Together Retro: Beat-'Em-Ups

[alienjesus]

I played through Alien Storm tonight. As I mentioned in the slack chat, here's some spoilers for when I finally get round to writing up a review in the games beaten thread:

It's better than Altered Beast, but worse than Golden Axe. It's not even close to Streets of Rage.

It's not all that great, but it makes for a great guilty pleasure game because it's more enjoyable than it probably should be.

That's my contribution for the month - it's only 2 beat 'em ups, but I want to focus some time on my summer list too. It's been fun though guys!

[noiseredux]

Thanks dude! I tend to write them late and put them on my blog and forget to share here.

[Exhuminator]

{Alien Storm} It's better than Altered Beast, but worse than Golden Axe. It's not even close to Streets of Rage.

I agree with you on that.

That's my contribution for the month - it's only 2 beat 'em ups, but I want to focus some time on my summer list too.

Thanks for participating and contributing. I'm going to stop after 10 beat 'em ups completed for this TR. This is one of my favorite genres, that's why I had so much gusto for it. I just finished Wizard Fire, and I plan to finish two more arcade beaters, then I'll call it done. I too have some summer lists I want to work on! This has been a lovely TR so far though. I've had the most fun with this one out of all we've done yet this year.

[Sarge]

Glad everyone is enjoying things so far. Speaking of beat-'em-ups...

...I finished a run through Streets of Rage. Still love the game. This wasn't a great run at all in spots, yet it still ended up being one of my best due to implementing the strategy mentioned earlier with the back-attack against the twins. Worked like a charm, and I nearly had a 1CC, but the last boss went to town on me a few times on top of my earlier mistakes. Still, I suspect the next time I try a run, I will pull a 1CC. I was using Blaze instead of Axel, and there were a few times that hurt me. She's got a lot of lateral speed, but vertically, she's quite slow. I think the vertical speed may actually be identical between characters.

As always, the soundtrack is the star of the show. But even then, there's something about the combat that appeals to me, kinda like Golden Axe and its ilk; objectively perhaps not the greatest, but something special nonetheless.

[Xeogred]

It's kind of weird how it's hard to find Streets of Rage 1 Genesis roms now, I only checked a few sites but it's mostly the Bare Knuckle versions for the trilogy. I was going to play the NA versions to track on HLTB since I already beat the Bare Knuckle's last year.

[lordb0rb4]

It's kind of weird how it's hard to find Streets of Rage 1 Genesis roms now, I only checked a few sites but it's mostly the Bare Knuckle versions for the trilogy. I was going to play the NA versions to track on HLTB since I already beat the Bare Knuckle's last year.

You could try gametronik.com

[lordb0rb4]

I played through Alien Storm tonight. As I mentioned in the slack chat, here's some spoilers for when I finally get round to writing up a review in the games beaten thread:

It's better than Altered Beast, but worse than Golden Axe. It's not even close to Streets of Rage.

It's not all that great, but it makes for a great guilty pleasure game because it's more enjoyable than it probably should be.

That's my contribution for the month - it's only 2 beat 'em ups, but I want to focus some time on my summer list too. It's been fun though guys!

Speaking of Altered Beast, this is one of my Summer Challenge and i put some time on it today, great OST and tight gameplay, i'm loving it more than i could ever imagine, i'm not nearly done with it and i think it's highly underated already.
Oh, and the M2 port for the 3DS have this amazing extra mode with random transformations and it is awesome.

[Sarge]

Yeah, I don't get all the hate for Altered Beast. It may be simple, but that doesn't make it bad. I still rate it fairly highly, probably a 7/10 experience for me.

[lordb0rb4]

2 more beat-em-ups down today:
3D Altered Beast
As i said before, having played Altered Beast in both original and 3ds' exclusive random transformation mode i firmly believe Altered Beast is a classic and really underrated as a genesis launch game as well as an arcade port.
In Altered Beast you take control of a roman centurion that must rescue Athena, daughter of none less than Zeus, in a world of myth and beasts from the evil grips of Neff.
One of the most striking feature and the selling point of the game is the ability to transform into super powered animal-like beasts that grants the centurion awesome powers.
The other amazing achievement of Altered Beast is without doubt it's THUNDEROUS sound department, from the iconic and crystal-clear Zeus' shout "RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!" to the desolation of the tracks as you go deeper into the underworld itself!
I'm happy for both finally playing and beating the game , as well ending the bad impression that i had about the game.

99 Vidas

While not classic, 99 vidas is indeed heavilly inspired by games like Final Fight and Streets of Rage.
Like some more modern beat-em-ups, 99 Vidas has some RPG elements, multiples characters (unlockable as well) and online elements, it reminded me alot like Scott Pilgrim.
I'm extra proud as well by the fact that 99 Vidas was made here in Brazil

By the looks of it i'm not done with this amazing TR yet!

[Exhuminator]

Yeah, I don't get all the hate for Altered Beast. It may be simple, but that doesn't make it bad. I still rate it fairly highly, probably a 7/10 experience for me.

I'd also give Altered Beast a 7/10. It was the first Genesis game I owned (pack-in), upon receiving the system back in '90. So of course I played through and beat it many many times. The giant sprites, transforming animations, and digitized speech samples were impressive back then. However the gameplay is really shallow, and there's not much meat on the bones to reward replays.

There's a lot of other Altered Beast games out there besides the Arcade/Genesis iteration. I considered playing through the PS2 version during this event. But didn't get around to it.