Burning Fight

Review Introduction:

Once upon a time in 1989, Capcom uppercutted the beat 'em up genre into the stratosphere with the smash hit Final Fight. For a brief moment, every major game developer wanted a piece of that delicious cash pie and quickly went to work on their own version of Capcom's golden baby.

The biblical-sized deluge of Final Fight clones spawned so many great games and series that we '80s kids never really got tired of the genre until Capcom themselves killed it with Street Fighter II and the subsequent fighting game craze.

Our lovely friends at SNK threw their hat in the ring with a small handful of titles as well, with Burning Fight being the one that most resembles Capcom's beast.

Story: 📖

Let's start with the story of our little SNK game. To truly understand and immerse yourself in a good beat 'em up, you need to know the motivations and aspirations of the characters. After all, everybody plays arcade games for the story.

Billy and Jimmy from Double Dragon had to rescue their girlfriend, the Final Fight dudes had to rescue that girl with the big bazooms, and the Ninja Turtles had to rescue their communal girlfriend, April O'Neil.

The three random guys in Burning Fight are just some cops. Cops who are here to fight crime. With punches and poorly animated kicks. We have Ryu, who is the stand-in for Guy, Duke, who is obviously Cody, and Billy, who is the stereotypical “big guy,” but without anywhere near the badassery of Mayor Mike Haggar.

I'm sure you are just dying to know more, so if you watch the attract screen, you are treated to little character cards that show their hobbies, such as “driving,” and their zodiac signs in case any of you lovely ladies are interested in dating these generic punchy dudes.

Well, our heroes walk right, punching and kicking through Japan until they reach the big bad boat of the big boss man, Casterora. He's a pasty, fat dude who looks like an accountant who swindles old ladies out of their social security checks.

Spoiler alert: You beat him up and end his wave of terror gripping 1990s Japan.

Graphics: 👾

“This is the Neo Geo, pal, the most BADASS system at the time when this game was released, so HOW ARE THE GRAPHICS?” yelled the busty woman reading my review of a game from three decades ago. Her dainty fingers slowly moved the mouse wheel to find the next page in this slog of a review. Her eyes drifted towards slumber as she questioned why she was forgoing sleep to read a Neo Geo Forever article.

The graphics are actually decent. The art design is pretty bland overall, but you can tell they were trying to achieve a high level of detail, and it really shines in the background art. All of the backgrounds are unique and consist of high-quality pixel art. The backgrounds aren’t tiled like you'd see in a normal beat 'em up, so you’re not seeing the same exact sprite time and time again, and I can really appreciate that.

Or I might be looking for at least ONE positive in the game. This score is only being propped up by Mad Dilly alone, if I’m being honest. Him and the fact that there is approximately 8 pixels of nudity on a background poster. I'll go head and add one point for each boob.

The characters look alright for the time, but the animation is severely lacking. Some of the attacks consist of literally ONE FRAME of animation. For a beat 'em up past 1990, this is just downright unacceptable. Even Final Fight has fluid animations for the walk animations, so in comparison, Burning Fight looks stiff and sluggish.

Sound: 🔊

I suppose the sound is competent. The effects are okay, and there are a handful of speech samples. The music is forgettable but doesn’t annoy me, so maybe that’s in Burning Fight's favor.

You will forget everything you heard after you are done playing the game, as I did. Some awful speech samples like the ones in Altered Beasts or X-Men would have really jazzed up the experience, but instead, we get boring stuff with no janky charm to be found.

Fun Factor: ✨

Nope. Not happening, I'm afraid.

I beat the game once, and I can't bring myself to play it anymore. I don’t think I have ever played a game so bland. I did try several times, and I'd much rather beat up a real old guy on a boat.

Conclusion: 📊

Every beat 'em up should have a “you know the game with...” factor. Here are a few examples, but let's see if you can guess the game using my “yktgw” factor:

“You know the game with the guys who transform into werewolves and dragons?”

“You know the game with the baby in a mech and the mummy commando?”

“You know the game where you beat up and shoot dinosaurs?”

Yeah, you know all of them, and even if you didn’t, you’d instantly be interested in the game from that description. I will leave you with Burning Fight's “yktgw” factor, and all I have is, “You know the game with the hobo that looks like he's trying to kiss your wiener?”

You decide if that's the kind of game you WANT to play.