be as overpowering as the rest of the game, or will you end up catching it trying on women's underwear in your sister's room? Well, to be quite blunt, Final Fight is one of the best sounding games I've ever heard. First the music... OH THE OUTRAGEOUSLY GOOD MUSIC. The music is utterly incredible, and is one of the finest video game soundtracks EVER. Try not to get pumped up on testosterone when you hear the gritty track for the first level, still one of the finest songs I've heard in any game. Just TRY and fight the urge to pump your fist with a blend of ecstasy and macho primal urges when you hear that aformentioned Samurai boss theme resonate between your unworthy ears. Let's not forget the marvelously manly opening theme song, which makes you want to maliciously malign these miserable misanthropic miscreants (no more alliteration for you young man, or you'll go to bed without supper!). Yes, literally EVERY track has this kind of effect. It's a miracle in manliness such a wondrous mix of songs ended up on one soundtrack, but it has, and thank the chain-smokin', skull-splittin', all around MANLY gods such anevent has occured. BLACK FLAG IS SUPERB, BUT FINAL FIGHT IS SUPERB AS WELL, JUST NOT AS SUPERB (how's that for overusing an adjective (first time I've said adjective in a review (RESPECT!)!)in a sentence!). As a matter of fact, Final Fight's music is just like Black Flag's in a way; it's a great way to get pumped to crack some head's!

The music is gold, so what about the sound effects? We couldn't have wimpy ass grunts and moans, and I sure as hell want to FEEL the sound of my fists of fury smacking against weathered flesh! Well, does Final Fight get reduced to wearing a pink dress with wussy sound effects, or does it walk around the house without a shirt at all times, showing off it's muscular pecs? WHAT DO YOU THINK?! Final Fight has some brutally wicked sound effects at it's disposal. I mean, everything sounds so damn cool it's SCARY. For example, piledrive an enemy low on life (may I suggest the bearded Jake?) with Haggar, onto a box. You've got the single coolest sound effect ever with Haggar's ''RAH!'', then you thump the pavement, sounding not nearly as cool, but still very nice, along with the cracking and splintering of the box you landed on, and the ''ARR!'' of Jake suffering a violent, but necessary, death. Or start stabbing or slicing people with the knife/sword. The hearty sound of you ravaging these scoundrels with a blade yields oh so much satisfaction (though not as sinfully induldging or unforgettable as the smell of burning flesh, though I imagine it's quite PUNGENT). Anyways, the sound effects are wonderful (if such a happy and heart-filled word can be used to describe punching someone in the face), and it's a CRUSHING combo along with the divine music (yet another word, which under normal circumstances would be inexcusable to associate with smething as jaw-droppingly brutal as Final Fight, but sometimes such words must be used to help clean the streets of Metro City (I REMEMBERED THE NAME OF THE CITY!) of foreboding scum (Bet you thought I'd try my hand at grossly-overdone alliteration, didn't you?)).

''They're manly flaws, but still flaws''

Well, with all these good things out of the way, I better get the bad out of the way. The controls, while absolutely spot-on, make it a bit hard to do your special attack (jump and attack) on the SNES controller. I've no idea why, but I should bring it up. Also, slowdown and flicker will rear their ugly heads at a couple moments of the game, but it's EXTREMELY rare (rarer than gold diamonds from the North Pole... or something like that), so once again, it's not a big complaint. Another problem is the difficulty; it's too easy. Sure, the bosses may seem rather difficult at first, but once you get their patterns down, you can easily wipe the floor with any of them (though Abigail and the last boss prove to be an actual challenge). It seems Capcom tried to add some difficulty by spreading the food around (what, you didn't know eating roast beef in an oil drum will restore all your health, or eating an apple will restore only a little? Well, know you do, though I don't recommend you try to stave off death after being gut-shot by downing a few cola's), but it seems in the last couple levels they spread it around a bit TOO much, which means that you can and will be frustrated at points, because while it may be an easy game, maintaining a healthy body is still amazingly important (just ask Richard Simmons... good thing this is a Final Fight review, otherwise the manliness factor would've hit zero after mention of HIS name)! Oh, and there's no two-player mode... which is a bit of a sin, but a forgivable one... unlike the censorship (they used to have woman prostitutes in the game for you to pound, but they had name and appearance changes, so they're just transsexuals now, I suppose), and they changed ''Oh my God'' when you bash up a thug's car in a little mini-game to ''Oh my car'' (though it sounds very funny). While the car thing is okay, because it's hilarious, the removal of the sluts is UNFORGIVABLE.

''I am a Champion''

Well, that's just about it. All I have left to say is that Final Fight is a sterling example of all the elements a good developer should include in their product: Great graphics, superlative sound, and extravagant amounts of ass-kicking! The only thing keeping Final Fight from earning a ten is the fact Guy's missing, and the damn censorship (Nintendo will BLEED for that travesty they called ''Removing the whores''!); I could stand the other stuff, but not those two erroneous flaws. Otherwise, Final Fight is a magnificently manly excursion in gaming bliss. Now if only Capcom would get off their ass and release a GOOD sequel...