Huge fan of beat 'em ups. AVP by Capcom is probably my favorite. Punisher is bad ass too. Never got into the D&D ones. Then there’s The Simpsons (would love to see a combo video of that) and the Genesis brawlers are my favorites: Splatterhouse 3, SOR 3, Golden Axe, and Comix Zone are amazing. I don’t know why people prefer SOR 2 over 3. 3 Had more moves, dashing, two different endings with two completely different bosses, bigger combo potential, plus you can play as a Kangaroo and a Gay Biker.
^ And the most badass character of the series, Shiva.
People prefer SOR2 over SOR3 for a few reasons:
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The soundtrack was amazing. Kuzo Yoshiro (I think I spelled it right) did an incredible job with all the songs. His Jazzy techno soundtrack is one of the best 16-bit soundtracks ever. the SOR3 soundtrack wasn’t up to par with it. In fact, most people hated it. There are a few good themes in there, but overall, I wouldn’t listen to half of the tracks in the SOR3 soundtrack.
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It was the biggest jump in the series. When compared to SOR1, it was a huge leap. The sprites were bigger, the characters were more developed, and the gameplay was revamped. Basically SOR2 set the foundation for SOR3.
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The US version of SOR3, when compared to its Japanese counterpart ‘Bare Knuckle 3’, got nerfed to hell. You probably played it since you are aware of Ash, the gay guy. The US version does a shoddy job of explaining what’s going on with the bombs and the robots. Character’s were altered(like the heroes’ color scheme and the female baddies being censored) or cut (Ash), and pretty much the dialogue makes no sense. It was also crazy hard for most people. Basic enemies took off a crapload of damage just from one punch. I enjoyed the challenge, but other people didn’t. Sadly, this was the only SOR3 known to the US at the time, and people didn’t like it.
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No “Grand Upper”. In the US version of SOR3, it’s “Bare Knuckle”. (Silly Axel, grunting the name of the Japanese version of the title doesn’t make the US version any better.) People really liked that move, and was sad to ‘hear’ it nerfed.
These are most of the reason for the SOR3 hate.
I like SOR3 (mostly the japanese version) because it was extremely detailed and a well crafted game. SOR1&2 had already done the smooth, fun, jazzy angle with the series. SOR3 introduced a more dark and gritty atmosphere, which was more appropiate with the serious nature of this game. Bombs of mass destruction going off, killing innocent civilians. Politicians and public figures getting replaced by robot lookalikes. This time, it’s not just defending the streets or saving a kidnapped friend. This time, it’s serious. The game really acomplished this goal with its overall feel. One of the best cartigates I ever had the pleasure of sticking into my Sega Genesis.
Ultrarare crystal system scroller, Crystal of the Kings. Reminds me alot of Chaos Breaker with is rendered 2D fantasy sprites:
[media=youtube]vpX69twVung]YouTube - [Crystal[/media]
Wow, this thread hasn’t been active in a long time. No love for beat’em ups? That makes me sad.
Rankings for arcade beat’em ups:
I’ll initially provide brief descriptions, but I’m willing to give detailed reasons for my rankings if anyone wants them. I’ve played all of the following games extensively for years, and can 1cc (one-coin-clear) the majority of them (usually with the characters that are high on my rankings).
Alien vs. Predator
1) Predator Warrior: Absolutely no weaknesses whatsoever; deals extreme damage with minimal effort. The first character that I was able to 1cc the game with.
2) Predator Hunter: Inferior to the Warrior in practically everything, but has the rolling attack which enables easy mode.
3) Linn: Requires a lot of skill to play effectively, and I acknowledge how awesome she can be. The thing is that, even if you’re awesome with Linn, a chimpanzee spamming rolling attacks with the Hunter will be just as effective.
4) Dutch: He’s the worst character, which pisses me off because he’s my favorite character. Being able to chain powerbombs is awesome.
By the way, several years back, I messaged AvsPadmirer, the godlike player on youtube about his rankings, and he went with Warrior, Linn (sticking with her gun), Hunter, and finally Dutch.
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs
1) Mustapha: His dropkick is legendary. No weaknesses whatsoever.
2) Mess: Some people prefer Mess over Mustapha.
3) Jack & Hannah: Garbage compared to the above two characters. Both of them are gimped by their dashing attacks.
Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara
This game was extremely popular in Korea, probably moreso than any other country. The problem with the modern D&D:SOM community in Korea is that everyone uses autofire. My rankings don’t include the use of autofire. If you want to prevent your “kick” from coming out when performing a combo, then you need to time your button presses; mashing is not reliable. There are exploits and techniques that are only possible with autofire, such as the cleric and dwarf’s infinite on certain grounded bosses, and the significant improvement given to the elf’s regular combo and haste spell. I can 1cc this game with every character.
1) Magic-User: God mode. Practically requires no effort at all to beat the game once you learn how to use him.
2) Cleric: Almost as good as the magic-user, but requires a bit more effort.
3) Fighter: Perfectly-balanced character. No weaknesses at all.
4) Elf & Dwarf: Both are great characters, but they have very apparent weaknesses: the elf has low health and short reach that is never improved even with longer weapons; the dwarf has poor recovery when using items and thus he cannot spam items on bosses as well as the others. If the dwarf could throw items as quickly as the fighter, there would be no reason to ever use the fighter. Korean players rank the elf very high because using autofire enhances her offensive abilities moreso than any other character due to the nature of her regular combo; I guarantee that they would not rank her as high if they had to play this game without autofire. Have you ever wondered why no Koreans play this game on GGPO? It’s because you can’t use autofire in GGPO.
6) Thief
Battle Circuit
1) Yellow: Extremely easy infinite that is damaging and works on everything except the final boss. Even without the infinite she is extremely good. Why the developers gave her so much health is baffling.
2) Green: His left-right-left-right hammer throw and his uppercut are the only moves you need. Healing is very nice too.
3) Blue & Pink: Both are great characters, but the above two are just better. Blue is ridiculous with his upgraded giga crush, and Pink needs nothing but her repeated stomps move and air throw.
4) Silver: Good character, but not as good as the rest.
Sengoku 3
The Chinese gaming community really embraced this game, and they have this game down to a science. Watch some youku videos to be amazed.
1) Byakki: This guy is simply awesome. His normal weapon attack comes out as quickly as a jab, most of his attacks have huge hitboxes, and he has excellent and safe crowd-clearing moves. He may not be as flashy as Falcon or as damaging as Okuni, but he’s extremely well-balanced and has no major weaknesses.
2) Kagetsura (tied with Falcon): Extremely well-balanced. Many vertical slashes that allow easy juggling. His special attacks have poor recovery though.
2) Falcon: He’s the only character that can actually infinite the bosses. The true definition of a “skill-based character.” Not as effective against normal enemies though.
4) Okuni: Probably the most damaging character, but some of her attacks have poor reach and are prone to whiffing, and most importantly she lacks a solid and reliable crowd-clearing move.
5) Kurenai & Kongoh: Kurenai is a great character to use in the first 3 stages as her air juggle is amazing and quick at killing normal enemies. However, she cannot simply rely on her air juggle against upgraded enemies (the ones with different colors), and she’s the worst at killing bosses due to her unreliable combo ender and special attacks. Kongoh can possibly be ranked higher. Huge damage dealer. His slow walking speed is offset by the fact that he can pick up bosses and take them to an empty corner of the screen free of underlings.
Light Bringer
1) Vold: This guy is ridiculous. I was able to 1cc this game with him on my third playthrough.
2) Gren: Great character. He has nothing on Vold though.
3) Cisty: Better than Ash in every way.
4) Ash: Garbage.
Ninja Baseball Batman
1) Green: Jump, then press up, down+jump, then after the move press left, right, left, right, left, right to enable the tornado recovery move. There you go, now you can 1cc this game. I’m serious.
I don’t know how to rank the rest. I love using the yellow guy though, since you can combo into his special throw.
Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder
1) Trix: Apples! Fast walking speed; great dashing attack.
2) Stern: Excellent dashing attack that has great priority and does the most damage; balanced character. He can’t hit downed enemies with his dive kick though.
3) Goah: Extremely damaging, but very slow. Good dashing attack.
3) Dora (tied with Goah or possibly higher): Horrible dashing attack but the most powerful dive kick; the only character unable to double-hit cornered bosses with her dashing attack. Has cheap magic for reliable crowd-control, but not necessarily enemy-killing.
This Japanese website lists the damage for every character:
http://tacota.web.fc2.com/goldenrev/index.html
Golden Axe
1) Gilius
2) Tyris
3) LOL
Do you know how to do the super attack in beast form in Splatterhouse 3? It’s always bugged me. I know how to do it when Rick is in regular form (Toward, Away, Toward, Punch) but in beast form the super/tentacle attack comes out randomly.
Yeah.
Japanese version: attack + jump
American version: back, forward, back+attack
Keep in mind that it’s specifically back, forward, back, and NOT forward, back, forward. You’d have to do forward, back, forward, back if you do it that way.
Rick’s spinning kick is simply back, forward+attack.
Thanks. I think the Splatterhouse trilogy is really underrated in the beat 'em up genre.
The first game had pretty much everything you could want aside from being different from other beat 'em ups in that you can’t go up and down. It’s not a traditional beat 'em up is what I’m trying to say. But the controls were good. The enemy designs were amazing for their time and hold up well. The weapons are satisfying as fuck. It has some branching paths. Overall it’s a really good and varied horror beat 'em up.
Part 2 was good but the controls were a little worse and it suffers a bit from that Genesis choppy sound effects of the early 90’s. There’s not as much reliance on the weapons as the first game but overall it’s good and fun.
Part 3 was the first to play more like a traditional beat ‘em up with moving up and down and walking into an enemy to grapple them. The problem is that your moves are kinda’ limited and the game is in that limbo between Final Fight and Streets of Rage 3 and other Capcom beat 'em ups (Punisher, AVP, etc) where beat ‘em ups began to play a little more like fighters. It does have a few special moves but it could’ve been better. The other two annoying things were the lack of weapons and getting knocked down a single time takes away your weapon. Only one level had a meat clever plus it’s kinda’ hidden (I think level 2) and good luck trying to keep it for long. And the enemies become cheaper as you progress and do tons of damage and can easily knock you down. Still, it gets points for being fun and having atmosphere. Not to mention the classic cut scenes and multiple endings giving you some incentive to experiment.
*I just played the Jap version of Splatterhouse 3 and the gameplay is different enough that I’d recommend it. The way you deal with enemies is pretty different without that OP Tornado kick.
Yeah, Splatterhouse is awesome. I still remember when I was 7 years old, I would go to the local comic book store every Sunday after church, and watch the older kids play games like Splatterhouse and Cadash.
Splatterhouse 3 (Japanese version) is indeed different. It’s more difficult than the American version because the spinning kick does pathetic damage, and it’s important to find a weapon, any weapon, even a brick, and hold onto it at all costs.
I actually think the Japanese version is easier because you’re given more time on the clock and when you go into Hulk mode it’s super easy to use the Tentacle move and kill everything in one or two hits. It’s definitely a different experience. It’s kinda’ like Sonic 1 and Sonic 2. Gameplay was the same except in Sonic 2 but you could do spindash whenever you wanted as opposed to needing to gain momentum to do it in Sonic 1.
That was your first mistake. The only Konami arcade games you should be playing are the 2 Contras and anything with Gradius in its title or any of their other shooters (I may be a little biased on the latter, though, just a little… xD)
Oh, and the X-Men brawler Konami did, too.
I’ve always wondered, why does no one ever talk about Warriors of Fate?
That was always my favorite. I love the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms setting and all the Street Fighter Moves they crammed in there. There’s nothing quite like doing a Balrog dash punch through an enemy and watching him explode into hamburger meat or grabbing an enemy and biting them Blanka style while blood just pisses out of their head 
[media=youtube]CHtYrmE84Tg[/media]
For the life of me, I cannot do the 360 spinning pile driver with Zhang Fei.
For something a little different. OpenBOR games:
OpenBOR is a beat 'em up engine that uses scripting. It was an engine used for the fangame Beats of Rage which was a Streets of Rage/KOF crossover beat 'em up. The development team (Senile Team) was nice enough to put the engine out there way back in 03 and ever since a very small group of diehards have been making beat 'em ups.
In short; OpenBOR is to beat 'em ups what MUGEN is to fighters. Or RPGMaker, pick your poison. However, unlike MUGEN the quality tends to be much higher.
[media=youtube]XFk4NmmQeHw[/media]
This one particularly. Takes an obscure horror beat 'em up that was pretty average in controls and execution and amps it up to Oldschool Capcom quality. Seriously, it plays just like AVP, Punisher, and Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. Specials are handled like in fighting games and it’s one of the few OpenBOR games to have weapons you can pick up (It takes a shit load of memory and some clever programming to pull it off). It’s not my vid so I don’t want anyone to think I’m schilling but the guy was nice enough to include a download link for the game and it’s a pretty simple download and play affair.
The other OpenBOR games use the engine and basically you take the games file (a PAK file) drop it into the PAK folder, run OpenBOR and select the game and done.
Some other good ones:
[media=youtube]BnOlPcDfBA0[/media]
[media=youtube]ZM7h6fPcveo[/media]
Damn! That Night Slashers remake looks awesome. I gotta try it this weekend.
NightSlashers X is brutal. I made it all the way to the final stage with the cyborg dude with my last life and just got mobbed. Modifying the game to give you more continues is mandatory.
I tried Night Slashers X, and I like it. I really dig the enemy knockback mechanics, and the controls are solid.
I also tried this indie beat’em up called The Asskickers and I deleted it after 5 minutes. What an utter pile of garbage.
Your grapple moves change when you have Red Health too. It’s fun to mess around. I think Jack is the best because when he has them in a grapple his Down+Jump does a lot of damage to bosses. And when he has Red Health his grapple Toward or Away+Jump does a crap load of damage and looks epic.
Try and play the World Heroes beat 'em up if you can.
http://www.chronocrash.com/forum/
You unfortunately *have *to register in order to download anything but once you download the latest OpenBOR engine and the game you’re good to go.
I always hated how players could jump 20 feet in the air and come down with a dive kick. That defeats the whole purpose of ground melee since enemies couldn’t jump that high or punish you coming down. AI would sometimes sneak in attacks with instant startup if you walked on their plane and were relatively close, making standard attacking pretty unsafe unless you were playing Don or someone with range. Also the game would OHKO you if you took too long.
I agree though, the aesthetics were amazing.
Oh man, I love me some beat em ups!
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To this day, I still get a warm, fuzzy feeling whenever someone mentions Knights of the Round. An underrated game with an underrated soundtrack.
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I had copy of Final Fight CD for years. It, along with Jurassic Park and Sonic CD were my favorite reasons for owning a Sega CD.
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One of my local arcades had the 6-player X-Men cabinet. I once gathered a bunch of friends and was stuck with Dazzler, but I didn’t care.
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This game is painfully unrepresented in this thread:
[media=youtube]BaJDwv56ii0[/media]
I loved playing X-men and The Simpsons at Chuck E. Cheese’s back when I was in elementary school. But yeah, the gameplay in the early Konami beat’em ups is pretty bad.
Vendetta and Violent Storm are solid games though. Ironically, they play nothing like other Konami beat’em ups. Metamorphic Force looks and plays like a Konami game, and it’s not bad either, but the game is virtually unknown.
Irem is probably the most underrated maker of beat’em ups. Ninja Baseball Batman, Hook and Undercover Cops (Japanese version) are great games.