Beat 'em Ups (Including Switch List)

[TransatlanticFoe]

The promo pic seems to suggest it'll include the characters from Rushing Beat Ran. It does look pretty stiff so far... but then why would you want to make a new Rushing Beat and also make it excellent? Endearingly so-so is classic Jaleco!

[velo]

Reminds me too much of The Takeover, which I thought sucked.

I was thinking it looked like Mayhem Brawler, but I can see The Takeover too now that you mention it.

It's polygonal and apparently has some full 3D gameplay like vertical throws and movement. That's not something that's been done a lot with belt scrollers, especially the most recent wave. (I think it's still a belt scroller, anyway, although enemies are walking diagonally at points.) The animation looks slow and floaty, and the enemies are just standing around waiting to get punched. It must be early in development, I hope. They haven't even announced platforms yet.

[Sima Tuna]

The promo pic seems to suggest it'll include the characters from Rushing Beat Ran. It does look pretty stiff so far... but then why would you want to make a new Rushing Beat and also make it excellent? Endearingly so-so is classic Jaleco!

I had that thought as well. New Rushing Beat is looking on-brand as fuck. Ugly, janky, stiff 3d visuals instead of ugly, janky, blurry 2d sprites.

[Lander]

Spikeout eh, there's a name I haven't heard in a long time.

Is there a concensus on how Battle Street on Xbox holds up to the arcade game? I had a grand time with its ultra-sega break the gate! announcer and overall production some time back, but the original looks a bit more technical from watching high-level play.

[Sima Tuna]

ArclightBorealis on youtube has a bunch of stream videos where he plays and talks about Spikeout Battle Street. There is a small, but dedicated community for Spikeout. I never played them, myself. I would say those who have played generally rank it highly.

[Lander]

Ehh, VTuber... Terrible resolution-inappropriate CRT filter... But good gameplay, which is what matters

Certainly enough to inspire some direct curiosity-sating by way of emulation; bit effortful since it involves faffing with Supermodel and XEMU, but Spikeout, Final Edition, and Battle Street are all solidly playable. Did credit-feed clears of the originals, and a few stages of BS.

I think my impression re. technicality was off; the games all feel very similar, except Battle Street has some subtle mechanical refinements like being able to reorient more freely mid-combo, a nice training mode, and 50-some unlockable boss characters on top of the new kids, OGs, and villains.

I was unprepared for arcade Spikeout to be a streetz-themed Lone Wolf and Cub game Spike Jr. tagging along Master Blaster style, then getting launched off and doing his own ineffectual little moves, is adorable.



It's a very Sega eccentricity, and a very Sega game as a whole - a picture of an arcade golden era, much like OutRun 2 / Coast 2 Coast. Simple and colorful to look at, a blast to play; fun for the sake of fun. Except here it's manifested as a pure methodical beat 'em up, and directed by Nagoshi of Yakuza fame.

I wonder if Final Edition will show up in the new Yakuza? Offhand I prefer the original, but the new stages and campaign framing are a nice remix.

It's illuminating to come back for a better look years after my brief time with the the Xbox entry; like brushing a layer off an old curiosity to reveal lustrous gold beneath. I took it for a difficult, rudimentary beat 'em up with potential, and managed to overlook the small matter of it being 3D Virtua Fighter with more dudes and a charge mechanic

Perhaps that's an overstatement; my understanding of VF is fairly layman, but there's a lot of recognizable DNA here by way of moves, juggles, and signature floaty jumps. It's very technical too; once you get beaten up enough to switch your brain on and start respecting the crowd of angry dude AIs, it reveals proper footsies and a lethally pragmatic view on the one-man-army setup.

Funnily enough, it might just be something I've been wanting for years: A full old-school beat 'em up built on top of a proper 3D fighting game system. Tekken Force (circa Tekken 3) planted that seed, but the series never did it full justice. Spikeout might not be so movelist-heavy, but it's systemically robust, and at least comparable to Streets of Rage 3 for giving characters access to a healthy pool of specials.

Compared to the charisma of the arcade titles, Battle Street doesn't seem like a game that's much interested in making you like it; comparatively drab aesthetic, truly arcade hard, but with no continues in story mode or standard-rules free play, and default bindings that make your most important moves a pain to execute.

And it is hard; The first room of chapter 2 ends with a double boss plus crowd that will obliterate you unless picked apart with judicious bait-and-punish tactics

But, once you get into the git gud mindset and give the game a proper chance (or, preferably, already know and like Spikeout) the aforementioned refinements and massive character pool make a strong case for being the mechanically-definitive game, if perhaps not iconic in the same way as the original. Very much looking forward to sinking more hours!

[velo]

I noticed that Jitsu Squad is free on Epic Games until Dec 7. If you liked Fight'n Rage I think you'll get a kick out of this one.

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/jitsu-squad-af3f2f

[BloodHawk]

I noticed that Jitsu Squad is free on Epic Games until Dec 7. If you liked Fight'n Rage I think you'll get a kick out of this one.

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/jitsu-squad-af3f2f

Thanks for the heads up! FWIW, I picked it up and discovered it's actually DRM free as well which is a nice bonus (I hate having to use so many different storefront launchers).

[Licorice]

I know everyone hates Sol Divide as a shmup, but is it any good as a bmup?

[AyeYoYoYO]

Most underlooked beat Em Up on nintendo switch is one of the last Neo Geo games ever :

SENGOKU 3

Plays nothing like Sengoku 1 & 2

Incredbly well animated sprites, fun gameplay, classical story.

[AyeYoYoYO]

I noticed that Jitsu Squad is free on Epic Games until Dec 7. If you liked Fight'n Rage I think you'll get a kick out of this one.

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/jitsu-squad-af3f2f

Cosign both of those as excellent modern beat em ups, right up near TMNT Shredder's Revenge & SOR4.

[Sengoku Strider]

I finally got around to beating Streets of Rage 4 last night. I've had it on my Switch since launch, but never quite felt motivated to go through the whole thing until now. Is it just me, or is SoR1 Axel crazy OP? It's like they gave him demigod strength to make up for his limited moveset. I waltzed through the game curbstomping everything once I unlocked him. I tried the other SoR1 characters but they seem more within-band. Good ol' SoR2 Max, my go-to in that game, feels like a creampuff compared to low-res Axel (spamming his slide is kinda busted though).

I had to check Google after getting the non-ending. I thought I must have done something wrong but nope, the credits roll with background images is all there is. I see people around the web defending it saying "Streets of Rage has never been that kind of game," but I mean, were people really about to start throwing copies into the river for betraying the soul of Yuzo by adding an ending? It's not any kind of big deal, the story's hardly King Lear or anything, but after so much care put into the world-building along the way it felt kinda jarring.

[cfx]

On the subject of SOR4, anyone recommend the Mr. X Nightmare DLC? It's on sale currently on PSN, at least on the Japanese store which is the version of the game I have.

I don't care about the extra characters in it which seem to me to be lame and inferior to what's in the base game, but am curious about the additional game modes and whatever else it includes.

[Sima Tuna]

I tried playing the mr x survival mode, but it kept crashing on Switch. I gave up.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

The Mr. X Nightmare stuff is genuinely fun but it's sort of a novelty compared to the main game. The character build aspects and the wacky enemy formations are neat for a bit but it ends up being a little shallow, more about spamming attacks with the AoE elemental effects you get rather than core brawler fundamentals - again, I like it and it's fun for a distraction, especially if you think highly of the core game (it probably won't convince you if you don't), but it's not essential.

I would consider giving the DLC characters attention though; Shiva and Max in particular are really fun (even if Max is much more bluntly stronger and less nuanced than he was in SoR2).

[cfx]

I shouldn't have discounted Max; it's only that the slow/strong/brute type characters don't suit my play style so I tend to ignore them. I prefer the faster characters so am generally playing Blaze in any SOR.

[Lander]

Mr. X Nightmare is alright. As mentioned, it's not very deep, opting to focus more on the roguelike scaffolding than the beat 'em up gameplay it supports.

The new moves were the most interesting part, I thought; they open up new juggle tech and patch up holes in the base roster's moveset, which is pretty nice. Though it feels kind of wrong for Grand Upper to get upstaged by a flaming dodge roll.
Unfortunately, the roguelike mode is where you have to sink time to unlock said moves, but is also where they're least relevant; assembling a broken build is the order of the day, so it tilts heavily in favour of characters with overpowered blitz moves that can be stacked with elemental upgrades.
They also patched the random-bagging for upgrades at some point, which makes it possible for the RNG to deny you whole subsets of them on a given run. Made it less trivially breakable, but also more frustrating to do well at.

My defining memory of it is picking SoR3 Axel, unlocking his stupid Guile upside-down kick, and using that to carry crowds of baddies back and forth between walls all day. Fun for a while, but YMMV.

[hazys]

Finally got Supermodel working and credit-fed my way through Spike Out: Final Edition. It's really hard, but it rules. I can't help but detect God Hand inspiration in the dash sweeps, launcher attacks, and the way in which you have to pay close attention to character animations to tell whether, for example, you're in a grappling state. It's a really good feel; everything is impactful. The game has a persistent minimap and at first you assume it exists just to ferry you to the next exit, since each section is timed (you don't even have to beat every mook; you just need to beat the section boss). But in reality you're meant to keep your eye on the minimap at all times; that's how you spot-dodge your way out of an enemy approaching from behind and punish them with an uppercut-to-throw combo. Anyway, this style of play takes getting used to, but clearly it's crucial if you even dream of 1CCing the game.

Speaking of, at 90-ish minutes the game is long for something you'd conceivably 1CC, which is my major gripe with it. It's just something you have to come to terms with. But then again each individual stage here is so fun that I'd be hard-pressed to tell you which one should be cut. (It's the sewers. The sewers could stand a trimming.) The division of each stage into discrete sections with a "gate boss" is pretty clever for keeping the tedium at bay, but some stages have too many of these sections and it starts to feel ridiculous. Stage design is generally pretty good, though: as a 3D beat-'em-up they sort of acknowledge you're not gonna be able to locate all enemies on-screen anyway, which is why they give you the minimap. I generally think this solution is satisfactory, but when they stick you in a tiny area with a mob of enemies who can easily stun-lock you despite your best efforts, the minimap is the least of your concerns. I do think they could've played more with verticality and uneven terrain, and given you some context-sensitive moves for it, even. But maybe that would be a different game.

There's a button assigned to strafing, which I don't know how I feel about. I don't think this game should have a lock-on system, but I don't know if strafing is the solution either. When you fight a boss with a magnetically-attracted crowd of companion mooks things start to get a bit annoying. Your character sort of naturally turns to the closest enemy, but this is helpful only sometimes. You're encouraged to use your limited supers and especially your super throw, which deals big splash damage. Throws in general are very satisfying and dynamic here; when a boss threw me halfway across the arena I was kind of stunned, coming from 2D beat-'em-ups. For a game with just Punch and Kick there's a healthy range of combos, especially since you can hold Kick to perform a variety of charge-able combo enders. Jumping would be your get-out-of-jail-free card I guess, if it had more useable i-frames. As it stands it mostly feels like a way to access a different suite of attacks.

Watching 1CC playthroughs of this game (something that's apparently infamously hard) I don't see players taking advantage of their launchers so much as baiting enemy AI to come over one or two at a time, and using the minimap to bait-and-punish individual mooks. When it comes to bosses it's all about throws. I think the game is really dynamic overall, you certainly can't turn your brain off for even a second if you intend to survive. There are also a ton of item and weapon pick-ups (though it can be hard to distinguish which are pick-ups and which are mere set-dressing), and enemies drop health packs/super icons at a pretty healthy pace, so it never feels hopeless. Overall and beyond all formal analysis I just think it feels really good to play, even when it's kicking my ass.

The barebones story is gibberish, which is totally fine. I do have to mention the visuals: it's the type of clean, vibrant 3D that SEGA mastered at the turn of the century, and it's beautiful. There's enough detail and scale to stages to make them evocative without visual clutter, though some could've used more big background set pieces, if only for the sake of variety. The fashions are stunningly fresh (SEGA were still on that Crazy Taxi beat), and enemy designs are often way more interesting than they have any right to be, from the kung-fu street sweepers to the morbidly-obese sailors to the inexplicably-levitating theater goths. The final boss challenges you on a floating arena that you have to jump up to, and can get knocked out of, which feels suitably humiliating. You can also knock his sword out of his hand and use it against him. (He's also the only boss that feels like he has too much health.) The OST is pumping Y2K electronica, with some of the ethereal flourishes that would be expanded upon in Slash Out. Great stuff overall.

The four-character roster feels pretty balanced and they all look cool/hot, though Tenshin seems to have some combo issues and Spike is pretty clearly the most-accessible one. I love how Spike's toddler rides on his back until you get hit, at which point he'll still hang out, harmlessly mimicking your moves against enemies. It's an inexplicable but delightful addition, and I guess a visual indicator in case you want to undertake the nigh-impossible challenge of a Spike no-hit run. (I play White, who it seems would later get isekai'd into Slash Out.)

Anyway the elephant in the room here is the fact that Spike Out had four-player co-op via local wireless, which is kind of mind-blowing, and also explains why 1CCing it solo is so very hard. With four players these crowds would be infinitely more manageable, and ultimately you'd be playing a different game. Playing this with others doesn't seem very viable nowadays (does the Like a Dragon port have online play??), which is why I hope it's added to Fightcade someday. You will be finding me in that lobby.

[Lander]

Hell yeah SpikeOut! I had a similar experience a few months back - did scrub runs of Final Edition and the original, trained it a bit but got nowhere near 1CC, and finally finished the oddly gritty Xbox sequel.

Fantastic little series. Very much of its era, back when SEGA were kings of the world and invented whatever weird good stuff they wanted; disjoint to my wired-in beat 'em up expectations (though that seems par for the course with 3D beaters,) but mechanically excellent when given the proper respect and attention.

I'm with you on the strafe button, though my particular gripe is that not pressing it seems to be a net negative; turning causes your character to respond slower, which gets you tagged so much during footsies. It ends up better to just keep it held, and do the goofy Mario Bros. jog everywhere until you're forced to reorient.

I remember finding the charge quite stilted at first - surely, command inputs would have been a better and more immediate solution? But there's definitely something to it, particularly when coupled with the Sweep (A + B) / Homing (A + C) / Jump (B + C) attacks that - if memory serves - none of the games ever explicitly tutorialize.

It takes a while to get the hang of, but there's a lot of space to weave charges in and out of your regular strings and command moves, creating extensions that keep you safer / more dangerous - a lot more elegant than the 3 new combo enders I guess that it looked like starting out.
There's even a bit of latter-day Tekken wall game, where carrying to the wall or corner for a juggle extension becomes a moment-to-moment consideration (cheapass rope-a-dope cheese notwithstanding.) If nothing else, I love it dearly for bringing a few more of the FGC's cool toys into single player land.

I'd recommend giving the OG a try if you can find it; the stage structure is a bit less of a marathon than Final Edition, and there are some small balance differences that - anecdotally - make it feel more approachable. Though still brutally tough

I generally play Spike, since he's well-rounded and feels really high-impact (and speaking of God Hand, I suppose Jr. really is the prototype Kick Me sign )
On paper I like Linda too, though she gets done kind of dirty in the arcade games as the fast (read: weakest) character. The sequel, however, is another matter - you can barely do a Special Throw in that game without hitting some badass playable chick or other!
Tenshin strikes me as the high-level character; tough to play, but stupidly powerful in the right hands. Somewhat confirmed when White Jr. (no relation) encounters him, and has a who is this mysterious power level moment from down the street

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Awesome to hear your take, hazyx. My machine can't handle it but I've been really interested in checking out Spikeout for a while - the Xbox version / sequel was a ton of fun but I'm more interested in the aesthetic of the original. It really does seem like a potential classic, I'm looking forward to playing it a lot.

[Lander]

I put some more time into original Spikeout across all the characters, and hereby retract my statement that Linda got done dirty in the older games. She's an absolute combo monster if played aggressively.

Which leads me onto the (obvious, in retrospect) discovery that the game actually has a difficulty setting and free play in the service menu - I must have never gotten around to binding the button before.
Safe to say, it's a lot more manageable for single play on Easiest - goes from too many to count credits dropped per run to about 1-2 per stage. Frequently at bosses, just before the mook with the health drop expires

It's a curious balance; on one hand you feel like the reduced AI pressure is letting you get away with murder (and that your lifebar is enormous) but the game is still tough enough for the 1CC to feel like it'd be a solid challenge. Roughly what you'd expect from a console beat 'em up like Streets of Rage, I'd say.

As a consequence, it becomes a lot more learnable; given a bit more margin, I've been noticing various mechanical bits and bobs.
For instance, bosses' seemingly-guaranteed combo breaker moves can be beaten. They seem fully invincible at first, but in truth just lock out one or more of the high / mid / low attack types. So you can combo them, but only if you're mixing up aggressively:



And there seems to be a lot of contextual character flashing; some of it is obviously indicating when super / hyper armor prevents stun, but I get the sense that the game is also using it subtly hint at which enemies are about to attack. Bears further investigation.

The strafe button is becoming less onerous too, and not so zero-sum as I remember (which may be an Xbox thing, since moves track way harder there). It's still critical for getting out of tight spots and making sure your moves hit, but is best treated as a hybrid dodge / soft-lockon.

The real key is becoming aware of character facing and turn rate; trying to move sideways or backward when coming out of recovery will turn before moving and put you at a frame disadvantage, so the trick is to run forward and hook around instead - kind of like old-school Resident Evil evasion.
This applies to enemies too, so you can get a slight frame advantage by waking them up from behind.

My machine can't handle it but I've been really interested in checking out Spikeout for a while

There's always the version in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, if you have a console and are willing to blow AAA bucks on an arcade classic (with a side of modern RPG as a bonus )

Though I don't know if there's a dialogue option to beg the virtual SEGA Arcade staff for a difficulty adjustment

[Sumez]

Awesome to hear your take, hazyx. My machine can't handle it but I've been really interested in checking out Spikeout for a while - the Xbox version / sequel was a ton of fun but I'm more interested in the aesthetic of the original. It really does seem like a potential classic, I'm looking forward to playing it a lot.

What's the take on the new port of the game?
If it's unencumbered in any way, it's probably worth buying a Yakuza game for.

[cfx]

I haven't seen any discussion but here is a random video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pny15bJLK0g

I've never seen the game before so can't really judge it beyond that it looks like it runs well.

[Lander]

The emulation doesn't look noticeably compromised. Sound balancing is better than Supermodel's default too; you can actually hear Mikhail's WEL COM TO HEL spiel over the hard-rockin' DUM TSH DUM TSH without cutting BGM to 50%

Options seem fairly light - just control rebinding as far as I can see, with a sprinkling of macros for multi-button moves. There's cab dialogue saying SpikeOut, Easy difficulty in some YouTube footage, and IGN's wiki guide claims there are Normal and Hard cabs available, so it seems to have a degree of difficulty control. Though I haven't seen Easiest or Hardest anywhere.

And it looks like Final Edition is the only version on offer; not the end of the world, since most of the original Digital Battle Online content got folded into Final as secret branching paths, but it would have been nice to see.

As a sidenote, seeing select parts of the LaD fanbase get the butt pains over having to see all the stages for 100% is tragedy/comedy. Unfair, poorly made, and I hope anyone who worked on it is forever constipated - look out, Nagoshi-san!

[cfx]

Daytona 2 in the previous LaD only has one version of the game too, and unless it's something no one has figured out yet, the option for the Takenobu Mitsuyoshi vocal version of the songs is missing as well.

Spikeout has the border that looks like the arcade cabinet like all the other games in LaD at least; Daytona 2 is missing that for some reason with only a black border. While I use black borders in Arcade Archives and most places where there's a choice, somehow it seems wrong here.

[hazys]

Lander thank you for the tips, it's a relief to know that bosses can be broken out of their flashing moves. I failed to see your original post on Spike Out before making mine lol. I think I'll give it another run on Easiest, but it really kills me that there's presently no way to play this with others. I think your Tekken comparison is more apt; this feels like a fully fleshed-out Tekken Force more than God Hand, though I still suspect it was a God Hand influence.

The Like a Dragon port is fine as far as I know. At this point SEGA has mastered the art of sneaking arcade-exclusive titles into the LaD games. They know some people are buying them for the arcade exclusives, they've even started to include a "go to arcade" option directly from the start menu.

[Sumez]

they've even started to include a "go to arcade" option directly from the start menu.

Lol, this is pretty much exactly what I meant by the port being "unencumbered" - nice

[cfx]

they've even started to include a "go to arcade" option directly from the start menu.

Lol, this is pretty much exactly what I meant by the port being "unencumbered" - nice

It's not what you want though, unless it's different with Spikeout. In the older games, there are two-player only versions of some of the games you can access from the main menu, I know the various VF games are like this. But if you want to play single player, you cannot, and the games that are single player only are not accessible at all.

I've read there's some hacks for the Steam versions to have the games playable outside the LaD games, but as I don't do PC games I don't personally know.