by marurun Sun Oct 18, 2015 1:51 pm
I played Final Fight before I did SOR, but I like the SOR series better. While Final Fight had huge sprites and very accessible play control (unlike Double Dragon, one of its venerable forefathers), it also had very simple gameplay. Yeah, there were new enemies, but basically, you punch, throw, weapon, and special. You can cut your punch chain short to restart it if you don't want a knockdown, but the game usually started to feel very bland to me after a while. SOR was graphically less impressive, but it was also designed for a home system rather than the arcade and was 2 player, unlike the SNES port of Final Fight. SOR allowed you to grab enemies and flip over them for a different kind of throw or attack, and to evade enemies coming up alongside. That simple twist upped the replay value for me quite a bit.
Final Fight is, I think, so legendary because it is so accessible. Look at Double Dragon. Complex fighting system, but movement is really slow, the animation is slow and choppy, and the hit detection can feel really weird. Also, it can be hard to figure out all the moves. Double Dragon feels overly complex and unpolished at times. Final Fight has this really shiny glaze over it and makes it really easy to walk up and beat the crap out of a bad guy.
Now, wait a sec, I praised SOR because of increased complexity and I used that to help shoot down Double Dragon. It has to do with game feel. SOR has the same easy, approachable feel Final Fight has. SOR is a natural evolution of some of the increased complexity of the genre combined with the cleaner, smoother gameplay Final Fight introduced. That and SOR was made to be played at home with pals, rather than have quarters eaten up in the arcade.