Together Retro: Beat-'Em-Ups

[BoneSnapDeez]

I don't like Altered Beast much. Awesome OST and aesthetics but it's a pain to play.

Though I think I had a sort of revelation these last few days. Beat 'em ups are one (the only?) genre where I have a hard time getting into the really early stuff. I just don't enjoy games like Kung-Fu Master and Renegade, and even some of the late 80s classics. Those early-mid 90s gems are just so much better to me. Contrast this to genres like shooters and platformers, where I can't get enough of the primitive single-screeners.

[Nemoide]

Speaking of awesome OST and aesthetic but a pain to play... I played through Sengoku tonight!
I got my Neo Geo Stick for Wii and thought this would be a great game to test it out. I had read about it but never played it or seen footage... right away, I was impressed by how nutzoid it is. It seems to start off in modern Japan as a feudal warlord had come back to life with an army to take over the world. So you're in modern Japan, things seem post-apocalyptic and BAM, you're called up to the heavens to start fighting mythical demons/monsters! After a little bit of that, BAM, you're back on Earth. Then SUDDENLY THE SCENERY CHANGES, maybe you're in the past or something. It's ALL OVER THE PLACE. BACK IN HEAVEN! Gain the ability to transform into a wolf! Gain abilities to transform into other dudes! What's going on?? Collect colored orbs! What do they do? WHO KNOWS! Some of them seem to grant new attacks but even after finishing the game, I couldn't say what the green ones did.

Sadly, the gameplay is awkward, difficult in a not-great way, so it's not rocketing to the top of my list of favorite beat-em-ups. But it IS crazy and unique and that gives it big points. Easily worth a credit-feeding playthrough, I'm looking forward to trying out the sequels.

[pierrot]

Well, I don't think Konami ever did anything great with the TMNT license on the NES/FC. Today I played through the two TMNT beat-em-ups on the console. The port of the 1989 arcade game is decent. It's an admirable downport, with nice music added in with the console exclusive, snowy Manhattan stage. Unfortunately it's a far cry from the in-your-face, four-player action of the arcade version (to no one's surprise, I hope). It's fairly enjoyable for what it is, even though "what it is" is a severely inferior version of an all time classic. It's also just a really slow, and quite vapid gameplay experience (which is sort of saying something for a beat-em-up). I also went ahead and saved myself a bunch of pain and frustration by just using the extra lives code, after I had gotten up to nearly the end of Scene 4, part 1, before running out of continues with the default settings. I only ended up needing one continue to finish the game, but there was probably no way I would have been able to finish it otherwise.

This probably won't be a very appreciated opinion, but I pretty well disliked my time with The Manhattan Project. The presentation is pretty much as I would expect for a late era Famicom game, from Konami: It's quite nice. The music is rather good, and there are some pretty impressive voice samples. This one plays at a much nicer clip, and is just much smoother in general than "The Arcade Game," but overall, I think it plays much worse. Mostly, I find the enemies to be pretty torturous; Especially so with the bosses. There's a bit more added to the combat, with "throws" and 'desperation moves,' which is nice in theory, but it doesn't necessarily add that much to the actual variety in combat. Although, those two additions are really the most powerful tools in the game, though. I found combat in "The Arcade Game" to be mostly just doing jump kicks back and forth, because it would kill on contact, while hoping the foot soldiers don't knock Leo out of the air with a swift punch to his foot. In The Manhattan Project, combat was, for the most part, about trying to throw dudes for an instant kill, while hoping the game didn't screw up by forgetting to actually launch the foot soldier for the second second hit, and leaving Leo's face open to all kinds of punishment. Oh yeah, also, the hit detection is absolutely atrocious. Really, there's just nothing worse than the bosses in this game. None of them are interesting to fight. They're just meat slabs, with almost impenetrable defenses. It takes forever to kill them, and there's really no way to avoid getting hit by them a bajillion times, unless you do what speedrunners apparently do, and just abuse the desperation attacks. I didn't really think to do that, but I also wasn't going to finish this one without setting my lives up to seven in the options (which doesn't require a code in the Japanese version). I still only barely finished the game, with no lives, no continues, and two little beads of health left. There was no feeling of accomplishment at all, though; Just relief that it was finally over. I was too weary to really care about the experience.

I typically don't care to play games on non-default settings, but neither of these games were really good enough for me to be that stubborn about it. I wouldn't have gotten through them otherwise. My take away is: Just don't even bother with these two games. Get Hyperstone Heist, and be merry. If you have either, or both of these games for the NES, just sell them for Hyperstone Heist. HH is the only one of these old TMNT console beat-um-ups worth owning, and otherwise, play the arcade games. Those are my two cents.

[ESauced]

Opinions are opinions but your opinion on TMNT console beat-em-ups is so wrong it disgusts me

[noiseredux]

I don't like Altered Beast much. Awesome OST and aesthetics but it's a pain to play.

Though I think I had a sort of revelation these last few days. Beat 'em ups are one (the only?) genre where I have a hard time getting into the really early stuff. I just don't enjoy games like Kung-Fu Master and Renegade, and even some of the late 80s classics. Those early-mid 90s gems are just so much better to me. Contrast this to genres like shooters and platformers, where I can't get enough of the primitive single-screeners.

This is surprising. Huh. I personally LOVE Renegade, but of course nostalgia helps.

[marurun]

The reason Guardian Heroes has planes instead of free-roaming has to do with character’s special moves for attacks and spells, easier management of blocking and dodging certain types of enemy attacks like beam attacks, and making it easier to escape crowds when you are ganged-up on.

[pierrot]

Opinions are opinions but your opinion on TMNT console beat-em-ups is so wrong it disgusts me

I know, and I'm mostly okay with it.

I didn't expect to be blown away by the port of the arcade game, but I did expect way more from The Manhattan Project.

[Exhuminator]

I "beat" Wizard Fire (1992) two days ago. Wizard Fire (AKA Dark Seal 2 in Japan) is a 1992 arcade isometric slash 'em up, developed and published by Data East. Up to two players can choose from five different characters to fight with; knight, mage, elf, dwarf, or bard. Players must fight through various medieval themed stages, slaying classically themed fantasy monsters, in an attempt to reach a "dark seal" and close it, thus stopping an evil wizard from doing evil wizard things. If you've played games like Dungeon Magic, Gaiapolis, or Arcus Odyssey, you have a good idea what Wizard Fire is like. The player has a primary attack and a special attack, that's it. No leveling system here. Overall Wizard Fire is a mediocre experience, it doesn't excel graphically, aurally, or innovatively. However Wizard Fire does have impressively drawn cutscenes with full English voice acting, a rarity for arcade games at the time. So if you just feel like button mashing a bunch of goblins, skeletons, and dragons to death, without having to think very hard to do so, Wizard Fire has you covered. Ex's rating: 6/10

I also re-checked out Battle Circuit. I was right; I'd beaten it before (co-op'd it with my brother back in 2000). Battle Circuit is a goofy and good beat 'em up, check it out if you don't mind silly stuff in your beaters. (On that note play Ninja Baseball Bat Man.)

There's a handful of arcade slash 'em ups / beat 'em ups I still hope to get through before the end of the month.

[lordb0rb4]

I "beat" Wizard Fire (1992) two days ago. Wizard Fire (AKA Dark Seal 2 in Japan) is a 1992 arcade isometric slash 'em up, developed and published by Data East. Up to two players can choose from five different characters to fight with; knight, mage, elf, dwarf, or bard. Players must fight through various medieval themed stages, slaying classically themed fantasy monsters, in an attempt to reach a "dark seal" and close it, thus stopping an evil wizard from doing evil wizard things. If you've played games like Dungeon Magic, Gaiapolis, or Arcus Odyssey, you have a good idea what Wizard Fire is like. The player has a primary attack and a special attack, that's it. No leveling system here. Overall Wizard Fire is a mediocre experience, it doesn't excel graphically, aurally, or innovatively. However Wizard Fire does have impressively drawn cutscenes with full English voice acting, a rarity for arcade games at the time. So if you just feel like button mashing a bunch of goblins, skeletons, and dragons to death, without having to think very hard to do so, Wizard Fire has you covered. Ex's rating: 6/10

I also re-checked out Battle Circuit. I was right; I'd beaten it before (co-op'd it with my brother back in 2000). Battle Circuit is a goofy and good beat 'em up, check it out if you don't mind silly stuff in your beaters. (On that note play Ninja Baseball Bat Man.)

There's a handful of arcade slash 'em ups / beat 'em ups I still hope to get through before the end of the month.

Hey Ex, you really should not use "beat" when it comes to arcade games my friend, they're really designed to eat as much credits as possible.
I think 1CCers are NOT the norm.

[Exhuminator]

Hey Ex, you really should not use "beat" when it comes to arcade games my friend, they're really designed to eat as much credits as possible.
I think 1CCers are NOT the norm.

It's hard for me to feel like I really beat an arcade game, when I can just endlessly feed it virtual quarters to continue until the credits. For me arcade games are mostly just content tourism. There are ways to make them harder of course; "I only have three dollars in credits." or go all out and 1CC one I suppose. You're right though, arcade games in general were designed to be shiny and eat all your money.