Hello there!

As you might or might not know, side-scrolling beat 'em ups are the most
funny thing out there, so I thought I'd open up a thread solely dedicated
to these meatballs of pure awesomeness

Nowadays you hardly see those kind of games, let alone on a so called
"next generation system", but back in the days side-scrolling 2D beat'em
ups were one of the best and also most popular genres on any platform.

And as you might have already guessed, it's also my favourite genre and
so I also wrote a little song about it: click

But back to topic:
What are your favourite scrolling Beat 'em Ups, and even more important:
Why?

I am currently playing Ninja Warriors on my SNES, which quite surprised
me with its kinda unique engine, nice graphics and good gameplay.
I especially like the fact that each of the three fighters owns a very
unique fighting-style which heavily affects gameplay.

Another one of my all-time favourites would be Double Dragon II on the
NES as well as its GameBoy counterpart (where it was a whole different game).
The GameBoy title must've been the first game of that genre that I have
played so it's much of a "nostalgia title" to me.

Anyway - it's kinda sad that these times are gone and games like these
aren't made anymore but I hope all you side scrolling beat 'em up fans
out there will keep the spirit alive


ceno

I was a big fan of Double Dragon II but my all time favourite was Streets of Rage II. That game everything: good gameplay, good graphics, good music.

I had Streets of Rage III as well but I didn't like it as much. It was just too busy. I know having more characters on the screen was supposed to make the action more frantic but the screen would just get cluttered.

Recently I played Final Fight again and while the graphics might have been better than Streets of Rage I didn't enjoy the gameplay to the same degree.

Golden Axe, Double Dragon, TMNT IV, The Simpsons, Mighty Final Fight, those were good beat-em-ups.

Streets of Rage 1, 2, 3, Final Fight, Double Dragon, TMNT II, III: The Manhattan Project, IV: Turtles in Time and The Hyperstone Heist are my favorite side-scrolling beat 'em ups. Turtles in Time would top the list if I had to pick just one though.

Aughh!! I forgot that one! Yeah that was definitely in my top 3!

It's to easy to leave out some classic beat em ups because there were so many great ones back in the 8- and 16-bit days. I'm sure I missed a few myself.

Oh boy, how could I forget about that one?
Truly a classic! And the music is just awesome! They really knew how to
program that sound chip

I got Streets of Rage III, too but as you aleady said - it's not that good.
It is quite buggy to be honest and the soundtrack isn't nearly as good as
the first two ones.

Another one of my favourites would be Tenchi wo Kurau II on the Saturn.
It is like Final Fight in ancient China plus you can ride a horse and impale
bad guys with your lance


ceno

you're all forgetting probotectors (Contra), with the four different cyborgs you could choose from, that was brilliant, and very very difficult

You mean Contra: Hard Corps / Mega Probotector for the MegaDrive / Genesis.
That's a very fine game, of course. But it's no side-scrolling beat 'em up at all


ceno

what would it be classed as? serious question, to me i classed 'em all as side scrollers

Games like Contra, Final Fight and Super Mario Bros. are all sidescrollers,
since the playfield you act in scrolls sideways (mostly horizontal).

But calling them all sidescrollers is just as precise as calling a Porsche, a
speedboat, a train and my mother's old bike vehicles.

That's why there's the added "beat 'em up" after "side-scrolling", to make
"side-scrolling beat 'em ups" diverge from other side-scrolling genres such
as side-scrolling shoot 'em ups or jump 'n' runs.

That said, a classical side-scrolling beat 'em up is a game like Final Fight,
where you walk around a city or similar environment from left to right and
beat up bad guys. Sometimes you might find some weapons like knives or
baseball bats or maybe even guns, but most of the time you will be using
your fists and other close-range-arsenal to fight your way.

Some examples:

• Double Dragon
• Final Fight
• Streets of Rage
• Golden Axe

Whereas Contra is best described as a Run and Gun game.


ceno

Who remembers "Cyborg Justice" on the Megadrive/Genesis? It was like Streets of Rage but you could make a robot character. You chose different bodies, arms and legs. Each had different strengths/ranges etc.

During the game though you defeated an enemy by draining their energy but you could also tear off their arms and replace them with your own. This way you could keep changing the abilities of your character through out the game.

It was shit. Haha.

I would say the best beat em up that no one talks about is the Arcade version of The Punisher.

Double Dragon, Golden Axe, Final Fight, and Altered Beast were some great games.

One day I'm gonna find River City Ransom to see how fun that is.

River City Ransom is also fun.

Cyborg Justice? I wished we had another game in exchange for that game, because it didn't appeal to me.

Speaking of beat-em ups, did you know Sega released Streets of Rage 2 on XBOX Live Arcade yesterday? It does have HD upgrade and Co-Op online.

[FONT=Impact]the tmnt games were always fun i like the double dragon game with the battletoads and the streets of rage series cant get enough of those games 1 was alright...2 was the best [to me] and still is my favorite one...3 was ok i didnt really like it[/FONT]

my favs were Altered Beast, Streets of rage and Golden Axe:cool:

I don't think Altered Beast was considered a Beat-'Em-Up... maybe an action game, but not Double Dragon/TMNT/River City Ransom/X-Men/Simpsons style.