Final Fight 3 (Super NES, 1995)

 

This is usually agreed upon as the best game in the series. After replaying it I'll go ahead and agree with that. It's also the last one, with the best visuals and best music. Join me as I beat up Andore the Giant for the last time.

The Mad Gear gang is gone, but the citizens lived only to face a new nightmare...

...the Skull Cross gang! This is one of those situations where most of the old gang joined the new one, like when a new security company gets the contract on a building and just sort of steals all the guards from the previous contracted company and keeps them at their posts.

::Law and Order gavel drop theme plays::

The Skull Cross gang decides to announce their presence in a big way, by going Full Minneapolis. Never go Full Minneapolis.

Some guy shows up. Who is letting all these people into Mayor Mike's office unannounced?

Uh, yeah, it kind of does dude.

This Mysterious Stranger is Dean (no relation to Howard...that we know of) and he has a bone to pick with the Skull Cross gang. He won't tell the other heroes why, choosing instead to be all mysterious. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and bet that the gang slaughtered his family or something generic along those lines. In the 80's and 90's that was all the impetus a street-fighting mysterious guy needed.

We've also got Mayor Mike Haggar returning. The only character to be playable across this entire series. It looks like he has a snake on his shoulder. Like if you put this picture next to a cat, the cat would leap away in horror.

Guy returns from the first game. Still no Cody though. Guy isn't as successful at getting into video games as Cody Rhodes is.

Finally we've got Lucia, noted CSI detective who is an expert at forensics and collecting people's DNA. It appears that Guy and Lucia are the two "fast but don't hit as hard" characters while Dean and Haggar are the two "hit hard but don't move as fast" characters. Usually these games have one character in the middle, so they had to do something different with these four. Dean might be a little faster and a little weaker than Haggar, so maybe he's the middle guy. Guy and Lucia seem pretty even in most regards.

I give the new guy a whirl. This guy is straight out of an old-school action movie, and a solid brawler.

His superpower is that he can electrocute enemies. I think his hands (gloves?) can channel electricity or something along those lines. They were probably inspired by Rayden for this, or maybe Blanka.

He does this big sweeping bow when you do his super move, electrocuting everyone around him. All in all this guy is pretty cool and fun to play as.

First boss is this giant crooked cop. Wasn't he in the other games? Why wasn't he disbarred for continuously joining gangs?

My God! It was all a ruse!

The Skull Cross gang is much craftier and seems a lot more dangerous than the relatively dim-witted Mad Gear gang.

Dean finally reveals the big secret. Yeah uh, we kinda all figured.

Game over and you get this unsettling scene of your character having a spiked ceiling lowered onto them unless you press start to continue. PRESS START TO CONTINUE YOU RAT BASTARD!

Lucia is where it's at for this game. She's not as hot as Blaze, but nobody is.

She moves fast so she's fun to play as, and has some pretty sweet moves. Doesn't do much damage but it's whatever when you can stick and move.

This boss ended up basically being the demo reel for all of Lucia's moves.

Next up is Caine, who moves way too fast for someone his size. He's like Rolento only with a wrench instead of a baton.

Starting to worry a little bit about credits at this point. Somebody got paid money to render Lucia's succulent 'bod in this game.

Next it's time to wheel out Haggar from the old folks home. He's got an Ultimate Warrior gorilla press slam now.

The classic spinning clothesline returns. This game does everything the other two did, just a little better.

Next boss is this insane chef who looks like a Dynasty Warriors character.

Guy is the last character I check out. He's... Guy. Has a nice jump kick, moves fast. At least they gave you some variety but he seems pretty redundant with Lucia in the game serving the same purpose. If this game was gonna have four characters, it needed a four-player mode. Get on it, ROM hackers!

Andore returns yet again. Man, even this guy got picked up by the Skull Cross gang. The devs might as well have just left the name of the gang alone at this point.

Stray is the second to last boss of this game and probably the worst of all of them, as is tradition. He's got the same electrocution-punch that Dean has, and I assume there's a story behind this somewhere in the instruction manual.

They said it, they said the name of the game.

The final boss is this M. Bison looking guy. He's nowhere near as iconic as the bad guy from the first game, which is one of the few areas where this one doesn't measure up.

I switched to Lucia for this final level because of course I did.

He's got Haggar's spinning clothesline. What's with the bosses appropriating the special moves of the heroes?

After lots and lots of spin kicks...

...I knock him into this electric fence on my last life.

Great game here. Really isn't a lot to say about it, but any Final Fight series game is at the top of the class for beat 'em ups and this is probably the best of the lot.

Music time! The soundtrack of this game is very Capcom to say the least.

Stage 2's theme is probably my favorite track in this one. Sounds like it'd be at home in in virtually any kind of game.

This track sounds like something out of Breath of Fire 3.

The kitchen level has another pretty solid theme.

Final stage theme - Intense music here, probably the most memorable track from the game.