As many Final Fight fans have probably noticed, we’re currently living through something of a beat em up renaissance right now. It seems like you can’t swing a garbage can turkey without hitting some sort of brand new, exciting brawler out to either revitalize a classic brand, or give fans of old cartoons the TMNT-style adventure they’ve always wanted. 

But something is missing. You may have heard that there’s a new set of Final Fight action figures coming out. When I heard this, the first thought I had was “I wish I had the money to buy these things because they look amazing.” But the SECOND thought I had was “Hey, where the heck is Final Fight?” 

Final Fight was the king of the arcade scene for a time. It had awesome graphics, music, and you got to play as either a white-tshirt sporting generic good guy, a ninja (because why not?) or the freaking Mayor who just so happens to also be an ex-professional wrestler. There was an undeniable charm to walking around the gang-infested streets of Metro City as its buff, shirtless mayor piledriving punks into the pavement. 

The game’s famously flawed SNES port was still an incredibly good time, and it spawned a pair of fairly cool sequels that have been tragically overlooked for decades. But then things started going downhill for the series. Once games went 3D, Cody, Haggar, Guy, and their various cohorts had a seriously rough go of it. Well, in their own games, at least. Cody, Guy, and Maki all managed to find their way into various Street Fighter games in the years since, and Haggar was eventually added to the Marvel vs. Capcom roster, but no matter how many times these characters and their world get referenced, we haven’t had an actual, good, proper beat em up game in a very, very long time. 

So with the current gaming landscape being the way that it is, it’s pretty dang bizarre that Capcom hasn’t seen fit to take a new swing at the brand. 

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Just look at what’s out there right now. Streets of Rage 4 was a masterpiece of a brawler that infused new life into Sega’s long dormant franchise which was created specifically to compete with Final Fight to begin with. Double Dragon Gaiden was a wildly entertaining fresh take on one of the genre’s oldest incarnations, and it came out fantastic. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles returned in the exemplary Shredder’s Revenge, giving fans of the original TMNT arcade games something new to chew on, and later this year we’ll be seeing similar efforts based on Toxic Crusaders and GI Joe. 

It’s time for Final Fight to come back, and not looking like Street Fighter 6. No offense to new Street Fighter games, but this series needs that classic animated look. Like the Street Fighter Alpha series, only animated even better. It could be great, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who would buy it. If we live in a world where the action figures can thrive, there’s got to be room for a proper new video game, right?