Basics

Final Fight has 3 types of damage; Strikes, throws and exact. Strikes will be reduced by a percentage based on the enemies defensive modifier. Throws will do full damage against high HP enemies, but against an enemy with less remaining HP than 2 times the throws damage, the throw will do half of its listed damage or half of the enemies' remaining HP, whichever is greater. Exact damage will always yield the same damage regardless of the situation.

Cody

Haggar

Guy

Advanced

Deathblow Details

A common escape move in this style of brawler, which is refered to by many different names such as: Super joy, extra joy, mega crash, desperation attack, and I'm sure a whole host of others that I am not thinking of. Deathblows are a critical component to success in Final Fight since they are your only notable tool to escape bad situations. Deathblows are done by hitting both attack and jump at the same time, however the game accepts the input if you hold either button and press the other as well. Unlike later CapCom games, this move cannot be done out of a punch, you must either be in a neutral standing state or in hitstun to perform a deathblow. This makes it tricky to use in situations where you are going for a strike grab by are surrounded, you have to completely stop punching to get around this without first taking a hit.

Strike Grabs

All characters can do a throw instead of the final punch in their striking series by holding up or down when hitting the button for the attack. This is very useful to gain invincibility frames, and to group enemies together on one side or the other efficiently. For Haggar in particular, his suplex throw has a few frames near the end of the throw which can be canceled into an attack, which can let Haggar squeeze in a punch before he becomes vulnerable again.

Back Jumping

All characters move faster by jumping backwards rather than walking or jumping forward. To jump backwards, a specific input is required, since simply holding a direction and pressing jump would result in the character facing that direction and jumping forward. After pressing jump with no directional input, the game will wait in a pre-jump animation for a few frames. If you then press back, your character will jump backwards instead of forward. Backwards jumps are a bit limited in that you cannot perform a standard jumping attack, but all characters can perform their jumping down attack to maintain at least some attack and space control option.

The Infinite

One of the primary damage output skills in Final Fight is the infinite. All 3 characters can change facing freely when initiating a new attack. By changing your facing away from the enemy you are attacking for one of the strikes in the primary standing attack series, you can purposefully miss an attack. The game then assumes you should not be in the middle of an attack series, and returns you to the first attack in the series the next time you punch. By doing this in a specific way, you can keep enemies in hitstun forever. Because of the length of each attack, each character has a slightly unique infinite. Haggar must face away for alternating attacks, so his infinite appears as (Punch, turn, punch [missed], turn)xN. Cody can do two strikes and miss the third (Punch, punch, turn, punch [missed], turn)xN. Guy can do this the same way as Cody, or can do three strikes before shifting. (Punch, Punch, Punch, turn, Punch [missed], turn).

Hitstop

A primary and somewhat confusing barrier to new players, hitstop has some odd properties generally shared with all of Capcom's arcade brawlers. When hitting an enemy, there are 3 'phases' to the hit. The first is the short pause the game does during the actual hitting frame. This is followed by the hitstun, where the character is free to act but the enemy struck is still stunned, and finally the enemy returns to normal. Hitstop has important ramifications because if you strike multiple enemies, you will often incur hitstop multiple times while the enemies only incur it once each. This additional time spent in hitstop by you will allow enemies to recover from hitstun before you have even finished your attack, and then they can counter you. This is even more dangerous in the situation where there is an axl or slash among a group, since their block causes more hitstop than a normal strike.

There are a few solutions to ensure hitstop does not result in being countered. The first is to ensure that every enemy struck is hit on the same frame, which is what generally happens. In groups of like enemies, it is easy to guarantee this situation by knocking the enemies down with something like a jump kick, then punching them as they rise. Against groups of unlike enemies, more improvisation is needed, and avoiding basic standing strikes may be necessary.

Button 3

A short note on button 3. Anyone who has played Final Fight in mame may have taken notice that button 3 can be bound, and appears to do nothing. This seems to be a leftover development button, and it still has one function. Specifically, pressing button 3 when being grabbed (primarily by Andores or Abigail), will result in your character falling out of the grab. No official documentation contains any references to button 3, it is not an available button on any official cabinet, does not show up in the input check, and it is not included in any port of the game, so use of button 3 is regarded as a cheat by SDA standards.