First thing’s first: I’m not sure why the creator bothered using the Final Fight name. Other than its title this game has nothing at all to do with Final Fight. More to the point, it’s hard to get a handle on any sort of coherent theme at all. Haggar is nowhere to be found, and Cody is a middling quality edit of his Alpha series sprites. Only Guy survives intact (mostly), again comprised of edited Alpha resources. Metro City… just isn’t. What you get instead is a bizarre mashup of Mugen edits, much of it from the Brazilian scene.
That’s not to say Revival of Rage is a bad game, it just isn’t Final Fight. This game has plenty to offer on its own, with a lot of moves and mechanics to mess around with. Grappling is solid and little details like wall jumping are here too. The fighting is fast paced, and you can put together some sick combos with a bit of practice, but it’s not over the top frenetic and each move has plenty of impact. I really like to see that kind of balance between gameplay styles.
Sadly, there is no such balance in the difficulty. All the classic mistakes are here. Flooding the screen with enemies? Check. Massive HP totals for bosses? Check. Cheap enemy moves? Oh yes. Half the cast (at least) spend all their time spamming long-range jumping or lunging attacks with no telegraph or recovery. Combined with the swarm problem above, it becomes a bore fest of mashing Special until you get tired of it and mash the off button instead. As a final insult, throwing enemies in cooperative play can harm your partner.
There are also some animation timing issues. Many slams and special moves assume their landing postures too early. It’s a bit distracting at times and needs some adjustment.
If you can tolerate the cheapness and ignore some of the other minor concerns, you will find plenty to enjoy. It’s more than worth a download and I think after a bit of fine tuning the creator could have a winner on their hands.
