Final Round, The

A boxing game where you mash opponents to a pulp.

There are eight different opponents and each has a different nationality: Knockout Nick, U.S.A.; Red Falco, England; Iron Drago, Russia; Steel Fist Fritz, Italy; Mad Mongol, Mongolia; The Bronx Bruiser, Brazil; The Harlem Hitman, nationality unknown; and The Black Stallion, U.S.A.

In Japan, this game is known as Hard Puncher.

Compete against your friends or advance through increasingly harder opponents. Training rounds occur every two to three fights. These training rounds improve one of your three qualities: speed, stamina and power, depending on how well you do at the training.

The first player controls Jabbin' Jim and the the second player controls Gentleman Joe. If the second player wins a two-player game, Gentleman Joe advances to the other opponents in the regular game.

You must defeat the first seven opponets to get to The Black Stallion, the undefeated champion. If you beat this final opponent, you will become the champion.

Here's a good trick that can work against the computer when you're playing in a one player game. You can get quite far, but it's a bit boring: press block twice to get your guard up high (covering your face) then waltz over to the opponent and hammer both punch buttons. Wiggling the joystick occasionally will pull off a power move. As long as you punch the opponent constantly until he goes down, he never manages to get up again.

The game uses very similar hardware to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. A complete ROM swap has been tried, but all that yielded was a garbled screen. However, it is possible to have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sounds and music in this game by simply swapping the 870F03 ROM with the 963E20 ROM. The reverse is also true.

The main CPUs are a M68000 with a few custom Konami processors. A YAMAHA 2151 and a YAMAHA 3012 generate the game's sound.

This game runs on modified Konami Twin16 hardware (Vulcan Venture, Dark Adventure).