The trio set out to rescue Jessica (Haggar's daughter and Cody's girlfriend) when she is kidnapped by the Mad Gear Gang.

The game began development as a sequel to the original Street Fighter released in 1987, under the working title Street Fighter '89,[b] but the genre was switched from a fighting game to a beat 'em up and the title was changed to Final Fight following the success of Technōs Japan's Double Dragon.

Final Fight was ported to various home computers and consoles, including the ZX Spectrum, Super NES and Sega CD.

Now considered one of the greatest video games of all time, it spawned the Final Fight sub-series from the Street Fighter series, followed by several sequels.

The game ends when all lives are lost, but the player may spend a credit to continue from that point and choose a different character if desired.

Still determined to bring Haggar under their rule like the last mayor before him, Mad Gear proceeded to kidnap his daughter Jessica and create further unrest among the citizens.

When Haggar finds out about his daughter's abduction, he becomes furious and decides to take his fight against Mad Gear to a personal level.

[5][7] The title was changed to Final Fight before its official release after feedback from operators stating that the game was nothing like Street Fighter.

[9] Many of the characters are named after 1980s rock musicians such as Axl Rose (Axl), Slash (Slash), Gene Simmons (Simons), Sid Vicious (Sid), Billy Idol (Billy), King Diamond (Abigail, named after King Diamond's second album, also dons facepaint similar to King Diamond's), Sodom (Sodom), Roxy Music (Roxy), The Damned (Damnd) and Poison (Poison),[4] with another, 2P (Two.P), being from the Capcom game Forgotten Worlds.

Because Capcom believed that "players would feel bad beating up a woman", they noted in the manual that the female opponent Poison was a "newhalf".

[11] In a 2007 interview, Retro Gamer magazine asked Akira Nishitani about the game's similarities to the 1984 film Streets of Fire.

Nishitani said that, at the time, the team were not "aware of Streets of Fire, but I've Googled it and there does indeed seem to be something familiar about it" but that "this style of story was very popular back then" and many "fighting games made use of it" so "I guess we were part of that crowd!

"[4] Despite these claims, the official interview in the Japanese book "How to Make Capcom Fighting Characters" ( ストリートファイター キャラクターメイキング ) released in 2018 has Nishitani explaining that during development his boss K.Tsujimoto asked him literally to watch "all the movies" by Walter Hill, especially Streets of Fire referred to by fellow developer Akiman (Akira Yasuda) in the same conversation.

Also, when asked if Streets of Fire was the main influence giving the impression of being in "Downtown New York" in Final Fight, Akiman replied positively.

[12][13] Other sources of inspiration included Les Misérables, namely the protagonist Jean Valjean who becomes a mayor in the latter half of the story and his role as a devoted father,[14] and the manga series Mad Bull 34, which influenced Haggar's appearance.

[12] A port of Final Fight for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System was released as a launch title for the platform in Japan in 1990 and later in North America in 1991 and then in the PAL region in 1992.

The Super NES port removed the two-player co-op option, the Industrial Area level and playable character Guy.

The English localization of the Super NES port was censored for its content and features several differences from its Japanese Super Famicom counterpart: the first two bosses, Damnd and Sodom, were renamed Thrasher and Katana, respectively; Belger's wheelchair was re-drawn to look like an office chair; Poison, a woman with pink hair, and Roxy, a woman with red hair,[15] were replaced with two male enemies named Billy and Sid;[16] all alcoholic references were removed, with two health-recovering items replaced; the line "Oh!

A revised edition of the Super NES port, titled Final Fight Guy, was released in Japan in 1992.

U.S. Gold released ports of Final Fight for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC for the European market in 1991.

This version is a relatively close conversion of the arcade game, with the only notable changes being different music (with a choice between a MIDI soundtrack and one using the X68000's internal sound chip) and a lower maximum on-screen enemies.

This version retains nearly all the features of the arcade game that were removed in the two Super NES ports (namely the two-player mode, the Industrial Area stage and the ability to play as any of the three main characters) and adds voice acting to the game's opening and ending sequences, an arranged version of the original soundtrack, and an exclusive time attack mode.

However the maximum number of on-screen enemies were still lower than the arcade version and the combo attacks of Cody and Guy are much slower.

Dialogue scenes prior to each boss battle have been added and the Street Fighter Alpha 3 renditions of Cody and Guy are featured as hidden playable characters.

Added features include various graphic filters, including an arcade cabinet view; online drop-in multiplayer; an arranged soundtrack composed by Simon Viklund; and extra content such as concept art, fan art, Street Fighter comic pages featuring Final Fight characters and the "Final Fight" episode of the Street Fighter animated series, which are unlocked by completing certain in-game challenges.

[26] In Japan, Game Machine listed Final Fight on their January 15, 1990 issue as being the second-most-successful table arcade cabinet of the month.

[63] In a 1991 Gamest reader poll, Final Fight was voted the second-best arcade game of all time, just below Valkyrie no Densetsu (1990).

[70] Retro Gamer included it among top ten Mega CD games, describing it as "arguably the best home console conversion (aside from recent emulated ports)" of "unquestionably the quintessential arcade hit of the late Eighties.

[74] The Super Famicom version of the game is a key element in the plot of the manga Hi Score Girl and its Netflix anime adaptation.