Beatemups 101

[RadarScope1]

Great stuff. My 8-year-old nephew visited me a couple weeks ago and we ended up playing several beatemups together. I introduced him to the genre and he was asking "can we play another beatemup?" by the second day.

[Gamerforlife]

Great stuff. My 8-year-old nephew visited me a couple weeks ago and we ended up playing several beatemups together. I introduced him to the genre and he was asking "can we play another beatemup?" by the second day.

Isn't it great how accessible a lot of beat'em ups are? Sure some of them get really tough, but many of the old school beat'em ups are easy to learn how to play and the multi-player gives you a way to help eachother out too. Accessibility is one of the things I love about platformers too. It's an easy genre to get people into

Glad you two had fun

[MidnightRider]

Great stuff. My 8-year-old nephew visited me a couple weeks ago and we ended up playing several beatemups together. I introduced him to the genre and he was asking "can we play another beatemup?" by the second day.

Cool, I'm pretty much a solo player, but if I was gonna partake of multiplayer action, that's the way I'd prefer to, instead of online. Antisocial enough without MMOs to suck the life out of me.

Which games did you end up playing? I'm not too far off from being an uncle myself.

If you do arcade emuation at all, I'd recommend Battle Circuit, one of Capcoms lasts arcade brawlers, but it's a wacky lighthearted game(taking the assumption that you'd never play AvP, or so much as even arcade Captain Commando[what with slicing enemies in half and all] with him while he's still this young). Same vein, Ninja Baseball Batman.

Edit: Actually been meaning to ask, hopefully in the interest of drumming up more conversation: How do you(anyone who reads this, not to anyone in particular) personally define the genre?

Myself, I have some really strict definitions about it. For starters, I do differentiate Hack n Slash, because I think there is enough of a difference in most cases. Like no weapon pickups, or really, the fact that you're trying to beat enemies up, not cut them open. Hack n Slash's generally don't do that, but if you think about what would really happen when you strike someone with a bladed weapon....(even though a lot of beat em ups include a knife or katana) Also A lot of the time, I see a game brought up, or look up under say GameFAQs genre sorting, and think(under my definitions), "That's not a beat em up." I mean, you're beating the enemy up, not 1 hit K.O.'ing them. In fact, a hit K.O. actually sounds relatively painless.

So games like Ninja Warriors, Thunder Fox(GFAQs lists it as one), the Genesis X-Men games, etc., I would consider more generally vague action games than beat em ups.

couple rules to the hack n slash thing would be AvP(predators start with bladed weapons, and really, you wouldn't want those things to live anyway), and a screw up on my part, Light Bringer/Dungeon Magic is more beat em up than I recalled, since 2 characters fight with a hand to hand style.

Exceptions to the 1 hit K.O. rule would be the Spartan X/Kung Fu series, mainly for kinda staring the genre, and Vigilante, which has durable enemies amidst the 1 hit K.O.'ers.

One spot of confusion is, I'm not exactly sure where that puts Ninja Turtles for me, since you technically 2 hit K.O. the enemy without the special move(so they do at least feel that first shot, er, if you don't consider them all to be robots), plus, you never pick up new weapons. Same with X-Men/Asterix, but you beat your enemies down more in those games.

Still, what fits ones definition of a genre, and what doesn't, doesn't stop a good game from being so.

[Gamerforlife]

Which Ninja Warriors do you mean? The arcade and SNES version are vastly different.

I agree the Genesis X-Men games are not necessarily beat’em ups, but I would say it’s because the emphasis on gameplay doesn't seem to be on combat. There seems to be a lot of platform based gameplay. Combat is relatively simple and doesn't seem to be the focus of the games. X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse on the SNES seems like more of a true beat’em up to me. It has combos, street fighter style special attacks and enemies that can withstand multiple hits before being killed and the game focuses heavily on the challenge of actually taking your enemies down. They threw in a little platforming to give the game variety, but it was all about the beat'em up gameplay. Really like that game by the way, it doesn't deserve the bad rap it got in one of hardcoregaming101's articles

I think whether or not beat’em up and hack and slash games are different genres is really open to interpretation. Personally, I think they are the same, but I acknowledged in my article that not everyone feels that way. You say that in a hack and slash game you don’t pick up weapons, but in the Golden Axe games you ride animals, which basically substitutes for you getting other weapons. It’s basically the same thing. I don’t think the one hit kill rule works, because then you have a game like Splatterhouse, which has one hit kills, but when you start the game you are taking out enemies with punches and kicks like in Kung Fu Master. Same goes for Bad Dudes versus DragonNinja

[MidnightRider]

Both Ninja Warrios games. From what I've played you start dropping what appear to be soldiers, left and right with one punch(or whatever).

Can't say I've done much with the SNES X-Men game. Not because of bad reviews or anything, but mainly I never got into 1 on 1 fighters, so pulling off half circle motions in the middle of a brawler just doesn't work so well for me.

Well, I think I view hack and slash to beat em ups, as say, action RPGs to turn based. Quite a bit different, but could still be considered sub-genres of a wider overall genre, but not considered to be one and the same. Suppose I could consider 1 hit K.O.ers as a classic sub-genre in themselves, but then at that point, it becomes hard to differentiate between them and platformers in which you fight a lot. Like a lot of early Batman games, the Genesis X-men games, Genesis Pirates of Dark Water, etc.

So, yeah, I'd have to put anything newer than '87(DD) that puts the 1 hit K.O. rule in effect, which doesn't function as a sequel to a game before '87, as part of the broader general action genre. Splatterhouse 3 is the only game in the series I'd consider a beat em up, since you still 1 hit kill without a weapon in the first 2, and 3 actually adds beat em up mechanics, including combos and grapples.

[Gamerforlife]

Both Ninja Warrios games. From what I've played you start dropping what appear to be soldiers, left and right with one punch(or whatever).

Can't say I've done much with the SNES X-Men game. Not because of bad reviews or anything, but mainly I never got into 1 on 1 fighters, so pulling off half circle motions in the middle of a brawler just doesn't work so well for me.

Well, I think I view hack and slash to beat em ups, as say, action RPGs to turn based. Quite a bit different, but could still be considered sub-genres of a wider overall genre, but not considered to be one and the same. Suppose I could consider 1 hit K.O.ers as a classic sub-genre in themselves, but then at that point, it becomes hard to differentiate between them and platformers in which you fight a lot. Like a lot of early Batman games, the Genesis X-men games, Genesis Pirates of Dark Water, etc.

So, yeah, I'd have to put anything newer than '87(DD) that puts the 1 hit K.O. rule in effect, which doesn't function as a sequel to a game before '87, as part of the broader general action genre. Splatterhouse 3 is the only game in the series I'd consider a beat em up, since you still 1 hit kill without a weapon in the first 2, and 3 actually adds beat em up mechanics, including combos and grapples.

Hmm, interesting points, though I think there are greater differences between action rpgs and turn based ones than there are between beat'em ups and hack and slash games. Combat can be vastly different when comparing action rpgs to turn based ones. Plus, action rpgs can come in many different forms which differentiates them even further

I think it's easy to differentiate a 1 hit KO beat'em up from a platformer where you fight a lot. The difference is what the gameplay emphasizes. The first two Splatterhouses are mostly about moving from one side of the screen to the other and fighting enemies. It's heavily slanted towards combat making it a beat'em up. X-Men: Clones Wars on the Genesis however focuses heavily on platforming and it's clearly emphasized more heavily than combat.

Here are two videos showing the first stages of X-Men:Clone Wars and Splatterhouse 2. You'll notice a LOT of platforming and jumping around in the Clone Wars video, while the Splatterhouse 2 one is just a guy moving to the right killing anything in his way




I think identifying a beat'em up boils down to looking at how much emphasis is placed on combat, which is why even though a game like Devil May Cry had platforming, puzzle solving, and item fetching, I view it as a beat'em up. The combat is what the majority of the game focuses on and looking at the number of movies,combos and complexity of the combat system, it's clearly the game's main selling point. Most modern beat'em ups included other genre elements primarily to shut up pretentious video game reviewers who call a game too simplistic or repetitive if it doesn't include other genre elements. And whatever game reviewers want, is essentially what most developers do, hence my growing hatred of video game reviewers

Splatterhouse 3 added more to the gameplay of the series, but the fact that it added more beat'em up gameplay elements isn't surprising to me given that the series was a beat'em up to begin with. Splatterhouse 3 just evolved the formula

Those are just my opinions though. I used to be very firm on my thoughts on video game genres, but I've learned to be more open minded recently. Genre discussions are always subject to opinion and open to interpretation and sometimes it seems like you have to evaluate games on a case by case basis. Some games are very hard to genre classify and there are a few that seem to be trying their hardest to avoid fitting into any category

Oh, and Ninja Warriors on the SNES featured one hit kills only for basic soldier enemies. The SNES version has all the beat'em up tropes like combos, grapple attacks, throws, a special move that clears out all surrounding enemies, etc. It's most definitely a beat'em up. One of my faves in fact

[MidnightRider]

Yeah, well I won't lie, I've only recently tried out a lot of SNES beat em ups, mainly to see if I'd like 'em, based on the combat, after noticing I hadn't played many beat em ups for the SNES. With Ninja Warriors I just got through the first stage, and it was all 1 hit K.O.

I think identifying a beat'em up boils down to looking at how much emphasis is placed on combat, which is why even though a game like Devil May Cry had platforming, puzzle solving, and item fetching, I view it as a beat'em up. The combat is what the majority of the game focuses on and looking at the number of movies,combos and complexity of the combat system, it's clearly the game's main selling point. Most modern beat'em ups included other genre elements primarily to shut up pretentious video game reviewers who call a game too simplistic or repetitive if it doesn't include other genre elements. And whatever game reviewers want, is essentially what most developers do, hence my growing hatred of video game reviewers

Ha, tell me about it! I might consider rethinking my current stance on gaming, but I pretty much stopped after the 4th generation. I mean, not literally, I kept up with it until a few years ago, and decided at that point I didn't want to keep up with modern gaming. Mainly because it seemed to me like the focus had shifted to story telling, and I don't care for that. I prefer the classic style, put the story in the manual, and let the player play the game, without having to stop every 5 steps for a cut scene.

Anyway, whether I think a game fits in the genre or not, won't stop me from playing the better ones. Genres remain subjective. They'd have to, I mean, some claim Zelda to be roleplaying, and I'm in the camp that thinks it's adventure, and doesn't see anything resembling RPG elements(outside of Adventure of Link).