Horace Belger (ベルガー Berugā?) is a character from the Final Fight series where he is the original leader of the Mad Gear Gang and main antagonist of the original Final Fight game. He is a ruthless crime lord who has made millions - if not billions - from his organized crime and control of Metro City.
Biography
Appearance
Belger is a middle-aged (or older) man with broad shoulders, a bald head and an Amish-style beard with no mustache, However, his dialogue portrait in the GBA version of Final Fight as well as his concept art for Street Fighter V give him a mustache. He is usually seen wearing a dress shirt with diamond cufflinks, a bow tie, dark pants and dress shoes. He sits on a motorized wheelchair, but is perfectly capable of moving at exceptional speed without it.[1] His weapon of choice is a bowgun made of ornamented wood.
Story
Final Fight
Belger has the Mad Gears kidnap Jessica in order to extort political favors from the mayor of Metro City, Mike Haggar. However, Haggar refuses to corporate, and instead recruits Jessica's boyfriend Cody as well as Cody's friend Guy to run the Mad Gears out of town and save Jessica. The trio eventually discovers that Belger is the leader of the Mad Gears and a fight ensues, ending with Belger being killed by Cody by being punched through a penthouse window.
Other appearances
Street Fighter cartoon series
Belger as he appears in the Street Fighter cartoon series
Belger appears in the episode titled "Final Fight", where he has Rolento kidnap Jessica, the daughter of Mike Haggar, the new mayor of Metro City. Belger uses Jessica as a hostage to prevent Haggar from having the police arrest members of the Mad Gear so they can rob a diamond store. When he meets Ryu and Ken, who are disguised as new members of the gang, Belger is quite impressed with them. Cody and Guy barge into his office and fight Belger, blowing Ryu and Ken's cover. This incarnation of Belger sits on a futuristic hovering chair equipped with twin laser blasters, among other minor weapons. Belger falls out of his building and is seen hanging on a flag pole begging for his life.
Mighty Final Fight
Here, Belger kidnaps Jessica because he is in love with her. He is ported as a cyborg, and attacks with several rocket punches.
Final Fight Revenge
A zombie version of Belger appeared in Final Fight Revenge. He is the final opponent in the game, and is not a playable character. He is nothing more than a typical zombie in this state, lacking any of his original personality. The zombie is destroyed for good by Guy, Cody and Haggar, but manages to infect Guy with a bite. Guy retreats afterwards to meditate and purge himself of "the evil taint". However, Guy appears to be in perfect health in all of his other appearances (notably Final Fight 3, the Street Fighter Alpha trilogy and the Street Fighter IV games), and Belger makes a few cameos outside of the Final Fight series, so this event is likely non-canon.
Zombie Belger's gameplay revolves around him being able to stretch his limbs similar to Dhalsim, giving him a great deal of attack range. He also has the ability to throw exploding organs, or completely explode in a rain of body parts for his hyper attack (only to raise himself from the ground a moment later). His other attacks include vomiting acid or biting the opponent.
An interesting twist to the fight with him was that as he took damage, his body parts would fall off and then be usable as weapons (his head behaved like a bowling ball). Beating the game without continuing rewards players with Zombie Belger dancing akin to the zombies in Michael Jackson's Thriller music video.
Cameos
Even though Final Fight Revenge established him to be dead, he makes a cameo in the Mad Gear Hideout stage of Ultra Street Fighter IV as well as Street Fighter × Tekken, beating a drum in the background.
Gallery
Official artworks
Screenshots
Sprites
Trivia
- Belger is one of the few characters to interact with his defeated opponents.
- Some players theorize that Belger deliberately uses a wheelchair to look crippled and thus discourage his enemies from attacking him, as it would be considered uncivilized to physically assault a "disabled" person.
- In order to avoid the associated controversies, the wheelchair was redrawn to look like an office chair during the game's transition from Japan to the rest of the world.[2] The international version also adds a walking animation for Belger in order to make it clear that he is not disabled. In the Japanese version, he does not walk or run; he merely hops around the room.[3]
- In the Super Famicom (Japanese) version of the game, there is a small, dark dot on the forehead of Belger's character portrait, most likely as a result of shading. In the international release, Nintendo removed this dot for fear it would be mistaken for a bindi and thus make players think that they were beating up a disabled Hindu. On other platforms, the character portraits are too small to display such a minute detail clearly.[4]
