FINAL FIGHT: ENHANCED
In 2021 I started learning 68000 assembly programming. More specifically, the Amiga range of home computers. I needed a test game to help learn all the ins and outs of coding for the system, so I chose my favourite arcade game - Capcom's Final Fight.
The game had already been converted to the Amiga OCS in 1991 by code wizard Richard Aplin, but he was given extremely tight deadlines and no resources. Despite the conversion featuring some very innovative programming, the gameplay result felt a little unfinished to a lot of users. Still, it was one of my most played Amiga games, and I have a lot of nostalgia for it.
I decided to try my own version, but target the Amiga 600 ECS system instead. This would allow for 2MB of RAM and get around the Amiga's lack of hardware graphics functions like sprite flipping. The extra memory also allowed room for music files, extra frames of animation for moves, and other code tricks like lookup tables to help keep the gameplay smooth on a 7Mhz system.
The game was named Final Fight: Enhanced because of the target platform of the Enhanced Chip Set (ECS). It is not a remake, hack, or "enhanced" version of the 1991 game, but it's own brand new version written from the ground up specifically for the Amiga 600.
A one-level demo was released on YouTube in late 2021 featuring just Haggar and two enemies on the Subway train stage. It could only run on a 68020 setting due to a very cumbersome tile replacing routine running at 50fps, but it was a decent showcase. After a short break I came back and almost completely re-wrote the code by adding a new tile replacing routine and halving the frame rate. Things were starting to get faster, but the biggest change was giving the Blitter priority over the CPU which was a huge speed boost. I started to try out more level backgrounds and write routines which would set up each stage, and it was at this point where I felt that I could make a full game out of the project. So, I set to work figuring out what needed to be done.
A fun addition that I really wanted to include was the character of Maki from Final Fight 2. I loved her in the SNES sequel, but felt that I wanted to add my own spin to make her Amiga exclusive. I redesigned her look to be more "Ninja like" by giving her a Bushin-Ryu gi similar to Guy's, and some black leggings to contrast the orange and make her pop more from the backgrounds. I also gave her a slightly new moveset which was more to my taste. This included a new "Axe-Kick" combo finisher, and a brand new "Pavement Slam" grab move. Her special move was also given a revision due to it looking and feeling a bit clunky in the Nintendo game, and since Final Fight 2 had some close ties with Street Fighter she was given a move more similar to Chun-Li's Spinning Bird Kick.
The story now takes place in an alternate universe where Maki just happens to be visiting Guy and Rena in Metro City when Jessica is kidnapped. This brought the player count up to four, which is now on-par with console brawlers.
The game had already been converted to the Amiga OCS in 1991 by code wizard Richard Aplin, but he was given extremely tight deadlines and no resources. Despite the conversion featuring some very innovative programming, the gameplay result felt a little unfinished to a lot of users. Still, it was one of my most played Amiga games, and I have a lot of nostalgia for it.
I decided to try my own version, but target the Amiga 600 ECS system instead. This would allow for 2MB of RAM and get around the Amiga's lack of hardware graphics functions like sprite flipping. The extra memory also allowed room for music files, extra frames of animation for moves, and other code tricks like lookup tables to help keep the gameplay smooth on a 7Mhz system.
The game was named Final Fight: Enhanced because of the target platform of the Enhanced Chip Set (ECS). It is not a remake, hack, or "enhanced" version of the 1991 game, but it's own brand new version written from the ground up specifically for the Amiga 600.
A one-level demo was released on YouTube in late 2021 featuring just Haggar and two enemies on the Subway train stage. It could only run on a 68020 setting due to a very cumbersome tile replacing routine running at 50fps, but it was a decent showcase. After a short break I came back and almost completely re-wrote the code by adding a new tile replacing routine and halving the frame rate. Things were starting to get faster, but the biggest change was giving the Blitter priority over the CPU which was a huge speed boost. I started to try out more level backgrounds and write routines which would set up each stage, and it was at this point where I felt that I could make a full game out of the project. So, I set to work figuring out what needed to be done.
A fun addition that I really wanted to include was the character of Maki from Final Fight 2. I loved her in the SNES sequel, but felt that I wanted to add my own spin to make her Amiga exclusive. I redesigned her look to be more "Ninja like" by giving her a Bushin-Ryu gi similar to Guy's, and some black leggings to contrast the orange and make her pop more from the backgrounds. I also gave her a slightly new moveset which was more to my taste. This included a new "Axe-Kick" combo finisher, and a brand new "Pavement Slam" grab move. Her special move was also given a revision due to it looking and feeling a bit clunky in the Nintendo game, and since Final Fight 2 had some close ties with Street Fighter she was given a move more similar to Chun-Li's Spinning Bird Kick.
The story now takes place in an alternate universe where Maki just happens to be visiting Guy and Rena in Metro City when Jessica is kidnapped. This brought the player count up to four, which is now on-par with console brawlers.
Protracker for Windows by Olav Sørensen
One of the core goals was to implement a better re-distribution of the original palette colours across all areas of the graphics. This was painstakingly undertaken to make the game more vibrant, so the graphics and colours were not placeholders. Other improvements were made with new tiles being added for the backgrounds, tidy-ups of older tiles, and more detail given to the sprites.
For audio, a host of new sound effects were added from the arcade, and I composed seven new in-game music tracks using Protracker for Windows which are 100% exclusive to the Amiga. Of course, I had to retain the legendary Amiga title music by Jolyon Myres, becasue for me, it's just as much Final Fight as any of the other songs.
Other additions included a reintroduction of the elevator stage from the Industrial Area, as well as the knife-throwing Holly Wood character. Cosmetic features like background animation and foreground objects were originally not planned, but some careful calculating and knuckling-down made them possible.
Of course, 2MB of RAM was still not enough to cram absolutely everything in. Final Fight was a state-of-the-art arcade game from 1989, and the technology which powered the Amiga had barely changed since its design inception in 1982. Therefore, arcade perfect was never the goal, but rather just a new "version" for the Amiga 600 - a machine which I owned and loved growing up.
As far as references go, I had enjoyed many Amiga beat 'em ups such as Golden Axe and Shadow Warriors. However, my all time favourite was Double Dragon II, and it was this game that I used as the yardstick to judge what I was doing with Final Fight. If the conversion was at least on par with DDII in terms of action and fun, then the job was done.
The development time took up every weekend, holiday, and evening for three years, and involved intense study to learn how the Amiga worked. The Hardware Reference Manual and various other assembly/Amiga OS books were read and referenced almost to the point of falling apart, and YouTube also provided much helpful information which had a more practical, example based delivery. The added drudge of figuring out how to get things working with the raw technical information was also very time-consuming.
Learning how to convert graphical and sound assets from PC to Amiga was one of the first tasks, but later challenges included figuring out ways to read data from the disks into RAM buffers, and writing routines to trigger music and sound effects. Exporting the final binary and setting up disk bootblocks were other tasks than needed to be figured out. This was simply because there is very little information out there on a lot of these seemingly common steps, and what is available is typically just vague descriptions that often consist of little more than short sentences.
Luckily, a lot of pre-existing tools were available, and this greatly aided in the conversion process.
For audio, a host of new sound effects were added from the arcade, and I composed seven new in-game music tracks using Protracker for Windows which are 100% exclusive to the Amiga. Of course, I had to retain the legendary Amiga title music by Jolyon Myres, becasue for me, it's just as much Final Fight as any of the other songs.
Other additions included a reintroduction of the elevator stage from the Industrial Area, as well as the knife-throwing Holly Wood character. Cosmetic features like background animation and foreground objects were originally not planned, but some careful calculating and knuckling-down made them possible.
Of course, 2MB of RAM was still not enough to cram absolutely everything in. Final Fight was a state-of-the-art arcade game from 1989, and the technology which powered the Amiga had barely changed since its design inception in 1982. Therefore, arcade perfect was never the goal, but rather just a new "version" for the Amiga 600 - a machine which I owned and loved growing up.
As far as references go, I had enjoyed many Amiga beat 'em ups such as Golden Axe and Shadow Warriors. However, my all time favourite was Double Dragon II, and it was this game that I used as the yardstick to judge what I was doing with Final Fight. If the conversion was at least on par with DDII in terms of action and fun, then the job was done.
The development time took up every weekend, holiday, and evening for three years, and involved intense study to learn how the Amiga worked. The Hardware Reference Manual and various other assembly/Amiga OS books were read and referenced almost to the point of falling apart, and YouTube also provided much helpful information which had a more practical, example based delivery. The added drudge of figuring out how to get things working with the raw technical information was also very time-consuming.
Learning how to convert graphical and sound assets from PC to Amiga was one of the first tasks, but later challenges included figuring out ways to read data from the disks into RAM buffers, and writing routines to trigger music and sound effects. Exporting the final binary and setting up disk bootblocks were other tasks than needed to be figured out. This was simply because there is very little information out there on a lot of these seemingly common steps, and what is available is typically just vague descriptions that often consist of little more than short sentences.
Luckily, a lot of pre-existing tools were available, and this greatly aided in the conversion process.
|
Graphics:
Audio: Programming: Testing: |
Paint Shop Pro, PPaint, IFF Converter, Rob Northen Compressor
M.A.M.E. M1, Goldwave, Protracker, P61 Player, Cubase, Soundtracker Sample Pack Notepad ++, VASM Assembler, WinUAE Stock Amiga 600 with 2MB ChipMem and a 2-Button controller |
The downside is that these tools had to be sourced separately, and weren't always easy to find or understand. However, once the processes were figured out they were easily repeatable.
Tools such as IFF converter were essential
Another issue was dealing with my learning disability of dyscalculia. This made assembly programming much more difficult to grasp, and the near forty-year old documentation was poorly written and almost entirely example free. To combat this, I had a notebook full of sketches which used shapes and colours to try and represent what was happening in the system, and this allowed me to "see" what the code was doing in my own way.
Overall, creating an Amiga game was a very tough process to try and navigate. Looking back, there were so many things I had naively assumed that games were doing under the hood, but it turned out to be so much more complex than I could have ever perceived. I now see comment sections with people pushing the same technically ignorant misinformation about the Amiga that I used to, so developing a game for the system was a real eye-opener in terms of how embarrassingly wrong I was before.
Still, as a personal project it was an exhausting but immensely satisfying experience.
Final Fight: Enhanced was completed and released on the 28th of February 2024.
A YouTube playthrough can be viewed here:
FINAL FIGHT: ENHANCED
Additionally, a somewhat in-depth breakdown can be found in the blog section:
FINAL FIGHT: ENHANCED - The Extended Interview
Overall, creating an Amiga game was a very tough process to try and navigate. Looking back, there were so many things I had naively assumed that games were doing under the hood, but it turned out to be so much more complex than I could have ever perceived. I now see comment sections with people pushing the same technically ignorant misinformation about the Amiga that I used to, so developing a game for the system was a real eye-opener in terms of how embarrassingly wrong I was before.
Still, as a personal project it was an exhausting but immensely satisfying experience.
Final Fight: Enhanced was completed and released on the 28th of February 2024.
A YouTube playthrough can be viewed here:
FINAL FIGHT: ENHANCED
Additionally, a somewhat in-depth breakdown can be found in the blog section:
FINAL FIGHT: ENHANCED - The Extended Interview
FINAL EDITION
In spring of 2025 I returned to the game for a further eight months of development.
This was a mostly under-the-hood update which removes the use of AmigaOS and made the game run under a flat 2MB of ChipMem. Other improvements included a wider screen display, more enemy attacks, more player moves, new sound effects, box art, and a plethora of other tweaks.
A playthrough of the update can be viewed here:
FINAL EDITION PLAYTHROUGH
A full extensive technical breakdown of the development can be found in the blog section:
FINAL FIGHT: ENHANCED - FINAL EDITION - Complete Breakdown
The game can be downloaded from the link below. Please take the time to read the build log and instructions for a full list of changes made to the update, and to check compatibility conditions.
DOWNLOAD
This was a mostly under-the-hood update which removes the use of AmigaOS and made the game run under a flat 2MB of ChipMem. Other improvements included a wider screen display, more enemy attacks, more player moves, new sound effects, box art, and a plethora of other tweaks.
A playthrough of the update can be viewed here:
FINAL EDITION PLAYTHROUGH
A full extensive technical breakdown of the development can be found in the blog section:
FINAL FIGHT: ENHANCED - FINAL EDITION - Complete Breakdown
The game can be downloaded from the link below. Please take the time to read the build log and instructions for a full list of changes made to the update, and to check compatibility conditions.
DOWNLOAD
PRESS
The 2024 game was reviewed in Amiga Addict Magazine where it scored 91%. It also currently holds an 8.08 / 10 on Lemon Amiga.
Additionally, it received a glowing overview in ZZAP UK magazine, and even made the front cover of ZZAP Italy.
Final Edition was reviewed in the May 2026 edition of ZZap Amiga, and scored 91%.
If you see any other media coverage on the game then please feel free to send me a scan or a link so that it can be added below.
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