What happened to beat em' ups?

[marurun]

I have Turtles II. I enjoy it. It's very attractive, but I don't enjoy it as much as Streets of Rage 2 or 3 simply because you don't have as much you can do to the baddies when fighting. Guardian Heroes is the only beat 'em up I've played that I like more, and comparing almost anything to Guardian Heroes isn't fair because it's god tier.

[Xeogred]

I can understand not being crazy about Final Fight 1 & 2, but Final Fight 3 holds its own against Streets of Rage 2 or 3, IMO.

And why doesn't anybody ever mention this one?:

Let's settle it. None of these are as good as Shadows over Mystara and Tower of Doom.

I agree with you. Not only are those my favorite beat 'em ups ever, but they are my all time favorite arcade games. Playing those 4 player is just a whole other level of awesome.

I probably have a thing for medieval beat 'em ups though. I think Golden Axe > Final Fight > Streets of Rage, which is debatably insane but is what it is.

Insane might be an understatement. But as discussed in our recent Golden Axe talk in some other thread recently, I definitely have a soft spot for those as well.

Also the few posts above remind me that I still feel like the only guy in the world that played and loved TMNT III, might even be my top favorite Turtles game. And it was extra cool playing co-op with my grandpa a lot and we beat it all the time and it's not exactly easy, definitely one of the longer beat em ups.

Final Fight Guy is the way to go. But for a big guy Hagger kicks ass.

[Sarge]

Yeah, I think TMNT suffers from some of the same issues as Final Fight. Now, I love it, especially the original arcade game, but Streets of Rage 2 and Final Fight 3 are (somewhat) considerably deeper experiences.

That being said, brawlers really rely on something much more esoteric than that, and that's general "feel". I hate to reduce it to something that's hard to quantify, but in a genre where repetition is king, it's really hard to explicitly point to what makes a game better than another.

(In RPG terms, it's a lot like Dragon Quest. To the untrained eye, it looks like a bog-standard JRPG. Yet many, many companies tried to copy it, and most of them failed horribly. There's a certain magic to the series that others just don't have, and it's hard to point to a single aspect and say, yep, this is why this series is superior.)

[marurun]

Well, Turtles has some fun throws, like the back and forth slam and the throw into the screen. And Turtles II has the shoulder charge into screen throw. So it's not quite as basic as Final Fight 1 or 2, that's for sure. And it does have a nice feel. It also doesn't overstay its welcome. So it definitely gets props for awesomeness.

[marlowe221]

Well, Turtles has some fun throws, like the back and forth slam and the throw into the screen. And Turtles II has the shoulder charge into screen throw. So it's not quite as basic as Final Fight 1 or 2, that's for sure. And it does have a nice feel. It also doesn't overstay its welcome. So it definitely gets props for awesomeness.

There are also various dash moves you can do as well as a few different arial attacks beyond the standard Double Dragon-style jump kick.

Also the first time you fight Shredder and can only damage him by throwing bad guys into the screen? That's an awesome boss fight.

The time travel theme also allows for a lot of variety in the levels which, in turn, allows for some interesting evironmental effects/traps/etc.

[dsheinem]

this shit is what happened to beat em' ups:

[Sarge]

While they're not beat-'em-ups, I'd argue that in some ways, they live on to some degree in games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. Most folks just stopped being willing to shell out for such short experiences, for good or for ill.

[strangenova]

Insane might be an understatement. But as discussed in our recent Golden Axe talk in some other thread recently, I definitely have a soft spot for those as well.

Also the few posts above remind me that I still feel like the only guy in the world that played and loved TMNT III, might even be my top favorite Turtles game. And it was extra cool playing co-op with my grandpa a lot and we beat it all the time and it's not exactly easy, definitely one of the longer beat em ups.

Final Fight Guy is the way to go. But for a big guy Hagger kicks ass.

Im with you on TMNT 3. It's one of my top NES games. The music is top notch and the gameplay is tight and solid. It just gets passed over because it came out around the same time as the snes. So everyone remembers the arcade game and turtles in time.

[BogusMeatFactory]

While they're not beat-'em-ups, I'd argue that in some ways, they live on to some degree in games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. Most folks just stopped being willing to shell out for such short experiences, for good or for ill.

I mentioned this before and got some crap for it. I still stand by it today that those games are the modern version of a beat em up

[Sarge]

Or at least contain elements of beat-'em-ups. I'm with you on that.