i played final fight 2 and 3 with my nephew (sick of the original). Final Fight 2 is pretty depressive, I thought a bunch of the bad guys were black but I guess it was just weird choice of skin tones/ doesn't actually resemble any real human skin color. the rest of the palette is really depressing and all the buildings are falling apart/rusty/etc. I know you're fighting in the seedy parts of whatever city you're in but I think it was more a matter of add details to everything for visual 'appeal'/horror vacui. I emphasize the color palettes are horrible and evoke zombies/decay in a bad way. even holland is like weird/gothic/halloweeny for somereason.
On the other hand Final Fight 3 seems like they ironed out all the cheap AI tricks/etc. for the most part so you actually get a sense of whether you're doing bad or not. The city is actually visually appealing and the colors seem quite golden ratio/perfect gradients or whatever/gives the illusion that it's more colorful than it is. It also avoids being all neon-y at times like streets of rage ii. Feels kind of like resident evil 2 idea of american city but just before the zombies come in this case. Also weird naive? superhero status/hero worship of police/mayor/authority figure/everyone is probably right wing member of NRA like RE2 implied stealthily, hence were prepared for the zombie apocalypse/probably were not even SURPRISED by zombie apocalypse. Relating to police thing all shades of blue in the game imply purity even on boss character who is fake/crooked cop?
anyway in some weird way I think it subverts usual final fight/streets of rage/RUSHING BEAT feelings/flow/SENSATIONS in some weird way. Even the names of the enemies are only slightly weird/truncated and they're reused instead of each palette swap having a unique name like Y.SIGNAL TWO. P (tupac???). There are alternate paths/stages? and you can find one and the stage just suddenly ENDS instead of the predictable fighting the big bad at a port or airport implying transportation to next stage because this needs to be implied for some reason/overneed to explain plot or maybe they thought an airport was dramatic anyway. Anyway you still move like a crab but occasionally you can run and stuff and at times you don't feel like you're suffering some weird stroke/trying to control the body of somebody with one. there is a guy with baseball outfit and hockey mask who doesn't feel like a stock character from a brawler, even added on a whim?? and his movement is distinctly different than the other enemies. Even the music although is mostly predictably japanese/videogame/anime chord resolves (this is a thing, certain chords sound TRIUMPHANT to the japanese that other cultures don't apparently), there is a midi drum solo at one point that is surprisingly spontaneously/non-formulaic/maybe in a odd time signature??? (venetian snares vache) and one song where there is this wailing synth that just wails on beyond the alloted/tasteful amount of wail. All in all I thought it was decent. Final Fight 2 it made me never want to visit any of the countries in the game under any circumstances, it was that awful. It's as if they avoided every trope of said country that would've been dumb stupid fun except the italy level has canals/gondolas. But there is a London stage and it is just a circus train/trainyard with a clown boss that should've been french/in the france level i would think as his name was pierre or somethig? The train has no hazards that you have to duck/jump to avoid. Don't even think about some ridiculous scenario where you fight a musclebound planters peanut english aristocrat on the hands of big ben because the developers couldn't be arsed/ not sure if it was the japanese developers not knowing those tropes in the first place?? but either way they couldn't be arsed. the italy/venice level was oddly beautiful in a macabre/depressive way/evokes that scene in casino royale where everything is cracking and falling into the water as they fight
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