What are the great brawlers and why?

Scrubsy

Scrubsy

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I am trying to come up with some brawler game ideas and want to look at what past games were fun and why? An example that comes to mind are A vs. P because there are swarms of enemies on the screen. So what's your favorite brawler and why?
 
[quote name='Chacrana']My favorite has to be Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. It did literally everything right.[/quote]
That was one of my favorites too. Anything particular that it did just right?
 
[quote name='Scrubsy']That was one of my favorites too. Anything particular that it did just right?[/QUOTE]

The combat was just spot on - it felt really, really smooth and responsive, and the enemies weren't cheap or annoying, or too easy, either.

I'm probably going to get the PCB for it just so I can say I have it.
 
brawler? so like Double Dragon and its ilk?

I loved the TMNT arcade titles.. then TMNT 4 turtles in time on the SNES.. its a great game.

I also loved all the battletoad games.

But really, Final Fight did a lot of it right the first time, it never gets old and its addicting.

I also liked the king of monsters games .. the one on the SNES was really good.. the "rampage" type games.. but rampage was too derivitive.. i liked the ones where it was a fighting game that just happened to happen on a "Sim City" looking scenery..
 
i liked the "brawler" quest in the Tekken games (at least Tekken 3..).. i would love to see more brawlers use four or six button fighting combat and integrate that into the brawler concept.

EDIT:

also..

the evolution of the brawler games are what are now the "action adventure" genre.. like God Of War, DMC, and Ninja Gaiden.. while those rely on flashy moves..so look at some of those elements (like orbs to gain "experience" light RPG elements, customizable "styles") ..
 
That reminds me. Anyone know of the game that you played as dinosaurs with guns? I'm pretty sure I remember renting it for Sega Genesis.

Nevermind. Just found it. Dinosaurs For Hire. I forget if it was any good, but hearing the title Cadillacs and Dinosaurs reminded me of it.
 
They are good since they give fighting graphics at the same time allow the movement of an adventure games. The more complex the game the better the qaulity.....take Shenmue and the constant little things you can d0.
 
I rather like Streets of Rage 2 and am surprised it didn't get a prior mention. The fighting system is rather generous, with throws, combos, jumping attacks, weapons, and a couple special moves. The A.I. presented a good challenge through a variety of foes and each stage was distinct. If I have a complaint about the game, it's that the final boss is rather easy compared to earlier bosses in the game.
 
yes, streets of rage games are pretty fun.

there wasn an xmen game for the genesis that was fun....cant remember if it had a specific name or just xmen. you could change between a bunch of characters mid-fighting iirc.

another +1 for river city ransom.

fighting force 64 is a fun game too. very short though.

the die hard arcade game was fun also. both those games have guns, rockets, etc. also had a pretty interactive enviornment for their time.
 
[quote name='pimpinc333']River City Ransom.[/QUOTE]

agreed... just make a better save system..those codes were no joke..
 
streets of rage 2


because you were a hip black kid with roller blades that beat up homeless guys that slept on park benches outside of baseball stadiums.
 
[quote name='Smurfey002']yes, streets of rage games are pretty fun.

there wasn an xmen game for the genesis that was fun....cant remember if it had a specific name or just xmen. you could change between a bunch of characters mid-fighting iirc.

another +1 for river city ransom.

fighting force 64 is a fun game too. very short though.

the die hard arcade game was fun also. both those games have guns, rockets, etc. also had a pretty interactive enviornment for their time.[/quote]

Die Hard Arcade on the Saturn was amazing fun. I'd dig an HD released for Live.
 
Battletoads and Double Dragon for the SNES was the my favorite with Super Double Dragon coming in a close second. You could beat the games relatively fast but the gameplay with a friend was spot on and the who doesn't like a transvestite with a whip?
 
[quote name='Survivor Charlie']The best brawler ever is...Kingdom Hearts. Yep, I called it a brawler.[/QUOTE]

after thinking about yes i would call it a brawler too.. only because it was way too much with the "heartless" i hated that.
 
My favorite brawler IMO is overlooked these days and doesn't get much attention was Knights of the Round on the SNES by Capcom. Such a good game.

It was a brawler set up during the knights of the roundtable/king arthur era and added RPG elements to the game through the point system. As you progressed and got more points (from killing enemies and picking up gold and such) you leveled up and your armor/weapons physically changed during the game.
 
[quote name='Smurfey002']yes, streets of rage games are pretty fun.

there wasn an xmen game for the genesis that was fun....cant remember if it had a specific name or just xmen. you could change between a bunch of characters mid-fighting iirc.

another +1 for river city ransom.

fighting force 64 is a fun game too. very short though.

the die hard arcade game was fun also. both those games have guns, rockets, etc. also had a pretty interactive enviornment for their time.[/quote]

Die Hard Arcade on the Saturn was amazing fun. I'd dig an HD released for Live.
 
Battletoads and Double Dragon for the SNES was the my favorite with Super Double Dragon coming in a close second. You could beat the games relatively fast but the gameplay with a friend was spot on and the who doesn't like a transvestite with a whip?
 
[quote name='Survivor Charlie']The best brawler ever is...Kingdom Hearts. Yep, I called it a brawler.[/QUOTE]

after thinking about yes i would call it a brawler too.. only because it was way too much with the "heartless" i hated that.
 
My favorite brawler IMO is overlooked these days and doesn't get much attention was Knights of the Round on the SNES by Capcom. Such a good game.

It was a brawler set up during the knights of the roundtable/king arthur era and added RPG elements to the game through the point system. As you progressed and got more points (from killing enemies and picking up gold and such) you leveled up and your armor/weapons physically changed during the game.
 
this thread is awesome!
I'm a huge Guardian Heroes fan. It's been in my saturn for months. I love the frentic action, the brutal difficulty and the level up system.
I'm currently on the hunt for Dungeons and Dragons Collection. It's insanely fun with a steep difficulty, great leveling system and killer multiplayer. I guess I prefer brawlers that let me invest in my characters for the long haul. It makes me feel a little more accomplished.
That said, nothing beats Streets of Rage 2 for sheer fun factor.
 
this thread is awesome!
I'm a huge Guardian Heroes fan. It's been in my saturn for months. I love the frentic action, the brutal difficulty and the level up system.
I'm currently on the hunt for Dungeons and Dragons Collection. It's insanely fun with a steep difficulty, great leveling system and killer multiplayer. I guess I prefer brawlers that let me invest in my characters for the long haul. It makes me feel a little more accomplished.
That said, nothing beats Streets of Rage 2 for sheer fun factor.
 
All this X-men talk, and no one mentioned the arcade game with multiple screens? A few powers were more than a bit off, but the game played slick.

Knights of the Round(SNES), and Battletoads(NES) are great games, and were a bit neglected.

Is Guardian Heroes the brawler set in Japan? It played kind of like Final Fight, but had mountable horses and most of the heroes had weapons, one even had a bow.
 
Guardian Heroes
Click to expand...

Falls in the line of Gunstar Heroes and is RPG bound. Yes it is "beat em up" and follows the basic rules.

Super nice looking fighter Sprites and the occassonal Go to next screen sign.
 
The X-Men arcade game with multiple screens. I liked that there was a nice variety of characters to choose from and that the multiple screens didn't make everything feel smashed together.
 
Guardian Heroes was fucking amazing.
X-Men, Simpsons and TMNT arcade games
Knights of the Round was great, too.
And D&D Tower of Doom / Shadows of Mystara were both schweet. Pity they never made it stateside for any consoles.
 
I love beat'em-ups! All of my best memories of bonding with my brother were through these games. I think most of the best ones have been mentioned already, e.g. Double Dragon, Streets of Rage, Final Fight, TMNT, Simpsons, X-Men, River City Ransom, even lesser known gems like Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, Alien vs. Predator, Knights of the Round, and Guardian Heroes.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Golden Axe and Splatterhouse!

I was also an unabashed fan of Captain Commando, the Punisher, Rushing Beat, and Sengoku.
 
The X-Men arcade game with multiple screens. I liked that there was a nice variety of characters to choose from and that the multiple screens didn't make everything feel smashed together.
 
Guardian Heroes was fucking amazing.
X-Men, Simpsons and TMNT arcade games
Knights of the Round was great, too.
And D&D Tower of Doom / Shadows of Mystara were both schweet. Pity they never made it stateside for any consoles.
 
I love beat'em-ups! All of my best memories of bonding with my brother were through these games. I think most of the best ones have been mentioned already, e.g. Double Dragon, Streets of Rage, Final Fight, TMNT, Simpsons, X-Men, River City Ransom, even lesser known gems like Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, Alien vs. Predator, Knights of the Round, and Guardian Heroes.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Golden Axe and Splatterhouse!

I was also an unabashed fan of Captain Commando, the Punisher, Rushing Beat, and Sengoku.
 
not really old school, but warriors on the psp had the side scroller beat em up on the arcade cabinet. Inside the main building. Great little game inside a game.
 
Saturn
Guardian Heroes - It would be perfect if it hadn't been released on the Saturn and wasn't so goddamn expensive to get ahold of. Just an awesome, well rounded game.

Arcade
Simpsons Arcade - It's a classic. Well balanced, lots of fun and I can still sit through it even on a MAME machine. It's been covered a million times so I won't go into it further.

X-Men Arcade - Just as awesome. I loved the characters, the sprite work, and the dual monitors setup.

King of Dragons - Generic as hell but I found it to be a lot of fun. I really liked how the weapons and armor leveled up alternatively.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs - Really well balanced game even though I had no idea what the hell was going on with the storyline. It had nothing to do with the crappy show so that helped. Fun as hell to play.

Aliens vs. Predator - I was obsessed with Aliens and Predator both when I was a kid so this game was a dream come true. I preferred humans to predators but both played really well. I love this game.

NES
Double Dragon 1/2/3 - The first home console brawlers I was able to get my hands on and loved every minute of them. Difficult but not so hard that you couldn't beat them with patience.

River City Ransom - KunioKun is rad chilis and this is no exception. Just a great game and lots of fun to play to this day.

TMNT Arcade - Who didn't love Ninja Turtles as a kid? This wasn't just a fun game but it also had the turtles to top it off. It was a bitch making it to the end but so worth it.

Mighty Final Fight - An oft overlooked classic on the NES that I felt was a lot of fun. I'll burn through it when I have a couple free hours.

SNES
Ninja Warriors - Retarded plot but lots of fun. I liked playing as that big bruiser but the other two ninjas handled very well. Overlooked quite often because nothing really stood out about it.

Final Fight - I think this was an SNES launch game. It got me hyped as hell for the new system even though I wasn't able to play it for some time afterwards. So addicting, so well balanced.

Knights of the Round - Medieval setting with awesome characters ripped straight from legend. I never could seem to eke out that last level with my characters though.

Genesis
Golden Axe1/2/Streets of Rage 1/2/3 - Awesome characters, classic sega soundtrack and a feel that no other brawler has captured since. I love these games. I lumped these together because I never had a SEGA and only got to play these at my cousins' house.

PS2
Viewtiful Joe - Henshin a Go-Go Baby! The game oozes style and panache in all the right ways. Such an awesome game that got ran into the ground by sequels...ignore those. The original was awesome in every regard *except* the balance when trying to viewtiful every level. Lots of memorization and that gets boooooooring.

God Hand - Top 5 of the PS2 generation easily. The gameplay was just so polished and so refined and the game's pacing and difficulty curve were perfect. The voice acting was crazy and so was the game's world. Loved it.

360
I've got high hopes for Castle Crashers and would like to see it 'inspire' more brawlers to be released in the future.
 
[quote name='cochesecochese']Saturn
Guardian Heroes - It would be perfect if it hadn't been released on the Saturn and wasn't so goddamn expensive to get ahold of. Just an awesome, well rounded game[/quote]

what do you mean, if it hadn't been released on the saturn? I would like to see the playstation handle that game it would flop.

anyway back to the subject at hand.

Neo-geo AES/MVS
Burning fight
Sengoku 3

really the rest have been said already.
 
Brawlers that I dont think have been mentioned (I skimmed the thread)

Sega CD Final Fight - Awsome Time challenge mode, still enjoy it immensely and the remixed sound
SNES Final Fight 2 & 3 - They may have been Cash-ins, but they were good cash-ins
SNES Pirates of Dark Water - Thought the cartoon was all kinds of stupid/bad, good brawler though
Lynx/Arcade - Ninja Gaiden, Mr. Hayabusa never disappoints

I was always shocked that there was never a Transfromers G1 brawler back in the day, the series screamed for a game like that.

And, yes, I am guilty of liking Maximum Carnage, a game that I would send to Seanbaby now because of its crapiness.

I would agree with Kingdom Hearts being a brawler, or at least having plenty of brawler elements, however, a lot of games these days can have the same thing said about them.
 
Streets of rage 2, the others weren't so hot.
Lots of characters, backgrounds, enemies, bosses, and moves.
It is a gem of a game that was ahead of its time. It still looks and plays great.
 
A lot of brawlers are good to play, if it's your kind of game.
Aside from what was mentioned (River City, AvP, Dungeons and Dragons) Pu-Li-Ru-La for the saturn is a pretty wacky beat em up that's worth checking out.

If you're looking to design one, then I think you should look at a few that do something creative or interesting with the game type that could be built upon. I'd suggest focusing on RcR and DnD for the RPG elements added to it. A certain level of character customization could really be explored in a good brawler. Spikeout's evolution to incorporate online mulitplayer was interesting. I think that could be expanded nicely.

One dynamic I think you could harvest from another arcade genre would be the recursively branching level paths of Ghost Squad. I think this does a great job of adding replayability to a traditionally arcade (read. pick up and play) genre without making it tedious or unnecessarily long.
 
[quote name='chasemurata']Die Hard Arcade on the Saturn was amazing fun. I'd dig an HD released for Live.[/quote]

I just played that last week and it's still mad fun.

What about Odin Sphere? Great graphics despite the slowdown and it's as good as any of the other brawlers.

My other faves:
Double Dragon
Final Fight
Streets of Rage 2
X-Men (Genesis) -- that's the official title by the way
TMMT
GodHand
 
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