Beat Em' Ups - Will they ever make a come-back?

NamelessMC

NamelessMC

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My brother in law came back from Iraq a few months ago, and he has this massive collection of PS2 games, but the only problem is, he buys whatever might spark his key interests. He likes cars, violence, sex and rap music so naturally, his collection consists of games like Fast and the Furious, Def Jam Icon and Scarface. I'm not one to knock tastes, what you like is what you like, so I don't care what he buys and I'm glad he's an avid gamer.

The thing is, I saw him playing Final Fight: Streetwise, the newest addition to the Final Fight series, and I couldn't help but think, it's been over 10 years since I've played a good beat em' up game. I mean, don't get me wrong. I haven't purposefully avoided the genre. When a new one comes out, I used to test them out hoping I would get the same pleasure I had nearly 15 years ago playing Streets of Rage and Streets of Rage 2 with my best friend. Sadly I would always feel empty, like the game lacked substance.

I didn't touch Final Fight: Streetwise until my brother in law came back. I played it, and I could see how it could be entertaining to a casual gamer, but really the game was nothing like Final Fight at all. No co-op, they tried to make like a "Tekken" / Grand Theft Auto style to the action, had a lot more guns than previous Final Fights and there wasn't a lot of emphasis on... "Beating them up".

Does anyone else feel a little sad that it's come to this? I mean, the most I get is when I play Neo-Geo CD beat em' ups that were hard to find in the states or the Streets of Rage Remake on PC.

This is what it came from:
River_City_Ransom_NES_ScreenShot1.jpg

River City Ransom on NES

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Double Dragon

Then it became this, and this is when it was at its peak:
Final_Fight.png

Final Fight - I actually BOUGHT the Sega CD, JUST to play Final Fight with two players. That and Sonik the Hedgehog CD. Everyone thought I was crazy, buying the $150 Sega CD for two games. I actually had fun on it, call me crazy.

sor2.gif

Streets of Rage - Most importantly SOR2 which is the picture. This game was amazing.

There was even Battletoads, Double Dragon on 16-bit systems, Battletoads AND Double Dragon. It was awesome.

Then somehow it turned into this-
final-fight-streetwise-20060303070557551.jpg

Final Fight Streetwise - Nevermind the bad camera angles. Sure I skipped a few 3d remakes but seriously, why?

I'm just glad we have games like God of War, Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden that "sort of" resemble the same gamestyle.
 
Have you played the Dynasty Warriors series OP? It's pretty much a large-scale beat-em-up with Chinese dynasties instead of the oddly dressed punks we all know and love... to beat up.
Though DW is usually called a hack&slash, I've always thought hack&slash = beat'em'up with weapons.
 
[quote name='looploop']Have you played the Dynasty Warriors series OP? It's pretty much a large-scale beat-em-up with Chinese dynasties instead of the oddly dressed punks we all know and love... to beat up.
Though DW is usually called a hack&slash, I've always thought hack&slash = beat'em'up with weapons.[/quote]

Godhand is a lot closer to a beat em' up to me than Dynasty Warriors.

Dynasty Warriors had way too much hack and slach involved in it. It also just feels different, I don't know why.
 
[quote name='looploop']oh yes, if you want one of the greatest beat'em'ups of all time, then find a copy of Guardian Heroes for Sega Saturn.[/quote]

Have it, played it through. It is pretty awesome I admit, but I feel like it really was the "last" of the beat em ups. There was nothing comparable on PS1 or PS2.
 
Godhand bombed like Okami did though, so I wouldnt call that in favor of the genre coming back.

I'm going to blame 3d a little bit for this one. The genre worked well and sold well in 2d. Something about the 3d translations dont sell well, or they wouldve continued to be made. A side scrolling game is going to play differently than a relatively free roam 3d game.
 
This is a genre that really needs to make a come back, and I'm surprised we haven't seen more of it. For some reason they started to die down in the 32-Bit era. But with XBLA we're seeing more & more of our favorite classics come back to life.

A couple of my old favorites:
Aliens vs Predator Arcade
Dungeons & Dragons (Both Tower of Doom & Shadow of Mystira)
X-Men Arcade
Final Fight 3
Gaurdian Heroes
 
I'd love nothing more than to see a new Battle Toads game on XBox. I don't think it will ever happen, though.

If the Beat 'Em Up genre ever makes a comeback, I think it'll be on the portable systems, not on the existing consoles.
 
[quote name='Pylis']If the Beat 'Em Up genre ever makes a comeback, I think it'll be on the portable systems, not on the existing consoles.[/quote]

I think it has a fair chance of returning to existing consoles. All it needs is one killer app to prove the genre can still hack it. For example: take God of War make it 2 - 4 players, and presto, fun for the whole family.

Couldn't Marvel Ultimate Alliance be classified as a Beat em' up with RPG elements? Or an RPG with Beat em' up elements.
 
Beat Em Ups just evolved into the God Of War, Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry style game because it made sense. It's okay to have a 3 hour long button masher when you're playing in the arcade, but for a $50 console game, you need more than that.
 
the warriors was cool but i think for me its so cool because im a fan of the movie. beat em ups i think would have a better life if they were online games. take the idea of street fighter and of course put it online but make it where you can create your own fighter and kick other fihters asses across the net. or do it street smart style but with 10 or so diff fighters using their own characters in huge brawls.


beat em ups are stilll popular with alot of gamers but they need to take them in new directions. i still play streets of rage every now and then but not just for fighting but for the awesome music as well. the ability to play online against others or with others could add alot to many of the stale or dead genres out there.

i think overall if you add more fighting styles, more character customization and the ability to fight in online tournaments or brawls that would be sweet. ive thoguht for a while now you could do some kind fo online game of that type with the naruto and avatar universe. imagine ebing able to choose what kind of bending style you have or bloodline limit. learning new techniques and then having a kind of underlying rpg element where with each battle you win against someone your character gets stronger and you can get natural experience upgrades or choose what you want to upgrade.

its weird though to think how rpg elements make alot of diff game types more interesting and rewarding as well but they do. of course in the naruto world youd have tons of douchebags wanting to be uchias but you could easily balance that out because ach f the known bloodline limits has its strengths and weakness not to mention being able to learn diff jutsu and hand to hand /weapons styles.
 
[quote name='Rodimus Donut']I think it has a fair chance of returning to existing consoles. All it needs is one killer app to prove the genre can still hack it. For example: take God of War make it 2 - 4 players, and presto, fun for the whole family.

Couldn't Marvel Ultimate Alliance be classified as a Beat em' up with RPG elements? Or an RPG with Beat em' up elements.[/quote]

Ultimate Alliance is pretty much Gauntlet with superheroes.
 
[quote name='Rodimus Donut']I think it has a fair chance of returning to existing consoles. All it needs is one killer app to prove the genre can still hack it. For example: take God of War make it 2 - 4 players, and presto, fun for the whole family.

Couldn't Marvel Ultimate Alliance be classified as a Beat em' up with RPG elements? Or an RPG with Beat em' up elements.[/QUOTE]

I actually agree--the "Beat 'Em Up" genre has essentially been replaced by the "Hack 'n' Slack" genre, and there are plenty of great action games that sufficiently represent this current game type; for some reason unknown to me, I was narrowly constraining "Beat 'Em Up" to the 2D brawlers of old (which isn't particularly logical, I know).
 
[quote name='HotShotX']Maybe I'm old school...but I loved The Bouncer on PS2 as a kickass Beat-Em-Up.

~HotShotX[/quote]

Well you aren't the only one. It's the only PS2 launch title I refuse to get rid of. I don't care if it's short as hell, that game still looks amazing for it's age.
 
[quote name='Surferflames']Well you aren't the only one. It's the only PS2 launch title I refuse to get rid of. I don't care if it's short as hell, that game still looks amazing for it's age.[/quote]

Bouncer wasn't a launch title. But I think it was the first game where you couldn't use your old PS1 Dual SHock controllers. I remember renting it and I didn't have a PS2 controller. Thinking their was something wrong with the game, I brought it back for a diffrent copy and the same thing happened.
 
Probably one of my top 5 favorite SNES games of all time. The only game I've beaten more times than this one would be Super Mario RPG on the SNES as well.

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Isn't Castle Crashers (is that the right name) coming to the XBLA beat-em-up esque?

I agree the genre needs more (2D) attention. A nice, tight beat em up on the DS with online coop? Yes.
 
I love beat 'em ups, I play Double Dragon and Streets of Rage 2 on Live arcade often despite already having all the achievements.

I think I'm the only person in the world who considers Spikeout, Final Fight: Streetwise, and Beatdown to be great games (would be AAA if they didn't have mostly stupid character designs).


OP: Since you like Double Dragon, I highly reccomend the GBA remake if you haven't tried it already.
 
[quote name='Rocko']Probably one of my top 5 favorite SNES games of all time. The only game I've beaten more times than this one would be Super Mario RPG on the SNES as well.

dae14310fca09b6f711e3010._AA280_.L.jpg
[/quote]

Yes.
 
There's been a slow trickle of beat em ups, so they aren't completely dead. The last good one I played was the GBA version of TMNT. Now if they could only take the gameplay from that one and apply it to a multiplayer DS game, then we would have a great beat em up.

Castle Crashers is coming out eventually, and based on what I've played I'd say it's going to be very, very awesome.

There's also that new Spider-Man game, Friend or Foe. It feels like a proper beat em up, so it may be worth a look. However, I'm not too sure, the demo made it seem like it might be too easy.
 
You can blame poor sales on Viewtiful Joe for the lack of new beat em' ups. That game was highly rated and the word got out, but the sales were uneffected till it dropped to $20ish.
 
I loved beat em' ups too, but I haven't played a good one in a while. I remember playing "Die Hard Arcade" in the arcades years ago. It had a beat 'em up style to it. I'm not sure how good it was as its been a while, but I think the game came out on the Saturn.
 
[quote name='dpatel']I loved beat em' ups too, but I haven't played a good one in a while. I remember playing "Die Hard Arcade" in the arcades years ago. It had a beat 'em up style to it. I'm not sure how good it was as its been a while, but I think the game came out on the Saturn.[/QUOTE]

Dreamcast
 
Ah ok, my fault. Was that game any good? It's been a while since I played it, and even then, it was only a few times at the arcades.
 
Die Hard Arcade did come out for the Saturn. Dreamcast had Dynamite Cop (which was supposed to be a Die Hard sequel.) And don't forget Zombie Revenge.
 
Not in full force, but they'll still be around. The Warriors was a great beat-'em-up that got me interested in the movie. It was a lot of fun just beating up people when I couldn't figure out how to finish one of the earliest missions. Downloadable games probably offer the best avenue for them to thrive, but developers just have to make them.
 
Yeah i also loved the Bouncer. I did enjoy Urban Reign too. You can find it for $10 now. But they still don't compare too Final Fight which is THE definitive beat 'em up. I wish capcom would release a FF compliation
 
I was a big fan of the two Maximum Carnage games. I also owned a Captain America arcade cabinet at one point, sadly I sold it last year.
 
Double Dragon Advance is one of my favorite beat em ups. It's nothing like the arcade port on XBLA-- they completely remade the game with a pretty big move list and blended it with DD2 (and maybe 3 as well..not sure since i never played 3 except a few minutes of the nes port.)
 
[quote name='jer7583']Beat Em Ups just evolved into the God Of War, Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry style game because it made sense. It's okay to have a 3 hour long button masher when you're playing in the arcade, but for a $50 console game, you need more than that.[/QUOTE]

I think Jer here hit this one dead on the head. If you really look at Ninja Gaiden, this is really a beat em up in almost every sense of the word. It even had some of the old school difficulty. The term was never used for it, but how much closer can you get.

Also, I don't think this is a genre coming back in it's old form again. I really think 3D fighters helped to gill that genre off. With the deeper 3D fighters, you had the fun of a beat em up but with so many more moves. Ninja Gaiden really took that number of moves, and put it in a solid 3D environment.
 
Everyone's right, I think the genre sort of split in two and evolved. You got your Gods of War, and you got your Tekkens. The classic old-style of FInal Fight will probably never return, honestly. Those games are actually fairly simplistic when you go back and play them, even if they are still quite fun. Games are designed with a "more is more" mentality today. The best hope for a classic style title might be through downloadable titles through XBOX Live or PSN.
 
I actually enjoyed the 3-D final fight. The story was way too crazy at the end but it made for some intense boss fights. The original arcade game is still way better than the rest of the series though.
 
[quote name='elmyra']The Red Star is half beat-em-up, half shmup, and it's got co-op play.[/quote]
Yeah, Red Star is great fun. I haven't tried co-op play yet but the single player is very fun. I totally recommend this to anyone the grew up playing double dragon and gradius.

Hopefully Castle Crashers will finally come out soon on XBLA.
 
[quote name='elwood731']Everyone's right, I think the genre sort of split in two and evolved. You got your Gods of War, and you got your Tekkens. The classic old-style of FInal Fight will probably never return, honestly. Those games are actually fairly simplistic when you go back and play them, even if they are still quite fun. Games are designed with a "more is more" mentality today. The best hope for a classic style title might be through downloadable titles through XBOX Live or PSN.[/QUOTE]

Plus, to build on elwood, should they really return as is? We can go back and play Final Fight and SoR 2 as many times as we want. Why bring out a game just like it, but different? It'll never be as good. New games should always strive to mix up the formula, at least a bit (and not just graphically).

I really think the split that happened around the time of the Saturn wasn't a bad thing. The games have evolved into 2 basically new types of games, but they really built on the principals of the old ones.

At least the beat em ups suffered a better fate than the 2d shmups. There are still a few of them out there (Ikaruga's, R Type Finals, etc), but they are few and far between, and there really was never a spiritual successor to these (even though we call 3rd person games shooters, the resemblance really isn't there at all, at least to me).
 
Punisher on Genesis was one of my favorites...

[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_sR4vVqjss[/MEDIA]

Also, Batman Returns on the SNES was fucking awesome.

[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh8iJLTH2qg[/MEDIA]
 
The big draw to making a new next gen beat-em-up will likely be co-op, and rpg aspects a la River City Ransom.

Mix into that a more open city design like GTA or Crackdown. Heck, if played one way, could Crackdown be considered a beat em up?

I'd say they should keep the camera non moveable by the player, controlling the camera isn't something a player should have to do in a beat em up.

One key gameplay element to improve on is the repetativeness of the game. They've got to find some way to make all those combos and moves useful for various things, which is a difficult prospect.

Counter moves would be a great addition, along with dynamic animation blending for block/counter/hit reactions.
 
[quote name='Rodimus Donut']Yeah, it wasn't very comman, but as you can see it did. I remember beating it in the arcade after two guys got to the last boss and ran out of quarters. I was watching them for about 20 minutes and wanted to see the ending. I didn't let their efforts go to waste.[/quote]

In the arcade I only remember waiting to see an ending once (with some other kids) - and when the guy won he punched right over the ending and then left (for seemingly no reason...) I was frustrated but I remember suddenly realizing that it was his quarter and he could do what he wanted. Still was kind of a dick move.
 
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