Burning Fight (Neo Geo AES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthrough of SNK's 1991 beat 'em up for the Neo Geo AES, Burning Fight.

Played through as Duke on the normal difficulty level.

Burning Fight was one of the many early titles for the AES that impressed quite a bit when it was new. Granted, the eye-watering price to play ($650 for the console with one controller and choice of game) meant that very few got to experience it, but for those that did, this was incredible stuff at the time: this was available before the SNES US launch. The huge characters, the sample-heavy FM cheese rock, and the fact that it was a current arcade title you could play at home surely helped to justify the price tag. The box loudly advertised "54 MEGS" when the average console game at the time was in the 2-4meg range. It certainly left an impression.

I didn't play it til years later when I found a new copy of the CD version for about 500 yen, but despite it being over ten years old at the time, I absolutely fell in love with it. It's a competent Final Fight clone, but everything in Burning Fight was slathered in a blindingly shiny, corny veneer that made it super appealing to me. It's a bit on the generic side, but that was fine by me. It played really well, and wasn't as tediously long as some of the other early Neo Geo beat 'em ups. It is as hard as you'd expect from an SNK game, though. It's far less forgiving than Streets of Rage and Final Fight, for sure.

It didn't hurt that the Hulk and Macho Man are featured as bosses, either.

It also features one of the most accidentally sexually-explicit animations I've ever seen in a game. The between-round action in Ring King has nothing on this, I assure you. It happens during Stage 3, shortly after the sassy-walking vagrant parades onto the playfield. I still remember the first time I saw it, and it still shocks me to this day. That happens around 14:20, for those that are curious.

Thanks to CharlieCat for the suggestion. I've been playing it again on the Switch now that it's been released, and I've enjoyed it again every bit as much as I did the first time - maybe more so now that I don't have to deal with the Neo Geo CD's load times!
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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