What is it about these games that’s so satisfying? The simple nature of them, which enables almost anyone to get into them? Like I said in the first article, it’s one of the ‘purest’ genres I feel; nothing but gameplay, purely distilled. I can also fully understand why people don’t enjoy these types of games of course, as they can become boring to varying degrees. You really just have to be into them to really enjoy them, just like fighting games. You are either into the repetition of mowing down dozens of usually generic enemies screen after screen, or you’re not into them.
Anyway, let’s get into this conclusion to my beat ‘em up ramblings. First up?
The heroes in half shells, and one of the most confusing adaptations of not-child friendly material into a Saturday morning cartoon kids show. Why does that seem to always happen?
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time
Developer: KonamiPlatform: Arcade, SNES
Year: 1991, ‘92 for SNES
I ****ing love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, ever since my first encounter with them; the infamous NES game. I was there in that water level, little six-ish year old Octopus, and even then I knew it was some real nonsense. I watched the live action movies so many times I wore down my house’s copy of the first one, and it’s continued ever since. I never watched the 80’s cartoon show as a kid, actually; it was a little before my time, and I was held up with the movies and the 2000’s cartoon instead. I did eventually read the comics as a young teen of course, and absolutely loved them too.
Anyway, Konami’s Turtles in Time on the SNES was one of my very first beat ‘em ups that I remember trying to play all the way through. It was one of the first ones that I even played, probably, outside of that NES Turtles game. I love this game, man. I remember spending much of my time in it back when I was a kid trying to figure out how to throw some foolish Foot clan directly at the screen, back when games were mystical to our little kid brains. Now I know how, of course, but back then it felt like some arcane spell where I had to perfectly align some strange, unknown coincidences to be able to pull off.
I can’t tell you how long I must have spent trying to figure this maneuver out when I was a kid. Now I can do it whenever I want; such is adult luxury.
It’s a sequel to the earlier, and still great, TMNT arcade game with both being based on the 80’s cartoon. The game really captures the goofy feeling of the show; the whole thing's started when Shredder steals the Statue of Liberty like the dastardly cad he is. He can’t keep getting away with this!
The bosses really stand out, all being the series’ iconic villains. You fight the recently fly-ed out Baxter Stockman, smash Krang like the nerdy brain he is, battle Rat King in a hoverboard section and one particularly cool one is in stage four when Shredder hops into a turret that takes over your screen; to hit him, you have to throw Foot clan at the screen. It’s a really inventive boss fight, honestly and one that I’ve always remembered. It's also only in the SNES version, which is some home console favoritism if I've ever seen some.
Foot Clan? Nerds, so throw them into the screen.
Oh, and the name ‘Turtles in Time’ is accurate; once beating said Shredder turret boss, he throws you back in time to a few different time eras starting with the dinosaurs, of course. You also bash some ninjas on a pirate ship, participate in a civil war battle, and even go to space. It’s a pretty wild game in that regard, and also; it’s pretty ****ing hard. I’ve never been able to make it to the space section, even in the few times I’ve played it as an adult and I’m usually pretty good at these things. Maybe one day I’ll complete my childhood dream and finally beat that dastardly Shredder.
Turtles in Time is a classic, and a great simple beat ‘em up. Oh, and #TeamDonatello, he’s been my favourite since I was that young kid getting 6-year-old pissed at the NES game.
Final Fight 3
Developer: CapcomPlatform: SNES
Year: 1995
Final Fight 3 is a SNES beat ‘em up that just never gets any respect. It came out fairly late to the game for sure, but it’s still got some great stuff in it and one I think is worth some playtime.
You may notice in some of these images that there’s a second player with me, being one of the game’s new characters, Dean. No, I haven’t finally started playing on two separate controllers using my tentacles; the game has an interesting mode where you can play with an AI controlled teammate to simulate you having friends. It's interesting given that this was 1995 on a SNES, but how smart is your teammate? Well, not very is the answer. Poor Dean frequently got stuck on walls, or simply rapid fire spammed his jab at an enemy despite being maybe a good 3 feet away from them. He also had a pretty cool habit of electrocuting me along with the gang members whenever he used his special lightning attacks. So, it perfectly simulates playing with a friend in that regard. It’s an interesting footnote, but eventually Dean died and as far as I’m aware I had no way of hitting continue for him so the rest of my playthrough became a singleplayer affair.
Luckily the game has other things going for it than being the prototype AI for Sheva in RE5 all those years later. This is the first Final Fight to feature mechanics such as dashing, grapple manuevering, some different attack strings, and many other things that other beat ‘em ups around the series had started featuring. Something it has over those, however, is the ‘Super Move’ for every character. This is charged like in SF2 by dealing damage, and every character has a different command to execute them. Haggar’s? Why, a reverse quarter circle down while grappling a poor fool, of course, and it delivers a really satisfying feeling animation;
Never change, Haggar, you beautiful former mayor of a man.
Graphically the game is fine, and has some big ol’ Final Fight sprites. Its animations are maybe a little stiff however, in a way that doesn’t quite feel like input lag as much as the animations themselves being sort of slow.
Something else it brings to the Final Fight formula is some hidden alternate paths through stages, and it does it without a pop up dialogue box a la Shadow Over Mystara. There’s a few areas on the stage that if you go to them, you will go through a different area; instead of going to the harbour after the city stage, for example, you can go through Metro City’s Chinatown if you find the place on the level's background to run yourself up against for a few seconds.
I’m not claiming the game is incredible or deeper than it looks or anything. It’s a fun beat ‘em up, but doesn’t really deliver much new other than the super attacks. Overall, it's still a solid game if not a little overshadowed by its competition which is fairly ironic given the series it’s part of. I’m more including it as it’s again something nostalgic for me; believe it or not, this was the first Final Fight game I ever played. I only played the original years after this one, and I’ve never played the second game; perhaps I’ll fix that eventually, as I hear plenty of people claim that Final Fight 2 is the best in the series. I had a pretty weird Final Fight experience, clearly.
AI Dean, being very useful and attacking nothing in the corner of the room. Thanks, buddy; you're really helping clear them out.
Night Slashers
Developer: Data EastPlatform: Arcade
Year: 1993
Night Slashers is if an average Iron Maiden album cover got roundhoused by a beat ‘em up and enchanted by some vague eastern mysticism, at least aesthetically. The game is a violent, campy horror themed game, complete with limbless zombies vomiting blood at you and the fact you’re chasing I guess Japanese Dracula; I don’t know, the game was never translated so it’s in Japanese. Luckily you don’t need to speak the language to get into the game.
Magical evil armour knight thing? Definitely a nerd; slam him to the ground.
First off, before we even get to the gameplay at all; this soundtrack ****ing rips, dude. It is one of the hypest beat ‘em up soundtracks I’ve encountered, and probably half the reason I’m putting the game on the honourable mention list. Just give this gold a listen; Night Slashers! It’s a good mix of the usual synth style melody lines mixed with some nice driving drums, the occasional almost electronica beats, and even the occasional screaming guitar solo. ****. Yeah.
Where was I? Oh right, the gameplay of Night Slashers. It sees you play as one of three different ghoul destroyers; cyborg-armed Jake, kickmaster Christopher, and the usual ‘the one fast but weak female character’ of Hong Hua. The opening sells what you’re in for pretty quickly, seeing your character's non-descript retro van just tear through a bunch of zombies before breaking through some glass, with your character then jumping out. It's some great 4ish seconds, man.
The game is typical in the genre gameplay wise. You have your special attack with two buttons, your one normal attack chain and some jump attacks. You can hold down the attack button to begin charging a sort of super move (minus any invincibility), but it takes so long to charge that I never found a use for it.
You also have a third button dedicated to some Golden Axe style magic screen clearing attack that drains a good amount of your health to perform, but is of course incredibly useful against the numerous murderous ghouls you’ll encounter. And trust me, there’s a lot. This game gets ludicrous with the amount of enemies it throws at you sometimes.
I think you may need a bigger crucifix, Christopher.
A greatly entertaining thing I can’t not mention; if you hit an enemy with your jumping down+attack button move, you’ll pound them into the ground so that only their head is poking out, letting you get some free kicks in. Hilarious.
It’s got some great animations, and good use of colour in its stages. The biggest selling point of this game is its sense of style, and it’s gratuitous campy violence. Every dead ghoul collapses in a puddle of blood and goop and exploding in squiby blood sprays, and it really feels like a forgotten ultra violent 80’s anime that you never knew the name of but you and your friend found a VHS rip of it once in his parents basement, and the series is now delegated to being an obscure gif or something on the internet. Where did that come from?
A night slasher’s work is a bloody business.
I absolutely recommend Night Slashers, it’s a hell of a short ride. It’s got enough style and campy mysticism to keep you interested, and it’s zany enough to throw almost anything at you.
Battle Circuit
Developer: CapcomPlatform: Arcade
Year: 1997
Ah, Battle Circuit; another Capcom brawler that I think never quite gets the respect it mostly deserves. It was a very late arcade release for the genre, as the beat ‘em up ride had pretty much dried up by the mid 90’s at least. This was the final arcade beat ‘em up released by Capcom, so is at least an important historical note in that regard.
I'd score that pirouette a perfect 10/10 ostriches.
Each of these bounty hunters has the usual special moves and bizarre attacks utilizing quarter circles and dragon punch inputs, but something unique in Battle Circuit is that every character has an ‘install’ style buff they can do by hitting both your buttons together in the air that gives them some pretty big feeling upgrade for a bit of time. Yellow Iris gets a really big speed boost to her attacks for awhile, Captain Silver buffs up his defence so that he hardly takes any damage while it’s active, and Pinky unleashes the deadly arts of dim mak (here not being complete bull**** of course, unlike in real life) and can instantly kill any mooks in a single blow for the short time it’s active.
In between stages, you can also spend the coins you collect in stages to buy new moves for your character and they’re generally some good stuff. Most will have a quarter circle move available for purchase, a few grapple abilities, or a ‘hold and release the attack button’ type thing like you’re charging a mega buster, and they can be fun to play around with.
Lunch time.
It’s an incredibly well animated game and I think may be Capcom’s greatest work graphically, even over my beloved Shadow Over Mystara. It’s a real showcase of the CP System III; the animations are all incredibly smooth and feature plenty of small touches, the character designs are fantastic and there isn’t a single stray pixel edge to be seen, and even the backgrounds have a great level of detail and animation to them.
Captain Silver is rocking that ‘early 2000’s fashion model’ chic build.
Why wasn’t this in the top 5 since I like it so much? Well, the gameplay is of course just as good as the company's other golden releases, but it’s nothing particularly new for the genre. It also has some repetition issues I think, even amongst its contemporaries, and I think there’s better examples of perfected beat ‘em up gameplay I had to put into the spotlight over this game. None of this to say that Battle Circuit is an inferior game by any means, of course, as I still highly recommend it for fans of arcade beat ‘em ups; it’s just not Armored Warriors or River City Ransom.
Zero Team
Developer: Seibu KaihatsuPlatform: Arcade
Year: 1993
Zero Team is a game I never hear or see that many people talk about, and is one that I really feel deserves some recognition. It was developed by Seibu Kaihatsu, the company responsible for the seminal Raiden series of shoot ‘em ups as well as the also greatly underrated Dynamite Duke which I ****ing love, by the way. This was something of an outlier for them, as they hadn’t made an attempt into the genre before or after. It’s something of a strange enigma in that sense, aided by the fact that until 2016, due to incredibly successful anti-piracy board design, it was entirely un-crackable and unable to be emulated. Given enough time, however, people eventually cracked open the vaulted gates and hell yeah dude, Zero Team.
The game has some serious toku cartoon vibe energy to it, with every player character being color coded and part of the titular Zero Team, I suppose. It’s similar to Battle Circuit in that it definitely doesn’t take itself seriously, and is pretty humorous. I love Spin, the only female character, just slapping the **** out of enemies for her attack animation. The sound effect really sells it, just a rapid fire tight, crisp ‘slap’ sound that almost makes you feel bad for the unfortunate ninja henchmen who suffer it.
Hilarious. The lady’s got a slap game that would humble even the most stereotypical pimp.
The game is very simple, but has the right mix of elements to make it stand out. Every character can change the animation and effect of their default attack string by holding either left, right or up when attacking, and each one will give a different effect. Up is the most damaging, usually seeing the character end their little animation with an uppercut or aerial spike attack while left and right will toss the enemies in that direction. It’s nothing overly special but it’s neat, nonetheless. Its basic enemies are plentiful, but are also generally composed of tissue paper as they go down very quickly (usually in a single attack chain or two) which really makes you feel like a typical Saturday morning cartoon protagonist just mowing down ninjas and sumo wrestlers.
It also has some serious style, if you couldn’t tell from the images already. Everything is very loudly coloured, especially the backgrounds, and everything just ‘pops’ so well. You go from typical city stages, to cliffside confrontations, harbour front battles, to the usual industrial grate areas that every beat ‘em up has for some reason.
Its enemies are varied enough that it never gets that stale, and there’s enough chaos going on and weapons to pick up to keep things exciting as you’re going to be doing a lot of ‘one of your three attack animations’ to numerous 80’s cartoon enemies.
Goddamn complimentary colored twin Kabuki ninjas, man.
There’s a few other added twists to the gameplay department, but are relatively minor. You can roll around on the ground after getting knocked down like you’re suddenly playing Tekken, which is of course handy to get some breathing room after getting knocked down. You can also do a sort of ‘air recovery’ if you get smacked while airborne that lets you do a cool flip upon landing and be immediately ready to rumble again.
Who needs silly karate when you have access to RPG launchers.
The game’s pretty great for a simple beat ‘em up, this is all to say. It’s not particularly exceptional on a gameplay level, but makes up for it with some serious vibes and style points. Should you play Zero Team? I think if you're a fan of either beat ‘em ups or vague toku themed Saturday morning 80’s cartoons, you could probably find some entertainment from it. It’s a pretty short experience that doesn’t overstay its welcome, luckily, and managed to make an impression on me nonetheless.
Jesus Octopus, That Was a Lot of Beat 'Em Ups
And there we go, my 5 honourable mentions of beat ‘em ups. Did you know both these articles are about 51 pages according to my Google Drive file? Jesus, I really do have a problem.I just may return to the world of beat ‘em ups in the future, maybe to finish my ‘top 5’ into a ‘top 10’, or maybe I’ll even play some bad ones and complain about them. You can always learn more from a bad game than a good one, right?
Until next time.
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