The Mad Gear Gang had a problem. It seemed like a good idea to kidnap Jessica Haggar, the mayor's daughter, in an effort to ensure her father's cooperation but they didn't count on Mike Haggar being a former pro wrestler and embarking on a vigilante campaign to rescue Jessica. Final Fight pitted the burly Haggar against a host of villains and thugs, just begging to be fodder for pile-drivers and drop-kicks.

In addition to the musclebound ex-wrestler, Jessica had her boyfriend, Cody, looking for some payback from her kidnappers. Cody was a martial arts expert and just for kicks and giggles brought along his friend, Guy, an honest-to-goodness ninja. A player could choose one of the heroes to play the game or invite up to two of his buddies to simultaneous three-player action. As was typical in fighting games with a choice of protagonists, Cody represented a balanced fighter with speed and strength, Mike was strong but slow and Guy was very speedy but rather weak. Each character had special techniques to get through the fights like Cody's knife throwing abilities, Mike's deftness in pole fighting and Guy's katana mastery.

Players confronted villains in several stages, each stage culminating with a showdown with a stronger boss figure. The good guys could pick up extra weapons and power-ups along their way to fight Belger, the mastermind behind the Mad Gear Gang.

Final Fight controls were relatively simple and included an 8-way joystick, a jump button and a fight button. Pressing both buttons at once allowed the player to execute a "death blow" that depleted the character's health but completely destroyed his opponent.

The game enjoyed a brief heyday before Street Fighter II arrived on the scene and dominated the market for fighting games, but Final Fight gave many a weakling countless hours of violent mayhem against a virtual army of bad guys.