Final Fight is one of my favourite games, perhaps my favourite beat-em-up ever. Basically, you pick from a selection of badasses and just kick bad guy ass. It has many aspects of ryona that suit my tastes very well, which I will be overviewing in this post. My favourite type of ryona is one where a very competent heroine fights and fights and fights, slowly getting worn down. She fights against all odds and seemingly overcomes them, only for even worse situations to occur. She fights until she is unable to fight any longer. What happens next is up the the imagination, but this is the sort of fight I enjoy.
The one that I owned as a kid was Final Fight 2. The sequel just has far superior ryona potential, as the first game only had male leads. The female in Final Fight 2, Maki, does not disappoint. In the story, the gang from the first game kidnaps Maki's dad and sister. Maki has to rescue them and calls Haggar for help.
Great stories, for me, are not all that important for both beat-em-up games or ryona. However, there needs to be enough of one to pull the heroine into the story. Beating up a girl for the sake of beating her up is good and all, but it is not very engaging if there is no reason for her to be there. The story does just well enough to pull Maki into tight situations.
So, who is Maki? Well, let's take a look.
Physically, she's like most video-game females. She's smaller and weaker than her male counterparts, but makes up for it with her agility. At 5'4” and 114 lbs, she is smaller and lighter than even a lot of teenagers. But boy, don't let that figure fool you. She's a complete badass. Good ryona is not all about dominance over the heroine; it is about establishing the heroine as a formidable threat and finding ways to break her down. The competence of the heroine drives the ryona fantasy, and Maki is more than capable of pulling her own weight.
Maki pulls... erm... throws more than her own weight.
and more... by the way... is she really not wearing any underwear?
Maki is small, has short reach, but is able to use her speed to close the distance. Once she gets close, she can muster up surprising strength. Her fighting style is defined by her skill and finesse. Strong, small, sexy. Her attire allows her to move free-flowingly. Revealing, but covering just enough to make its eventual removal by the villains to be worthwhile. If you're able to watch her fight before getting knocked unconscious, you'll notice that all of her moves reveal either her sexy back or her lack of underwear.
That back... wow!
Yeah... she's not wearing any...
This spin-kick is even better, knowing what she's wearing (or not wearing...). Guess the move is called "Extra Joy" for a reason
She's so badass, she can blow fences up by punching them
The format of the game is simple. It is arranged in 6 stages. In each stage, Maki faces off against hordes of nameless mooks (well, they have names. It's just that they all have the exact same name). The mooks are not threatening enough to actually defeat our lovely heroine, but they are just dangerous enough to deal damage and wear her down. From very large men that outmuscle Maki, to torches that burn her, to electrotorture, there are just many different threats Maki has to deal with.
Looks pretty sexy, but my gosh you should hear the sound effect. It's very... inappropriate.
It's not just about beating her up. Electro-torture is a thing too.
As well as burnings.
Andore's always been one of my favourites. Maki is completely overmatched physically.
In one of the levels, she's fighting on a boat with passengers on board. The passengers just sit there calmly, watching a gang of ugly men beating the tar out of Maki, behaving as though nothing is out of the ordinary. In fact, they even clap and take photos.
Even the regular people in-universe enjoy themselves some ryona.
Even the environment is against Maki.
After her arduous journey through the seemingly endlessly waves of gangsters, her efforts are rewarded by the end-of-level boss. There are the large and scary ones, Won Won (shown in a pic above), Freddie and Bratken. Bratken is scary, as he seems to be some sort of dangerous convict who, I imagine, made a deal with the antagonist to break Maki's back for his freedom.
My favourite of these three scary monsters however is Freddie. He's some sort of military dude and Maki fights him in an air base. When Maki gets knocked to the floor, he has this move where he jumps in the air and sits on Maki. It is timed so that it hits just as Maki gets up. I imagine Maki getting the wind knocked out of her, and just as she's about to recover, a pain twice as bad knocks her and puts her into more of a daze.
Freddie has this other amazing move where he grabs Maki, jumps in the air and slams her into the ground. The animation itself is awkward, so you gotta use your imagination. He's pulling the move off in one of two ways:1) It's a body slam. He has one arm around Maki's neck, and the other arm in a very inappropriate area (think about what she's wearing...) 2) It's a pile driver, in which case, his head is hovering over an inappropriate area.
A jail cell in some sewer-like location. Scary...
After defeating the scary villains that completely overpower Maki, she's in for something different. She fights Phillippe, some sort of joker-like character. I imagine him as a mastermind sort of character, plotting Maki's demise through trickery instead of through force. I imagine him luring Maki into a trap and defeating her that way instead of winning in a straight up fight. You know what, Phillippe is the true antagonist of the game and he's the one that orchestrated the events of this game. Yeah, cuz I said so.
After facing so many muscleheads, Maki must learn to fight against tricksters.
So after Phillippe fakes getting defeated by Maki, she goes off and fights another completely different foe, Rolent. Up until now, Maki has been using her speed to overcome her larger and stronger opponents. However, the power dynamic changes as she fights Rolent. She is no match for Rolent's speed, yet is a closer match physically. However, as small as Rolent is, he's still well built and is not any weaker than Maki physically. How will she cope with this fight where she has neither a speed advantage nor a physical one. While I do enjoy the smaller heroine vs musclehead dynamic in ryona, a speed vs speed element is an interesting twist that I do like on occasion. She is disadvantaged in this fight. Rolent is far faster, and physically he's not even any weaker than Maki. How will she overcome this battle?
Rolent moves so quickly even our speedy heroine has trouble keeping up
Finally, our heroine finds herself back in Japan, where she prepares for her Final Fight!
Alone in a dark room.
So there's this guy... I can't even explain him. He's supposed to be the leader ofthe gang, but as we already established, Phillippe is the one pulling the strings. I guess he's pretty well built and is able to give Makia tough time. After a long and brutal battle, Retu I guess falls out the door and the final boss has been defeated. Yay, ending! Maki is on the ground, completely exhausted after her victory. However, all is going according to Phillippe's plan. A man that Maki believes to be Haggar walks up to her. She realizes too late that the man towering over her is in fact not Haggar, but some sort of super Andore. The Andore of all Andores. Imagine if Andore was not just some random nobody, but was a boss. You know how Andore just towers over everyone and can outmuscle any random gangster. Now imagine this in boss form. Imagine Freddie is just some regular boss, and Andore just towers over Freddie. This is how scary Super Andore is.
Maki is completely exhausted from her battle against Retu (as well as all of theprevious bosses), barely able to move, but now she has to face off against her toughest foe yet. What follows is the most brutal beating yet, followed by one of the best ending scenes of all time.
We are rewarded for our efforts with a great ending.
In conclusion, Final Fight makes for some great ryona. It features:
- An incredible heroine worth breaking
- Endless waves of faceless mooks that aren't threatening enough to defeat her, but enough to wear her down
- Boss fights that bring our heroine to the limit, testing her every skill
- Great ending
On top of having great ryona moments, Final Fight 2 is a great game in its own right. If you haven't already, I would fully recommend giving it a try.
The one that I owned as a kid was Final Fight 2. The sequel just has far superior ryona potential, as the first game only had male leads. The female in Final Fight 2, Maki, does not disappoint. In the story, the gang from the first game kidnaps Maki's dad and sister. Maki has to rescue them and calls Haggar for help.
Great stories, for me, are not all that important for both beat-em-up games or ryona. However, there needs to be enough of one to pull the heroine into the story. Beating up a girl for the sake of beating her up is good and all, but it is not very engaging if there is no reason for her to be there. The story does just well enough to pull Maki into tight situations.
So, who is Maki? Well, let's take a look.
Physically, she's like most video-game females. She's smaller and weaker than her male counterparts, but makes up for it with her agility. At 5'4” and 114 lbs, she is smaller and lighter than even a lot of teenagers. But boy, don't let that figure fool you. She's a complete badass. Good ryona is not all about dominance over the heroine; it is about establishing the heroine as a formidable threat and finding ways to break her down. The competence of the heroine drives the ryona fantasy, and Maki is more than capable of pulling her own weight.
Maki pulls... erm... throws more than her own weight.
and more... by the way... is she really not wearing any underwear?
Maki is small, has short reach, but is able to use her speed to close the distance. Once she gets close, she can muster up surprising strength. Her fighting style is defined by her skill and finesse. Strong, small, sexy. Her attire allows her to move free-flowingly. Revealing, but covering just enough to make its eventual removal by the villains to be worthwhile. If you're able to watch her fight before getting knocked unconscious, you'll notice that all of her moves reveal either her sexy back or her lack of underwear.
That back... wow!
Yeah... she's not wearing any...
This spin-kick is even better, knowing what she's wearing (or not wearing...). Guess the move is called "Extra Joy" for a reason
She's so badass, she can blow fences up by punching them
The format of the game is simple. It is arranged in 6 stages. In each stage, Maki faces off against hordes of nameless mooks (well, they have names. It's just that they all have the exact same name). The mooks are not threatening enough to actually defeat our lovely heroine, but they are just dangerous enough to deal damage and wear her down. From very large men that outmuscle Maki, to torches that burn her, to electrotorture, there are just many different threats Maki has to deal with.
Looks pretty sexy, but my gosh you should hear the sound effect. It's very... inappropriate.
It's not just about beating her up. Electro-torture is a thing too.
As well as burnings.
Andore's always been one of my favourites. Maki is completely overmatched physically.
In one of the levels, she's fighting on a boat with passengers on board. The passengers just sit there calmly, watching a gang of ugly men beating the tar out of Maki, behaving as though nothing is out of the ordinary. In fact, they even clap and take photos.
Even the regular people in-universe enjoy themselves some ryona.
Even the environment is against Maki.
After her arduous journey through the seemingly endlessly waves of gangsters, her efforts are rewarded by the end-of-level boss. There are the large and scary ones, Won Won (shown in a pic above), Freddie and Bratken. Bratken is scary, as he seems to be some sort of dangerous convict who, I imagine, made a deal with the antagonist to break Maki's back for his freedom.
My favourite of these three scary monsters however is Freddie. He's some sort of military dude and Maki fights him in an air base. When Maki gets knocked to the floor, he has this move where he jumps in the air and sits on Maki. It is timed so that it hits just as Maki gets up. I imagine Maki getting the wind knocked out of her, and just as she's about to recover, a pain twice as bad knocks her and puts her into more of a daze.
Freddie has this other amazing move where he grabs Maki, jumps in the air and slams her into the ground. The animation itself is awkward, so you gotta use your imagination. He's pulling the move off in one of two ways:1) It's a body slam. He has one arm around Maki's neck, and the other arm in a very inappropriate area (think about what she's wearing...) 2) It's a pile driver, in which case, his head is hovering over an inappropriate area.
A jail cell in some sewer-like location. Scary...
After defeating the scary villains that completely overpower Maki, she's in for something different. She fights Phillippe, some sort of joker-like character. I imagine him as a mastermind sort of character, plotting Maki's demise through trickery instead of through force. I imagine him luring Maki into a trap and defeating her that way instead of winning in a straight up fight. You know what, Phillippe is the true antagonist of the game and he's the one that orchestrated the events of this game. Yeah, cuz I said so.
After facing so many muscleheads, Maki must learn to fight against tricksters.
So after Phillippe fakes getting defeated by Maki, she goes off and fights another completely different foe, Rolent. Up until now, Maki has been using her speed to overcome her larger and stronger opponents. However, the power dynamic changes as she fights Rolent. She is no match for Rolent's speed, yet is a closer match physically. However, as small as Rolent is, he's still well built and is not any weaker than Maki physically. How will she cope with this fight where she has neither a speed advantage nor a physical one. While I do enjoy the smaller heroine vs musclehead dynamic in ryona, a speed vs speed element is an interesting twist that I do like on occasion. She is disadvantaged in this fight. Rolent is far faster, and physically he's not even any weaker than Maki. How will she overcome this battle?
Rolent moves so quickly even our speedy heroine has trouble keeping up
Finally, our heroine finds herself back in Japan, where she prepares for her Final Fight!
Alone in a dark room.
So there's this guy... I can't even explain him. He's supposed to be the leader ofthe gang, but as we already established, Phillippe is the one pulling the strings. I guess he's pretty well built and is able to give Makia tough time. After a long and brutal battle, Retu I guess falls out the door and the final boss has been defeated. Yay, ending! Maki is on the ground, completely exhausted after her victory. However, all is going according to Phillippe's plan. A man that Maki believes to be Haggar walks up to her. She realizes too late that the man towering over her is in fact not Haggar, but some sort of super Andore. The Andore of all Andores. Imagine if Andore was not just some random nobody, but was a boss. You know how Andore just towers over everyone and can outmuscle any random gangster. Now imagine this in boss form. Imagine Freddie is just some regular boss, and Andore just towers over Freddie. This is how scary Super Andore is.
Maki is completely exhausted from her battle against Retu (as well as all of theprevious bosses), barely able to move, but now she has to face off against her toughest foe yet. What follows is the most brutal beating yet, followed by one of the best ending scenes of all time.
We are rewarded for our efforts with a great ending.
In conclusion, Final Fight makes for some great ryona. It features:
- An incredible heroine worth breaking
- Endless waves of faceless mooks that aren't threatening enough to defeat her, but enough to wear her down
- Boss fights that bring our heroine to the limit, testing her every skill
- Great ending
On top of having great ryona moments, Final Fight 2 is a great game in its own right. If you haven't already, I would fully recommend giving it a try.
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