# Arcade1up Final Fight... Finally.

**Source:** RetroRalph  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2019-05-03  
**Duration:** 13m 9s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnS0ZS5r7UQ

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## Analysis

RetroRalph reviews the Arcade1Up Final Fight cabinet (Wave 2), praising improvements over Wave 1 including better monitor tuning, integrated plexiglass, and upgraded joystick feel. He notes a shipping damage issue (buckled artwork) on his unit but overall considers it a strong cabinet at $300 with a good game lineup (Final Fight, Ghosts and Goblins, 1944, Strider). He discusses potential mods including lit marquee and stereo sound upgrades.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Arcade1Up tuned the monitor settings on Wave 2 cabinets, making them look better than Wave 1 despite using the same hardware — _RetroRalph directly observed and confirmed this through visual comparison and gameplay footage_
- [HIGH] Wave 2 Final Fight cabinet ships with integrated plexiglass overlay that fits better than Wave 1 aftermarket overlays — _RetroRalph notes plexiglass was 'supposed to be in wave two cabinets' and directly observed the fit quality_
- [MEDIUM] The joystick on Wave 2 cabinets feels upgraded and similar to the Countercade model — _RetroRalph states 'The joystick actually feels...almost exactly like the Countercade' but did not open it to verify internal upgrades_
- [MEDIUM] Arcade1Up is actively listening to feedback from modding and enthusiast Facebook groups — _RetroRalph notes Arcade1Up is 'in one or two of those groups' and 'constantly listening to our feedback'_
- [HIGH] Wave 2 Final Fight cabinet uses non-clicky buttons for punch and kick controls — _RetroRalph directly observed: 'they didn't go with a clicky button for A and B on this game'_
- [HIGH] The $300 price point for Final Fight cabinet offers good value compared to full arcade cabinets — _RetroRalph's opinion based on gameplay experience and market context_
- [HIGH] RetroRalph received a defective unit with buckled/bent side artwork from shipping damage — _Direct observation of damage; first issue in approximately 10 cabinets he has built_
- [HIGH] The bottom bracket groove was positioned incorrectly on RetroRalph's unit, preventing proper door closure — _RetroRalph directly encountered and documented this assembly issue_

### Notable Quotes

> "It just looks kind of sloppy...This actually looks more like what you'd expect out of the arcade, although still not perfect to what you'd see in an arcade, but good enough, right?"
> — **RetroRalph**, ~4:20
> _Describes improved plexiglass fit on Wave 2 vs Wave 1 aftermarket overlays_

> "They probably look like they tuned the video portion of it so that the monitor looks better. For sure, 100%, it looks better. It is 100% the same monitor though."
> — **RetroRalph**, ~7:10
> _Key observation that Wave 2 improvements are software/calibration-based, not hardware upgrades_

> "I view $300 is a really good price for what you're getting."
> — **RetroRalph**, ~9:30
> _Value assessment of the Final Fight cabinet_

> "I don't want anyone to sit here and think that this is the same as buying a full on arcade cabinet. But it does reproduce the experience in a way that, you know, for the price, it's hard to beat."
> — **RetroRalph**, ~8:50
> _Contextualizes the product's positioning vs authentic arcade hardware_

> "This might be possibly one of my favorite cabinets that they've made."
> — **RetroRalph**, ~13:00
> _Overall positive assessment of the Final Fight cabinet relative to other Arcade1Up releases_

> "I know Arcade1Up is in one or two of those groups. So they're constantly listening to our feedback, and I think we've been giving them tons of ideas around the product and how to improve it."
> — **RetroRalph**, ~9:00
> _Notes manufacturer engagement with enthusiast community_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Arcade1Up | company | Manufacturer of arcade cabinet reproductions; produces Wave 2 Final Fight cabinet |
| RetroRalph | person | YouTube content creator specializing in arcade cabinet reviews and modifications; reviewer of this cabinet |
| Final Fight | game | Arcade beat-em-up game; title game on reviewed Arcade1Up cabinet |
| Ghosts and Goblins | game | Arcade platformer included on Final Fight cabinet; noted as extremely difficult |
| 1944 | game | Arcade shoot-em-up included on Final Fight cabinet |
| Strider | game | Arcade action game included on Final Fight cabinet; RetroRalph praises it |
| Mortal Kombat | game | Arcade1Up cabinet model mentioned as upcoming/trickling out; competitor product |
| Countercade | product | Arcade1Up portable arcade product; RetroRalph notes joystick feels similar to Final Fight Wave 2 |
| Very Very Sneaky | person | Modding community member in Arcade1Up enthusiast groups; collaborating with RetroRalph on mod development |
| Glenn Retro Show | person | Runs one of the Facebook modding groups where Arcade1Up engages with community feedback |
| J Andy G. Reynolds | person | Runs another modding Facebook group focused on Arcade1Up cabinet modifications |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Arcade1Up Wave 2 cabinet improvements over Wave 1, Monitor tuning and video quality calibration, Manufacturing quality and shipping damage, Control panel design and component upgrades
- **Secondary:** Arcade cabinet modding and community customization, Game selection and arcade game experience on consumer hardware, Manufacturer engagement with modding community, Value proposition and pricing of arcade reproductions

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.75) — RetroRalph is largely enthusiastic about the Final Fight cabinet, praising improvements and game selection. Sentiment is tempered by the shipping damage he experienced on his unit, but he frames this as an isolated issue rather than a systemic problem. Overall tone is appreciative of Arcade1Up's responsiveness to community feedback.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Arcade1Up actively monitoring and responding to feedback from modding community Facebook groups (confidence: medium) — RetroRalph states 'I know Arcade1Up is in one or two of those groups. So they're constantly listening to our feedback' and notes improvements like monitor tuning directly address community complaints
- **[market_signal]** Arcade1Up Mortal Kombat cabinet rolling out to market gradually with limited availability on West Coast (confidence: medium) — RetroRalph mentions 'it's trickling its way out...Out West and I missed the I missed the order several times'
- **[product_strategy]** Arcade1Up upgrading control panel components on Wave 2: better joystick feel and integrated plexiglass overlay (confidence: high) — RetroRalph notes joystick 'feels almost exactly like the Countercade' and praises plexiglass integration as Wave 2 standard feature
- **[product_strategy]** Wave 2 Final Fight cabinet integrates plexiglass overlay from factory rather than offering as aftermarket accessory, with improved fit quality (confidence: high) — RetroRalph states 'they put the plexiglass they shipped it with the plexiglass' and describes improved fitment compared to Wave 1 aftermarket overlays
- **[product_strategy]** Arcade1Up Wave 2 cabinets feature improved monitor calibration (brightness, contrast settings) over Wave 1 despite identical hardware (confidence: high) — RetroRalph directly compared visual quality and confirmed 'they probably look like they tuned the video portion of it so that the monitor looks better' and noted Wave 1 complaints about 'brightness was too high. It was washed out.'
- **[product_concern]** Shipping damage observed on Wave 2 Final Fight cabinet including buckled/bent side artwork (confidence: high) — RetroRalph documented buckled artwork on side panel: 'there's like a buckle right here in the artwork and it almost looks like this was bent during or somehow...messed up the side'

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## Transcript

 With all these ways to play Final Fight, why in the world would I buy Final Fight? Why not? All right, guys, let's get this party started. I am going to condense 45 minutes into 45 seconds so we have no time to waste. So let's get this all unpacked. Be careful when you're unpacking it. It came in one piece. Let's keep it that way. So take your time and don't rush through. Alright, so as John Youssi I am using a power screwdriver for this. Keep in mind that's actually not recommended and it says that in the manual, but as long as you're careful and you don't torque things down too tight you can't really mess anything up. So just be careful, take your time, and you should be good to go. I did notice a couple things about this cabinet that were different from the Wave 1 cabinets, so I'm going to mention that when we continue, but we're almost about wrapped up and then I'll show some gameplay and give you some final thoughts on this cabinet. All right guys, so we're going to fire this thing up for the first time. So there were a couple issues with this build and I've built about 10 of these and this is the first time I've had an actual problem with the cabinet. So I'm going to just, you're probably not going to see it that great in the video and I'll put a picture in the video, but there's like a buckle right here in the artwork and it almost looks like this was bent during or somehow, I don't know, somehow was bumped during shipment or something and it kind of messed up the side so I'm gonna have to call arcade one up on that but I've never had an issue otherwise uh which you know knock on wood or knock on whatever this is so uh so yeah um I'm trying to think if there's any other issues with the build oh kind of funny so I built like I said about 10 of these and the bottom bracket which I think is labeled um let me see I can't remember what it was labeled which I should know that too um let's see G so so I should know this by now but uh G has a little groove in it and that groove is to catch the back door in the back and I had it in the front so if you have it in the front uh you know pro tip here is this guy won't go all the way down so um so yeah but um yeah other that it all fit together just like any other arcade one up the thing that i really liked and props arcade one up for this is they put the plexiglass they shipped it with the plexiglass so that was supposed to be in the wave two cabinets so as expected it came um it does look like they did a better job butting it up to the buttons the overlays that they were selling for pre-existing wave one cabinets i didn't like the way those fit to be honest um it just looks kind kind of sloppy. This actually looks more like what you'd expect out of the arcade, although still not perfect to what you'd see in an arcade, but good enough, right? It did come with ball tops, which I have no problem with with this game So let just fire it up and see hopefully everything works All right, so cool. So once this boots up, we'll see, you know, as expected, it's going to have a final fight. Ghosts and Goblins 1944 and Strider. So this is a pretty good cabinet, actually, as far as games goes. Besides Ghosts and Goblins being ungodly hard, which I'm sure you've heard a million people say before, these are great games. Strider is an awesome arcade game. The funny thing about Final Fight is in the beginning of this video, when I showed you all of those portable handhelds, I've played Final Fight over the past, I don't know, who knows, probably 15 plus years, probably longer than that, via emulation. so I don't even really remember how the game's supposed to play so I'm sure how it plays on here is how I'm gonna think it's supposed to play because I've literally played it under emulation for forever now so it it probably I probably won't know the difference but anyways uh great lineup of games I did notice something from other people's videos and I can even see it from power up it seems like maybe arcade one up they didn't replace the monitor so there's no different monitor. There's no magic that they did, but I will say they probably look like they tuned the video portion of it so that the monitor looks better. For sure, 100%, it looks better. It is 100% the same monitor though. So don't think that they upgraded the monitor or anything like that. It just looks like they tweaked the settings a bit. Maybe in wave one, they weren't as careful with that stuff. It looks a lot better. So that's a good thing. I don't have this on a riser because there were no risers left when I got it. But yeah, so there's probably a bunch of gameplay videos of this system. I'll show a couple, a minute or so, but I'll just show it and give you guys an idea of how the gameplay is. All right, guys, I'm doing the tripod in between the legs trick. So let's first try Final Fight. I'm going to put the volume at midway because it is really loud. So I don't know if you guys can tell, but the quality of the image looks really good, and the brightness looks really good. So I'm pretty excited about that. I will say, from a buttons perspective, they didn't go with a clicky button for A and B on this game. So, um, punch and kick are actually non-clicky buttons, uh, but obviously they used micro switches in the joystick. The joystick actually feels, I didn't open it up, but the joystick feels better. Um, it feels almost exactly like the countercade. So I don't know if they used upgraded micro switches in both of those, but it feels a bit better. So, um, so I'm thinking they, they, they went and upgraded that, which is good. I mean, Hey, you know what? If they're going to make little improvements based on user feedback, then that's awesome because I think you know I think for honestly I a big part of the several of the Facebook groups Glenn Retro Show runs one and there a modded group I part of that J Reynolds runs And, you know, definitely look those up. I'll have links in the description to those. But, I mean, we're constantly talking about these, and I know Arcade 1UP is in one or two of those groups. So they're constantly listening to our feedback, and I think we've been giving them tons of ideas around the product and how to improve it. And, you know, they're listening, so it's good. I mean, but keep in mind, guys, I just want to keep repeating this is that I don't want anyone to sit here and think that this is the same as buying a full on arcade cabinet. But it does reproduce the experience in a way that, you know, for the price, it's hard to beat. You know, it's hard to find this kind of a system, you know, even though it's more toy grade, that's going to give you this kind of experience for the price. So I view $300 is a really good price for what you're getting. and you know despite the fact that I got a little quality issue with this one I haven't had that to date so I can't really complain about the quality all right we're going to hold player one here for a couple seconds and that's going to bring us back to the main menu and then we're going to go for 1944 real quick yeah for those of you haven't played this is a really fun shoot-em-up uh this was one that i played a lot of i spent a lot of time and quarters in the arcade on it's a really it's a really fun game and it looks really good on this so i i'm kind of blown away with just a little bit of tuning i'm guessing they adjusted contrast they adjusted brightness and they got the, you know, I would, what I would have to imagine is they did not tune the monitor properly in the wave one cabinets because these look pretty good. Like I, I gotta say it, you know, for being the same exact monitor props to them for doing a pretty good job for tuning this thing, uh, which, which, you know, so clearly that's another thing they noticed. You know, we, we did complain a lot about that. It was brightness was too high. It was washed out. Uh, so, you know, for the viewing angle that I'm looking at it, which is directly on, which is really the viewing angle you should be looking at it, it looks pretty good. So I can't really say anything bad about that. And again, I'll repeat, for the price, it's not bad, right? All right, I am going to break out of here really quick, and we'll do Strider for a second. I'm not going to do Ghosts and Goblins. I suck at it so bad. And there's probably been many people that have looked at that, so no big deal. Little bits of feedback I would have liked. I would have actually paid a little bit more to get this system with a lit marquee. I'm not modding this one right now. I probably will because you know I mod everything, so I will mod it. I just decided I'm not going to mod it right now. I'm going to decide what I'm going to do with it. I actually really like this selection of games on this. I don't even know that I would mod it. I might just leave it stock. If anything, I'll do maybe a Final Fight upgrade kit and give it a lit marquee. maybe give it maybe see if there's a way to give it stereo sound which I'm guessing there probably is there a guy in the modding group his name is very very sneaky and actually going to send him one of my Wave 2 cabinet boards and he going to work on a couple hacks I'm not as good with that kind of stuff, I'm definitely not good at hacking electronics like that, so he's awesome at that stuff. So he's going to look into it for us and see what options we may have. This game is so much fun, by the way, too, if you haven't played this game before, it's a really fun game. The funny thing is I had played this on so many platforms that I really didn't have as much experience with the arcade version of this game. I don't know why that is, but certain games, I guess, appealed to me in the arcade. And this was one that, I don't know, I just never got around to really playing much in the arcade, if at all. But like I said, this thing looks awesome. I'm pretty excited. This might be possibly one of my favorite cabinets that they've made. I haven't got my hands on the Mortal Kombat one yet. As you guys know, it's trickling its way out. Out west and I missed the I missed the order several times the other thing guys I'll tell you I'm gonna take the camera off the tripod for a second I'm gonna show you a couple little details. I want to get you guys a closer look at This little buckle right here, so I don't know if you can see that but not not a good thing It's pretty buckled so not happy about that, but you know I'll um I'll reach out to arcade one up And see what they can do here's a closer look at the control panel You can see they did a good job with the acrylic top I really like it the graphics on this excuse the tripod the graphics on this pretty awesome though Like I think they overall did it did really well. I just think this is probably one of the nicest looking cabinets That they have and it's got a awesome selection of games, so you really can't complain I mean the only game. I don't think I'll really play much is probably go sing goblins is so damn hard, but But Lit Marquee would look super awesome on this, so expect to see a video from me with an upgrade kit with the Lit Marquee. I know that I'm not saying it right now. I'll probably be tempted to change the controls maybe, even though the joysticks feel a lot better than they did in prior versions. And then it would be nice maybe to get rid of the single speaker and go with a stereo sound kind of setup. And I'm going to see if Very Very Sneaky can get that done for us. So if he can, I will collaborate with him and see how we can maybe get that out to the masses. So anyways, guys, I really think this is a nice cabinet. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video. You know, this isn't a mod like I usually do, more of a review. But I got to give props to Arcade1Up on this one. They did a pretty good job just improving the cabinets overall from wave one. So that's it, guys. That's it for me. I'm out of here. So if you like the video, please like it. Please subscribe to the channel. hit the notification bell and I want to hear your comments. What do you think of this thing? Is this one of your favorite arcade one-up cabinets or is the Mortal Kombat more your speed? Anyways, take care guys and we will see you on the next one. We'll see you next time.

_(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: d56f2e1e-06ba-4435-821d-3ec40916797c*