River City Ransom is my #1 beat 'em up (and overall) favourite. I want to make a game inspired by RCR one day. I have the ideas in place, I just need to execute them.
Streets of Rage remake is a must-play, although it’s not freely available any more. I’m sure a few of us have the game and is willing to share it. cough
Tried another version of MAME that supports Violent Storm and got that one to work. A little simplistic and you have to hold a diagonal direction and hit the button in order to do special moves and it sucks that the Duke Nukem look alike is the grappler and his Powerbomb does next to no damage on bosses. But it was awesome. It was just like a Saturday morning cartoon from back in the day. Reminded me a lot of Toxic Crusaders, Street Sharks, TMNT, Swamp Thing, etc.
Fun game. Bosses are cheap as fuck.
Also finally got around to playing Ninja Baseball Bat Man. Most times I’ve said WTF when playing a game. And it’s awesome. It plays like Capcom’s AVP and Punisher. Tons of combos and specials to discover and it’s fun as hell.
Boris (the black Duke Nukem look-alike) is the best boss killer in the game (and the best character in the game in my opinion). Even though all throws do reduced damage against bosses, the clinch attack still does normal damage, and Boris’s clinch attack is the most damaging in the game. He can carry bosses around after grabbing them, allowing him to get into better position to infinite throw them. Many of the boss fights consist of infinite throwing them to death: grab the boss, clinch attack, clinch attack, regular throw, pick the boss up from the ground, and repeat. Infinite throws are the most effective way of disposing of about half of the bosses, and Boris is the best when it comes to infinite throws, and that is why I feel that Boris is the best boss killer in the game; none of the characters have any particular advantage against bosses that you cannot infinite throw, but the clinch attack is still the best form of damage against them, giving Boris a distinct advantage against all the bosses. The bosses are indeed very cheap, but all of them, except for the narcissistic body builder and the final boss, have patterns that can be exploited, allowing you to defeat them without taking a hit. Against the final boss, it is almost impossible to defeat him without taking a hit or losing a few lives. Therefore, if you’re planning to one-coin-clear the game, it is pivotal to rack up bonus lives in preparation of the final boss (bonus lives are turned on by default only in the Japanese version), and when it comes to bonus lives I feel that Boris has a clear advantage due to the high-scoring nature of his special throws. Furthermore, he is just plain more damaging than the other characters, but he does NOT suffer when it comes to speed or mobility, as is typical of grappling characters in the beat’em up genre. Therefore, despite his high-damaging and high-scoring nature, he does not suffer any major weaknesses. That is why I think he is the best character in the game.
Got about halfway through Undercover Cops before I had to go out. Gonna’ try it again later. The combos are very simplistic and the only special move is a dash attack and it sucks with everyone but the football dude. The game makes up for this with style and some innovations. I love the idea that you can kill the cyborg dude with a trash compactor. Level 3 and onwards become extremely cheap.
Are you playing the Japanese version or the International version? If you’re playing the International version, then you should immediately switch to the Japanese version which has many more moves.
Ah, that makes sense. I was playing the U.S. version.
PS: are you the Tokido of beat 'em ups or something?
Vendetta was pretty sweet. A little short but aesthetically very similar to Final Fight and Streets of Rage only darker. Reminded me of scuzzy exploitation/grindhouse flicks set in NYC in the 70’s and 80’s. And that was a definite plus. Control was okay, but no jump button and no dashing. The twist is that you can do your special (Punch and Kick at the same time) whenever you want and it never drains your life bar. Holding towards and doing a special does a jumping attack which is technically your jump and being stationary and doing the special does an uppercut. I was only able to play as the Black dude so I’m not sure if there were more specials for the rest of the characters.
Fun game. Felt pretty fair. Not nearly as cheap as Undercover Cops. Bosses felt fair except for the magician and the killer midget and the very final level. For those parts you really need a 2nd player for crowd control.
i love vendetta, you see something new every time you play it
It is funny how the scrolling beat em up was really finished by 96, probably due to the death of the 16 bit systems, it’s not the only genre to almost vanish from gaming today, remember the multi sports extravaganzas? like track and field, world games and so on.
Who knows what will be dead in another 20 years, puzzle? fps? haha
I was able to accidentally get a dude in a headlock and knee him in the face and ended the combo by kneeing him right in the balls in Vendetta. Wasn’t able to replicate it.
I love little touches like that.
The Beat 'em Up still exists but it evolved into DMC, God of War, and all that shit. Just like how FPS evolved into regenerating health cover fests featuring comeback mechanics and nub-friendly gimmicks.
the knee is just foward +kick up close, sometimes you get the noise and the dance other times you dont, i’ve always found the grabs in it to be a bit weird, when you knock them down they get up and they usually vomit, get behind them and grab them with punch and press it a few times that usually kills all grunts double quick.
Also play the asian version or jap, as i think it’s that version with the frisky dogs and freddy mecurys
I’m really partial to a bit of burning fight, the first stage is probably one of my faves in any game ever, i love the music the background and so on, dont think i will ever one credit that game
Yeah, I figured out the knee right after I posted (a bad habit of mine). You can’t grab at least half the enemies unless you’re the Hulk Hogan dude and even then you can only slam them. Only problem I have with Vendetta is that if you get knocked down and there’s 2-3 dudes on top of you or a boss is about to do his invincible twirly attack there is no way to get out of the way to avoid damage. Doesn’t happen that often but when it does it sucks.
Also, anyone do a Ninja Baseball Bat Man tier list?
The green guy is easily the best character. His hidden move (jump then down, up+jump) is the best move in the game. When you do that move, right after he slams into the ground, quickly press left, right, left, right, left, right to do an invincible tornado move (you can also do this move when you’re being knocked down).
My personal favorite is the yellow guy because you can combo into his hidden move (punch, punch, punch, (slight pause), back, up, forward+jump).
Oops. I meant jump then up, down+jump.
yeah that is the thing i dont like about it also, also when you start taking damage i find it hard to stop, also you take damage like a female paper akuma also, even grunts can kill you if your not on your toes
what version of mame does that zero team game by seibu kahatsui run on? i’ve never seen that on before
So, Japanese version of Vendetta has this:
**WTF JAPAN? **
great aint it?
i loved the 90’s
I think that’s my main reason why i love vendetta over every other scroller the variety in bad guys
What’s the opinion of midways brute force from 91?
I confess i’ve probably only played it about 10 times so i’m not really sure what to think.
But part of me thinks this is a really great game, seems to have alot of things that make you say "that’s neat"
looks kinda old for a 1991 game, very strange looks like konamis jailbreak only 5 years later
It was alright I haven’t played it in years though. I remember liking the scale and weapons.
Crime Fighters 2 has got to be one of the most unappreciated beat em ups, I love how their is just so much interaction in that game, bricks, bucket heads, lamposts etc. If you think Crime Fighters 2 is weird, wait until you get to the Hard Gay part in Tomoyo Fighter Plus (Doujin beat em up game) Japanese humor is crazy, lol.
Alien vs. Predator
Character: Dutch
Difficulty: Hardest
Description: One-coin-clear; no recovery items
I learned a lot from watching this video, and I must take back what I said in an earlier post that Dutch’s powerbomb is not effective in later levels. This player does not use autofire and he does not resort to back-jump-attacks to get out of sticky situations; he has excellent understanding of powerbomb invincibility frames and item management.
Sengoku Denshou 2001 (Sengoku 3)
Characters: Falcon and Kurenai/Kagetsura
Difficulty: Hardest
Description: One-coin-clear
Falcon is the best boss-killer in the game, except against the final boss. Why? Because Falcon is the only character that can infinite them. Chinese players are the best at this game, bar none.
http://unofficial-guide.sakura.ne.jp/html/sd2001/sd_01_in.html
Japanese-language guide for Sengoku Denshou 2001. Even if you cannot read Japanese, you can at least look at the numbers for damage. Excellent guide, but I don’t agree with their assessment of some of the characters.
Yeah, Dutch’s powerbomb is kinda similar to Punisher’s in usefulness. Lots of invincibility and great to safely knock crowds down (though it lacks Punisher’s infinite, hah).
After getting the 1CC with the Magic User I tried to go for a more honest clear and picked the Dwarf… and the 1CC was even easier. His high health leaves you a lot of room for error, his damage output is insane with very simple combos like qcf + A, qcf + A (and if he gets the Sword of Legend… he’s a death machine), all his attacks hit multiple times so he’s hard to block, his hop is extremely useful, his hitboxes huge (you can simply ram the Harpy and knock her down when she goes for the diving grab, for example), his counter really nice because you can get a damaging qcf + A afterwards, has infinites on several bosses… and the extra gold doesn’t hurt. His only downside is his lack of solid defensive options, but you can solve that by wiping everyone down in seconds.
One question: does anyone know how to get the Lighting Bolt Ring instant kill consistently against Synn? Someone told me that you need to do two attacks and then use the ring, and I managed to pull it off last time I played, but that was the first time ever I did it. It’s very funny when it happens, I can’t help to hear Hokuto no Ken’s FATAL KO music while the lifebar goes down.