Published , by Shack Staff
Published , by Shack Staff
Some genres are too sweet and pure for this world. The beat-em-up, aka the brawler, brewed the perfect mix of colorful graphics, hard-hitting feedback, and fast gameplay for arcades in the '80s and '90s. They're not as prolific today outside of anthologies of golden oldies, but back in The Day, you couldn't walk into any quarter-gobbling den of iniquity (so named by parents) without tripping over quality titles from the likes of Capcom, Sega, and Konami.
With Street of Rage 4 just over the horizon, the Shack staff broken open crates and ate god-only-knows-how-old turkeys to boost our stamina and brawl over our favorite beat-em-ups. You can read our choices below. Then let us know: What's your favorite?
Game 0wns!. Masterpiece. 10/10. Perfect video game. Shut up. Go play it. In fact, put it on Switch, you cowards! Ozzie, take it from here.
I was one of those kids who liked to jump into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game at a pizza parlor. I couldn't get enough of beating up Foot Soldiers with Leonardo and whoever else could get on the machine. It's how I came to learn about the beat-em-up style of games in the first place.
That kid in me didn't expect that Konami would blow the old Arcade Game out of the water just a few years later on the Super Nintendo with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, a game that expanded on the formula while also taking the Turtles all across time and space. It was every piece of Turtles fan service imaginable at the time, taking elements of both the cartoon and the movies, and sprinkling them across this wacky timeline.
What blows my mind as a late 30-something is how it's become impossible to duplicate. Ubisoft tried, believe me, they tried to bring Turtles in Time back. It was no good. There's nothing like the original TMNT IV, a perfect product of its time.
Admittedly, I’m a big old comic book nerd and grew up in an era where the X-Men were the coolest super heroes out there, but I think this would still be my fave brawler beyond the marketing due to its unique set up. The original X-Men arcade beat-em-up was massive and featured not one, but two CRT monitors paired together to create a widescreen effect. But the real coup de grâce is the fact that up to six people could play at once. Even to this day, it’s odd to see an arcade game of any kind feature more than four players. The whole thing ended up being a true feast for the senses with action strewn about a larger field of combat thanks to the two monitor setup and some flashy mutant abilities. Throw a banging soundtrack on top of that and the fact that you could play as either Wolverine or Dazzler and you’ve got the best beat-em-up ever. Now if only I had five friends to play with...
I love arcade beat ‘em ups as much as anyone so I would have been happy listening about 15 different games here, but if I’m being totally honest, Turtles in Time is still the best. I’ve used this game as an answer for this column about eleven times now, but I have to, as it is always the answer.
The graphics, the controls, and the music meld together perfectly. Even the console ports of this game are ace. Honorable mentions go out to Sunset Riders, Cadillacs and DInosaurs, The Punisher, Final Fight, Die Hard: Arcade, X-Men, Aliens vs. Predator, Captain Commando, Streets of Rage 2, and Maximum Carnage.
I’ve not had a lot of experience with beat ‘em up games. In saying this, one that does stick out in my memory is Kung Fu Chaos. The whole game was set to the backdrop of a movie production - and you were the stars in this kung fu film!
The goal was to cause as much destruction and chaos as possible to make the film as explosive as possible! The characters were bombastic and outlandish, with wild moves and super abilities.
But arguably the most incredible thing about this game is that it was made by Just Add Monsters. That studio might not ring any bells anymore, as it now goes by a different name: Ninja Theory. To think this team cut their teeth with a slapstick and naughty game like Kung Fu Chaos and is now working on Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is truly mindblowing.
Shows just how much we can all grow and change over 17 years.
I grew up playing all of my favorite anime-centric games like the SNES/Genesis Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, a beat-'em-up where you get to take on the role of Sailor Moon or one of the Inner Senshi (Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, or Mars) and start kicking the living daylights out of any enemy that happened to cross your path. There wasn't anything particularly special about it, and there still isn't, but when I was young, being able to play as some of my favorite anime characters was endlessly exciting to me. I also really appreciated each character's sprites and got into editing them in MS Paint to create my own unique members of the sailor team. I still go back to it every now and then as well as its sequel Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon R. What can I say? I love Sailor Moon too much.
Favorite is a strong word when asking me about my pick for a beat ‘em up. More like default. I played The Simpsons Arcade in an actual arcade, but remember nothing about the gameplay. That’s approaching almost 30 years ago when I was about 10. Still, there is a very vague memory of me going to an arcade in a mall with my cousins in Nova Scotia. Even if I’m not a huge fan of beat ‘em ups, this Shack Chat at least allowed me to reminisce about spending time with my older cousins when I was just a kid.
I’ve never really been that big into beat-em-ups, or any fighting game of any sort for that matter. That being said, I have very fond memories of a much less jaded Josh making his way into a Barcade in Jersey back in the simmering months of 2015. It was the first time I’d met up with the Shacknews staff (the team was a much different beast at that time), and we all headed to the local Barcade for a good romp with some Shackers. While there, Asif, myself, and others all teamed up together to take on the Simpsons Arcade machine that they had situated near the front door.
It was a great time, and probably one of the fondest memories I have of any work outing to date. Everything about The Simpsons Arcade machine was fantastic. From the overall cabinet’s design, to the way that the game played, and the characters that it brought to life. Here’s hoping that one day we can all team up again and take down the nefarious enemies that await within that timeless treasure of an arcade machine.
“What?” you might ask. “What the heck is Metamorphic Force?” Allow me to enlighten you. Metamorphic Force is one of the last, and most certainly not least of Konami’s golden age of beat’em-up arcade games. You see, in the far off year of 199X, The Evil King has been reborn and is attempting to resurrect his Empire of Horror to take over the world. Athena doesn’t like that, so she sends up to four warriors to deal with it on the Evil King’s island. There’s just one wild catch: Each of the heroes, while human fighters, also has an anthro animal form that makes them power up and get stronger.
Metamorphic Force is weird and fantastic. The game features a fantastic cast of characters, some cool mechanics, and some of the best music this side of an arcade beat’em-up. Then there’s the fact that the final boss, the Evil King himself is a burly mountain of a man who looks like more of a 90s era pro wrestling superstar than an evil king, save for the fact that he also turns into a kick-a** dragon.
I love beat’em-ups and I have played the heck out of a lot of them for hours upon days upon end, but there’s few co-op beat’em-ups quite as bizarre, yet fun and cool as Metamorphic Force.
The ‘90s was a great time to be a kid and The Simpsons were in full force. It was an odd thing having a cartoon that both kids and adults could enjoy together. I still remember watching The Simpsons every thursday night on FOX with my entire family and talking about it the next day in the school yard. So it’s no surprise that my favorite brawler is “The Simpsons Arcade”. Being at the high of popularity it was incredibly easy Arcade Cabinet to find, at Pizza places, Arcade, The Mall, everywhere. It was a really good game to for the time, with great music, combat and fun mini games. If arcade1up ever makes a Simpsons Cabinet, I’ll be buying one that’s for sure.
I've played beat-em-ups since the glory days of Double Dragon. I have favorites from each generation of hardware, but my favorites come from 8- and 16-bit consoles: Tradewest's underrated port of Double Dragon on NES, Final Fight on SNES, and Streets of Rage 2 on Genesis. However, none quite scratch the itch on my knuckles like the pixellated Foot Soldiers and bosses of Konami's first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Arcade games dominate this space for me in general. Some of the best beat-em-ups debuted in arcade, but were watered down as developers understandably struggled to port them to underpowered hardware of the era. I like TMNT 2: The Arcade Game, Konami's port of its own arcade software to the NES, but the coin-op reigns. TMNT: Turtles in Times may be objectively better, but as a kid, the original made my jaw hit the colorful floor of my local arcade. For a game released in 1989, the graphics were stunning. Everything from the stages to the characters looked like it had been lifted straight out of my favorite cartoon.
The first time I squeezed between a group of other kids and dropped a quarter into an open slot--I never discriminated against turtles--was pure magic the likes of which I had yet to experience at home, and wouldn't until the N64 standardized four-player games. There are beat-em-ups more fun than TMNT, but nothing will beat the experience of chowing down on pizza power-ups for the first time.
Some of the best games from the past have been from the “Beat-Em-Up” genre where the player gets to “beat up” a ton of enemies to advance in the level. I can remember a ton of these games from my childhood, getting to play the X-Men game and the Spiderman game at Sportsworld, an arcade/laser tag/batting cage place in New Jersey. They were some great games but they weren’t my favorite “beat-em-ups” that I’ve ever played. I have two options as “favorite,” Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” Turtles in Time but I’m going to focus on my other favorite, an arcade game that didn’t get the love it deserved with a home release, on consoles. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m talking about that family from Springfield, USA, the Simpsons arcade game.
When I was a kid, there was a local arcade that had the Simpsons arcade game and my mom would let me play it. Being a little kid, I couldn’t get past the bowling ball boss in the Dream world level, but now I can beat the game, which isn’t an easy feat. The game should have been ported to consoles way back when, but it did get a home release another way, on PC. My brother and I used to play this game for hours on our old Windows computer, fighting through Springfield, trying to rescue Maggie from Mr. Smithers and Mr. Burns. The game saw a brief online release a few years ago but it’s not the same as the arcade game.