Beat'em ups.

[Jeff]

There were a ton a beat'em ups from the 80s and especially the 90s. What beat'em up games were your favorite growing up whether be from the arcades or on home consoles.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I loved The Simpsons Arcade, Double Dragon on NES and Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage on Genesis.

Not sure if it counts, but Moonwalker was also spectacular.

 

[Jeff]

I loved The Simpsons Arcade, Double Dragon on NES and Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage on Genesis.

Not sure if it counts, but Moonwalker was also spectacular.

I would count Moonwalker as a beat'em up.

 

[Clippy]

Unfortunately neither Amiga nor PC were really hotbeds for beat'em ups but I did play ungodly amounts of Golden Axe in my formative years. Another title would be Moonstone. As for Arcade, there weren't any in my local area. One time my parents took me with them on holiday to the other side of the country to see the beach for two weeks. The hotel we stayed in had one of the very few arcades I've ever seen in the flesh so to speak. They had two games: Street Fighter II and Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. Mom and Dad weren't receptive to the idea of spending money on Arcades (understandable in hindsight but I was not a happy camper about it at the time) so I was mostly stuck staring at the attract modes but C&D became the first game I ever played in MAME as soon as that became a possibility. These days my hunger for beating the snot out of baddies is more than satiated with the likes of Final Fight LNS, Streets of Rage Remake or Fight'N Rage.

Honorable mention goes out to Road Rash. I mean, you beat people up so it counts, right?

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Honorable mention goes out to Road Rash. I mean, you beat people up so it counts, right?

Oh, man... how could I forget? That one was legendary!

 

[bjork]

-Streets of Rage 2 is what comes to mind when I think of the best example of the genre. Not too short, not too long, a good variety of moves and you can play with a buddy.
-River City Ransom is pretty great as well and I know people seem split when it comes to that Scott Pilgrim game, but I thought it was pretty solid as well.
-The Batman game Konami did on SNES where you can grab a guy by the face and slam him down, that's pretty good too.
-There's another SNES game like this that I forget the name of, but you fight a lot of like... goop aliens? Anyway, one guy in that game has a sit-down powerbomb and that is super satisfying, just not enough to remember which game.
-The Sailor Moon game on Mega Drive has an elevator stage pretty early on, and every time you toss a guy out of it, the glass breaks. I like that too, though the rest of the game is just ok.

Would Sunsetriders count? I guess it's more of a run n gun. But that would be my pick for a Konami game from that era in arcades. It felt more fair that the licensed stuff they put out.

 

[Снегопад]

You already posted the GOAT. Streets of (fucking) Rage 2.
I played this so often that I wore off the label from my cartridge.

Honourable mentions go to:
Dungeon & Dragons, both Tower of Doom and Shadow over Mystara.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Hyperstone Heist.
Altered Beast.
X-Men 2: Clone Wars.
And the always-favoured Battletoads.

 

[stealthRUSH stealthRUSH]

Plenty of childhood memories played above especially on arcade, here are my personal favorites:

-Die Hard Arcade
-King of Monsters 2
-The Combatribes
-Captain Commando

 

[Moreno909]

Beat 'em ups may well be my favorite genre of video game. My favorites are:
Streets of Rage Remake and 4
The Punisher
Cadillacs & Dinosaurs
Golden Axe series
Golden Axe Returns fan game (Open BOR)
Pocket Fighter Adventures (fOpen BOR)
Batman Returns SNES
Turtles in Time and Hyperstone Heist
Final Fight 1 and 3 are the best from the franchise, the latter specially with the FPS Improvement hack
Night Slashers
Knights of the Round
And the best of all time, specially from the retro era:
Violent Storm (play it)

 

[Bonkers225]

Sengoku 2
Tekken 3 had a solid beat em up mini-game
Undercover Cop
Maximum Carnage
Mutation Nation
The Simpsons
X-Men
Spider Man
TMNT Turtles in Time
Astro Boy Omega Factor
Streets of Rage 1
Growl
Final Fight

 

[ATenderLad]

Ah, Beat 'em up's. Fun, accessible, extremely multiplayer friendly, and what a great name for a genre.

Beat 'Em Up, roll that around on your tongue, feels good, don't it?

The NES couldn't give an arcade experience, but I loved weirdos like Battletoads and Batman Returns.

It's the 90's bay-bee, the kids wanna see attitude, gruff, Bart Simpson dammit!

Later (at the hall of justice), the SNES and Genesis were flush with beat 'em ups, the peak of their popularity on home consoles. Probably, I don't have any numbers to prove it.

Childhood games had me ready for more goon punching than adult life really offers.

It's the big bad boys of the arcade that really got your fingers twitching, speakers blasting over each other while the sloppiest guy you've ever seen takes a nap behind a case of cheap ski-ball prizes.

You could stretch your parents loose change a lot further than light gun games, at least.

The late 90's onwards saw a decline, with consoles exploding in sales and people wanting longer experiences like RPG's to get more for their money. (A contentious statement, but that's a different topic.) Still, some gems stood out, bold and lustrous as the sea on the horizon.

​

Guardian Heroes made me a daily problem for the kid that lived on the corner.

From here I start getting a bit bogged down with genre semantics. For example, the 3D hack 'n slashers like Gut's Rage on the Dreamcast or the Musou games; I enjoy them for about the same reason as everything I placed here, do we still call them beat 'em ups? I don't really know. Same for the action titles that followed in the wake of Devil May Cry; action games with endless opponents, all of them gangster until you flash that AAAB combo they're never ready for.

There's been a resurgence lately, with the amazing Shredder's Revenge and Streets of Rage 4, the latter of which might be the greatest game in the genre's history. These neo-beat 'em ups are definitely part of the genre (I know it when I see it, like a supreme court justice giggling witha nudie mag), and I'm hoping they're just the forerunners for a new wave of games. Seriously, somebody get Capcom to make Final Fight: The New Blood.

 

[Dyne]

I'm so glad the Beat 'em Up genre seems to be coming back. Big part of my childhood.
For a long time, Scott Pilgrim seemed to be the genre's swan song and there werent any notable games (at least that I was aware of) for several years after that.

Now you have Streets of Rage 4, TMNT Shredder's Revenge, River City Girls, etc to carry the torch.

 

[43trh]

Streets of Rage 2 …. I used to reset the console and let the intro music play after we, my little brother and I were done playing
at the same time, it ruined any other beat em up for me for a LONG time man. Cause I just kept comparing everything to this game and nothing of course could match it. Nothing! It changed when I got to play Scott Pilgrim on PS3! I was like “finally a worthy beat em up”

 

[GundamJehutyKai]

Growing up, it was all about the original TMNT arcade game, Streets of Rage 2, golden axe 2 and Alien Vs Predator for me. Later down the line, guardian heroes was prob the last "retro" beat em up to really grab me. Thanks to emulation though, I have discovered one of my all time favourite beat em ups now in the form of Guardians! Or denjin Makai 2!

Then the Modern ones came along and most of the new ones really didn't grab me at all. Everyone gushed over castle crashers and Scott Pilgrim but they really didn't do anything for me.
The first modern one that did was Fight'n Rage. Streets of Rage 4 was wonderful as well.

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

Here’s an obscure maybe because ‘‘twas never released outside Japan.

 

[Phantasy Violence]

Loved playing the Simpsons game whenever I went to the arcade. It still boggles my mind that it was never ported to any system, that show was a behemoth in the 90s.

 

[bjork]

Loved playing the Simpsons game whenever I went to the arcade. It still boggles my mind that it was never ported to any system, that show was a behemoth in the 90s.

Money left on the table for sure. Whoever decided it needed ports to DOS and the Commodore 64 instead, oof.

 

[jankusanagi jankusanagi]

Streets of Rage 2!!! Also, 1 ?

 

[ciro64]

Shredder's Revenge is my favorite!

I'm still waiting for Double Dragon Neon 2. That River City Girls 2 DLC didn't cut it

 

[laughingoctopus]

Night Slashers was amazing. It's a shame the remake is hot garbage.

 

[Ian Naxieas]

Beat 'em Ups is one of those genres that I've always liked, but never gotten heavily into. Growing up in the arcade era, I played the usual famous ones. The Simpsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, Die Hard Arcade, X-Men... uhh I'm sure there were more but those are the only ones that come to mind. I also remember Battletoads, Double Dragon, Gekido, the Fighting Force series and Splatterhouse 3 for the consoles.

When I got into emulation, the Streets of Rage series, Alien Storm, Golden Axe series and Altered Beast were acquired and played. Again, probably missing something, but those were the standout ones.

Finally, the ones I've enjoyed as an adult and old man. Streets of Rage Remake, Streets of Rage 4, Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara, Dynamite Cop, Final Fight, Scott Pilgrim, Dragon's Crown and last but certainly not least is Armored Warriors.

I just need to get a tiny bit of bitching about Scott Pilgrim off my chest. Great game all around, but the way you gain stats sucks. I think it would have been better if each character had their own stats instead, like in Streets of Rage. It is what it is though, didn't stop me from beating it a few times.

In conclusion, a great genre and I'm glad there's plenty of classics and new indie games to keep things going.

 

[RebelofDaNeonGod]

I feel like one of the greatest beat em ups of all time is Sengoku 3, there is something so satisfying about its combos and juggles.

This one is incredibly underrated, but Denjin Makai 2 is an absolutely fantastic beat em up that will get more eyes on it in the future, there is something about it that will attract many people, aside from the eye candy.

This one is a remake of an old beat em up, but the remake of Ninja Warriors is so good, it is one of my favorite games ever, it is a drop dead gorgeous game.

 

[nonotz]

this is a weird one that i played a lot as a kid :
i will count this as beat em ups and the art style is very funny too

 

[Tonberry]

Growing up, my favourite beat-em-up was Captain Commando, we played that one the most. And Scott Pilgrim for the Xbox 360 (not retro but I was young when it was new)

As an adult my favourite are King of Dragons, and Streets of Rage 2.
I’ve not played Shredder’s Revenge enough but it’s cool, also just started Dragon’s Crown and I really want to play Streets of Rage 4, just haven’t gotten around to it.

 

[Parasite_Steve]

I wish I liked the genre more because there seem to be many gems, but I just get bored so quickly with the gameplay. I think I’m just more of a tournament fighter kinda gal.