Well, actually it’s not official news, so perhaps that headline is misleading. Falling at the first hurdle! Oof! But to be fair, it’s actually better than real Sega news, especially since real Sega is a dead entity that’s nothing more than a decaying husk of its former self.
This news is from the fan community, and man, this is a humdinger!
One of the awesome things about the fan community is that there are so many awesome projects in development for the Megadrive right now, from Street Fighter Alpha, arcade accurate Sunset Riders and the Simpson arcade game, to heavy hitters such as Metal Slug and the super ambitious and amazing-looking conversion of Castlevania Symphony of the Night. This is a coming lineup just as exciting as anything we had back in the day, and perhaps even more so!
And right up there, defying console limitations in a way that’s nothing more than pure wizardry, is our topic this fine day – Final Fight Ultimate!
Now, everyone knows that the humble Megadrive couldn’t handle Final Fight, right? Why even the 2 to 3 years newer SNES coughed and spluttered it’s way through their conversions, seriously hampered by the lacking content that was stripped from it like the 2-player mode, missing levels, missing characters, and limited 2 enemy characters on screen at a time scupperings. Twasn’t till you bolted on a Mega CD to the humble MD that something close to the arcade was realised, so a conversion on the ol’ bog standard would be nothing more than a simpering mess, surely?
Wrong!
What this dude has going on is nothing more than pure magic! Check out this shizzle below…
The dude is called MXRetroDev on YouTube and the channel is well worth checking out for more.
Quite how this dude is doing this I don’t know, but he’s got all characters present, 2-player mode with up to 7 characters on screen at a time, and has even found the time to add bonus characters such as Maki from Final Fight 2, and Captain Commando also makes a cameo! The dudes even added the challenge mode previously exclusive to the Mega CD version! Nice!
Back in the day this would’ve had to have come on a 60-meg cart, the same as Megadrive Super Street Fighter 2, thus commanding a high price tag. But it would’ve surely been worth it! I mean, everyone loved Final Fight, and this accomplishment would’ve had people going nuts, so surely Capcom would’ve had to have taken the plunge! Not that they had the skill to have pulled this off themselves at the time. They couldn’t even get a decent sound driver working for the Megadrive with SF2’s speech samples, something else that has now been fixed by fans.
Quite what the timescale is for this game being finished is unknown, but the hype and positivity surrounding it is upper echelon and with each passing update the quality of this title is shining through. It’s just awesome to see the Megadrive thriving even decades after Sega themselves moved on from it, and the potential of the beautiful beast is being realised even further. Seems like the Megadrive hasn’t given up all its secrets yet, and I’m well on board to see what’s coming next!