- This article is about the Final Fight character. For other characters with the same name, see here.
Jessica (ジェシカ・ハガー Jeshika), also known by her full name Jessica Haggar (ジェシカ・ハガー Jeshika Hagā), is a non-playable supporting character from the Final Fight series of beat 'em up games. She is the young daughter of Mayor Mike Haggar and the former girlfriend of Cody. Her kidnapping by the Mad Gear Gang triggers the events of the first game in said series. Although not a major character, she has made several cameo appearances in many Capcom games along with both her father and her boyfriend.
Biography[]
Appearance[]
Jessica is a young woman with shoulder-length blond hair and blue eyes. She wears a red sweetheart neckline cocktail mini dress that exposes her shoulders and her back, and a pair of red (later black) high-heel pump shoes.
In her appearance in the Street Fighter animated series, her dress is purple instead.
History[]
Slam Masters series[]
In the Slam Masters series of wrestling games, Jessica, who is 18 years old at the time and is known by her wrestling nickname of "Pretty Doll", appears whenever Mike "Macho" Haggar wins a match, walking up to the ring to celebrate with her father.[2] Although the international versions of the Slam Masters games established the series to be set after the events of Final Fight, the Japanese versions (titled Muscle Bomber) actually established the series as a prequel to the events that game, with Haggar beginning his campaign for Mayor.
In an anecdotal backstory to the game, Haggar once fought Lucky Colt (the character known as Gunloc in the English versions) for trying to hit on Jessica (which happened before she began dating her childhood friend Cody in Final Fight).[3]
Final Fight and Street Fighter series[]
In Final Fight, Jessica is kidnapped by the Mad Gear Gang in order to coerce her father, Mike Haggar, now the Mayor of Metro City, to relinquish his campaign against crime and corruption. Instead of submitting to the gang's demands, Haggar sets out to the streets to vanquish the gang himself and save Jessica with the help of her boyfriend Cody and his training partner Guy. The three succeed in rescuing Jessica at the game's end.
Jessica made several cameo appearances through many following games after the original Final Fight. In Final Fight 2, she can be seen in a photograph with Cody, Haggar and Guy at the beginning of the game. The game's opening intro states that she is taking a vacation with Cody during the present events of the story.
In Street Fighter Alpha 2, Jessica can be seen cuddling her boyfriend Cody in the background of Guy's Metro City stage. Whenever Cody decides to shift his attention from Jessica to another female fighter, a jealous Jessica will slap him on the face to get his attention back.
Final Fight Revenge (which is chronologically set between Final Fight and Street Fighter Alpha 3) would center around Haggar and Cody's searches for Jessica after her disappearance during a string of riots that occurred in Metro City following the defeat of the Mad Gear Gang. Her whereabouts are never resolved in any of that game's endings. The Street Fighter Zero 3 Secret File Book would later establish that Haggar was able to rescue his daughter from danger, leading to Jessica's departure to Europe seen in the events of Street Fighter Alpha 3.
In Street Fighter Alpha 3, Jessica became estranged with Cody after he got involved in too many street fights and was subsequently arrested for aggravated assault. Not much is mentioned about Jessica in the game's backstory, other than she has left Metro City to study abroad in France.[4][1]
Other appearances[]
Street Fighter animated series[]
Jessica appears in two episodes themed after Final Fight of the American-Canadian produced Street Fighter animated series. She first makes a cameo in the episode "The Medium is the Message", cheering among the audience of the local "Street Fighter" tournament taking place in India alongside Cody and many other Final Fight characters.
She would later reappear in the penultimate episode of the series, titled "Final Fight", where Jessica reprises her role of being kidnapped by the Mad Gear Gang, prompting Cody and Guy to join forces with Ryu and Ken in order to rescue her.
Cameos[]
Jessica and Cody also made another cameo in the Mall Madness stage in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter.
Jessica makes a cameo appearance (along with Haggar and Carlos) in Alex's ending in Capcom Fighting Evolution.
Trivia[]
- Jessica is neither heard from nor mentioned in the subsequent Capcom of USA-developed Final Fight: Streetwise.
- In Final Fight: Guy, the second SNES version of Final Fight (which featured Guy in the place of Cody), it is shown that Jessica considers Guy a close friend.
- Jessica is modeled after Diane Lane's role as Ellen Aim from the 1984 action film, Streets of Fire. Like Ellen, Jessica was kidnapped by a street gang and Cody had to rescue her.
- She is voiced by Eri Nakamura (a.k.a. Eripyon) in Saturday Night Slam Masters, who also voiced Chun-Li in Street Fighter II. However, she didn't reprise either role for their respective games' Super revisions.
- Additionally, Donna Yamamoto (who voiced Chun-Li in the Street Fighter animated series) also voiced Jessica in the episode titled "Final Fight" of said series.
- Jessica shares her birthday with Dee Jay. Their birthdays are on Halloween.
- In the intro of both the original Japanese arcade and home console versions of Final Fight, Jessica is shown wearing a frilly white ruffled lace strapless bra during Damnd's video transmission to Haggar. This scene would later be censored for the "World" version of Final Fight, in which the arcade version would have Jessica shrieking in the background during the video transmission, while the home console version would have Jessica wearing her red cocktail dress.
Gallery[]
