Within five years time, beat ‘em up videogames like Double Dragon and Final Fight grew in both the number of gameplay features and also in popularity. Players on both consoles and at arcades loved kicking lots of ass and more importantly to the success of the genre, they loved doing it as a team.

By now the definition of the genre would take shape: A Player(or players) would fight waves of enemies in either unarmed or melee combat and would have to defeat them before moving on to the next section of the level. Usually at the end of a level would be a boss, or master enemy, that must be defeated before going onto the next level.

Beat ‘em ups were popular for the ability for friends to play together, but they were also simple to learn. Almost every game in the genre as the eighties transitioned into the nineties would only have two or three buttons, usually two attack buttons and a jump button. Anyone could figure out how to play them!

Konami’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the most popular game in arcades for at least two years after it was released. Because of this, all sorts of developers and publishers cried out “me too!” and started pumping out more beat ‘em up games than ever.

So everything would be okay, right?

The success of Turtles meant that a whole lot of licensed properties would be re-imagined as beat ‘em ups. Just about every cartoon and comic book that was hugely popular with American kids from 1989 to 1993 would have an arcade and/or console game designed much like Final Fight, from special attacks that drained player health to player re-spawns knocking down all enemies on screen.

In the eighties, almost each new beat ‘em up brought in more than several new gameplay innovations to the genre. By the time it was 1991, games only offered one or two new things if anything at all. Remember when I said that every Konami arcade beat ‘em up played exactly like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

1991 would be the last big year for the genre, with The Simpsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones, Battletoads, The King of Dragons, and Knights of the Round being some of the biggest releases. All games, except Double Dragon III, were indeed fun.

Capcom’s The King of Dragons gave players the ability to earn experience points for both defeating enemies and collecting gold that would be used to level up, giving players a longer health meter. You could also collect items that would increase the strength of your sword and shield. Now you could defend in these games!

In The King of Dragons, if you move back on your joystick at the right time, you could defend with your shield. Knights of the Round made it easier by having the player press attack and then go back on the joystick and the SNES port gave block it’s own button! This was awesome because now you had an option besides hit and run tactics.

There is one game from 1991 I did not mention yet. Around this time the Super Nintendo was about to come to America. The Sega Genesis had already been release but had no had a big hit game yet. Final Fight was a huge deal in arcades and the SNES was getting an exclusive port for it, thus firing off one of the first shots of the legendary 16-bit console war.

In order for Genesis to succeed, they were going to need a game like that on their console. And what they gave gamers was…

Streets of Rage was essentially a copy-paste of Final Fight for the Sega Genesis. You had a big and strong character, a small and fast character, and a character who was average in size and skill. They each had a special attack that would knock down enemies while reducing their own health. Similarly, they would fight street gangs and pick up and eat meat off of the streets for health.

However, this worked because the SNES port of Final Fight was a disaster. Not only was it missing a character from the arcade version, it was also only single player which by this point is unacceptable and should be considered a crime. This, along with other games, would fuel the fire in Sega’s favor and would lead to the marketing slogan “Sega does what Nintendon’t.”

There were three things about Streets of Rage that would stand out. The first one would be the ability to summon help as a special attack. You could call for police back-up and the game would pan to the far left to show a police vehicle pull up and fire explosives that would kill all enemies surrounding the players. This “striker” character attack would show up from time to time in beat ‘em ups, including some of the games based on Marvel comic book characters.

Second would be the ending. There are three ways this would work. You meet Mr. X(no relation to Mr. X in Kung-Fu Master) and he makes an offer for you to join his syndicate. If you say no(and your partner says no as well) then you must fight and beat him to get the happy ending. If you are solo and say “yes” or if both players say “yes,” then Mr. X throws them down a trap door and they have to go up the building again.

However- and this is the kicker -if one player agrees to join Mr. X and the other does not, then they must fight each other TO THE DEATH! If the player who said “yes” wins, then Mr. X will make him a final offer. You must say “no” in order to fight Mr. X and beat him in order to take his title as crime boss. The ending will show your character sitting in the boss’s chair with a wine glass with the words “BAD END” displayed on the screen.

Finally, and while this has nothing to do with game mechanics, I must point out the excellent work that Yuzo Koshiro did on the game’s soundtrack. It was pretty impressive to get dance/techno music similar to what would be heard at late eighties and early nineties dance clubs out of a console that was not known for having a great sound chip. The Streets of Rage games are sometimes more fondly remembered for their music as opposed to their gameplay.

In 1991, the amount of beat ‘em up games increased exponentially. There was a flavor for everyone. The genre was at the peak of its popularity but it would all come to an end as sounds of “HADOKEN! HADOKEN!” rang through arcades.

Street Fighter II: The World Warrior would usher in a new era in arcades, not where players fought together, but against each other. Perhaps the endings of games like Double Dragon and Streets of Rage planted the seeds of dissent or maybe it was because innovation in beat ‘em ups had come to a screeching halt.

Regardless, players salivated for competition in the arcades, movie theaters, and convenience stores. More fighting games would come out and beat ‘em ups found their way out of arcades, with the exception of Konami brawlers like TMNT, The Simpsons, and X-Men.

It would be a slow death to the genre. Streets of Rage 2 was the last game of the era that mattered. Konami stopped making beat ‘em ups for TEN years after 1993, Technōs Japan went out of business in 1996, and Capcom went to focus more on fighting games. It was tragic.

Years later, Sega would try their hand at making 3D beat ‘em up games. There were two Dynamite Deka games that would be brought over to America as Die Hard Arcade in 1996 and as Dynamite Cop in 1998. They added quick time events which I have negative feelings about in general, but the 3D cameras gave more variety in presentation instead of the static side view 2D beat ‘em ups stuck with.

Otherwise, they were the same old beat ‘em ups as played before, but with polygons instead of sprites. They did not control well and were a step backwards more than anything.

A majority of early 3D videogames did not play well. Core Design tried to make Streets of Rage 4 in 1997, but a dispute with Sega about multi-platform releases led for them to rename it Fighting Force and put in on the Sony Playstation and later the Nintendo 64. It controlled just as poorly as the Dynamite Deka games but Fighting Force didn’t have quicktime events, making it superior.

In 1996, the champion of hardcore gamers known as Treasure released Guardian Heroes, a 2D anime-inspired fantasy beat ‘em up with ninjas and giant robots added in. This is a proper evolution of what games like The King of Dragons and River City Ransom accomplished.

Stat building was back and you could choose which stats you wanted to add experience points to at the end of each level. This was the most direct control you could have over your character’s progress. In River City Ransom, unless you knew what each item you consumed did to your stats, you did not have any real control. Guardian Heroes takes a much simpler approach.

Guardian Heroes also has a much bigger scope in narrative than any other beat ‘em out there. To illustrate that point, it does the one thing I don’t think any other game in the genre has done: it offers multiple paths at the end of each level so players could play different levels, fight different bosses, and experience multiple endings. It was a fantastic idea that would certainly have players coming back for more! Except, it was released only on the Sega Saturn, a console hardly anyone even owned. This might be one of the top games in the genre and one of the least played.

For a while, nothing happened in the genre. People were immersed in new 3D action and platforming games and JRPGs were probably one of the most popular genres at the time. (Oh, how times have changed!) Players wanted long and immersive experiences and the simplicity and short lengths of beat ‘em up games could not offer that. So for many years, the genre rested in it’s grave until Capcom’s fighting game bubble had burst.

Out of nowhere in 2003, Capcom’s Production Studio 4- that would later be renamed Clover Studio -drops a bombshell that makes Nintendo Gamecube relevant with the hardcore gamer crowd. Viewtiful Joe is a flashy, over-the-top, super stylish 2.5D beat ‘em up that adds in time manipulation and platforming along with Japanese tokusatsu heroics to make up for everything the stale genre lacked for a decade.

Joe’s girlfriend Sylvia gets kidnapped and taken away into Movieland and Joe has to go in and rescue her. Along the way, he is able to transform into a super hero name Viewtiful Joe that command VFX powers that affect the movie he is fighting in. The powers can change the world so that Joe can accomplish super human feats and they are often used to single out weaknesses that enemies may have.

This can be done by using up a VFX meter that can be replenished over time. If you use it all up, you return to average Joe and have to wait to become Viewtiful once more so it’s important to use those powers thoughtfully. If you find film rolls in the game, they can be used to increase the length of the VFX meter, giving Joe more time to use his powers

“Slow Down” is helpful against enemies that move fast. By slowing them down, you can spot when they are vulnerable to attacks. “Mach Speed” lets Joe move around and strike all enemies on screen with his after images at a very fast speed; so fast that he generates fire off of his body which helps for solving some obstacles that require fire to complete. It also creates a shield that makes Joe immune to flame attacks.

Then there is “Zoom In” that not only increases the damage of Joe’s attacks, but will let Joe do secret attacks only available in that mode. You can also combine any two of these VFX powers for ridiculous damage which will also drain the VFX meter faster.

Along the way, Joe can earn Viewtiful points from he gains by beating up enemies, much like in River City Ransom. Moreover, you can earn more V-Points by stringing together long combos on enemies as opposed to single strikes. Using VFX powers helps out with this. With the V-Points, you can shop at the end of the level for additional weapons and moves as well as the ability to extend your lifebar.

Viewtiful Joe was the fire needed to bring beat ‘em ups back to life. It was not only a return to the definition of the genre mentioned earlier, but it brought a lot of new ideas and mechanics along with it as well. The idea to have the game look like it was being shot like an action movie was very clever. A sequel would come out the following year that would be more of the same with a couple more tricks, but Clover also decided to fix 3D beat ‘em ups as well.

Godhand is Fist of the North Star but with a guy named Gene instead of Kenshiro. Instead of Hokuto Shinken, he has a Godhand, one of two arms of a man that once defeated Demon King Angra. The Four Devas are after Gene because they want to resurrect Angra and take over the world.

In the game, you can map techniques you acquire to any of the face buttons including one that is meant to press repeatedly to string a combonation attacks. There are over 100 techniques which means there are a lot of options for how Gene will fight.

You can also bob and weave through enemy attacks and sidestep around them, making Godhand much like a 3D fighting game. The amount of viciousness of a beat down you can dish in Godhand is tremendous whether by doing God Roulette Attacks, curb stomping a pile of enemies, or dragon kicking thugs into the milkyway!

This game is frustratingly hard. So much that if you are a sissy, you might as well stay away. This is not your game. Go play Halo 3 instead. That might be more appropriate. Make sure you have your Mountain Dew ready because that is totally a HARDCORE drink!

It’s a shame this game did not do well and that Clover was shut down by Capcom soon after. The creator of Godhand, Shinji Mikami, would express regret that he had too much freedom to direct the game just as he liked.

Listen Shinji, you made a game that I love. Sure, it didn’t sell a lot but that is not important. You know multi-million dollar generating game franchise you created that I don’t give a shit about? Resident Evil. I want you to think about what is really a more important accomplishment the next time you are banging supermodels.

Now we come full circle. Viewtiful Joe and Godhand were awesome games but they didn’t get the masses excited. It’s unfortunate but the problem with both games is that they were made for hardcore gamers. Which is fine because they love the games. However, the games were not easy to jump into and VERY over-the-top. Also too Japanese for western gamers and too badass for Japanese gamers.

What to do then? Well, imagine that groups of newer, younger game developers grew up on many of the games I have been talking about during both parts of this article and would make games with more casual appeal that also thoughtfully used many established game mechanics that were proven to make for fun experiences. You could revive beat ‘em ups for two audiences: people who haven’t play those games in years and those who have never played them at all.

The Behemoth would step up first. They are clearly influenced by Treasure since their previous game, Alien Hominid, is a homage to Gunstar Heroes. The would make a beat ‘em up called Castle Crashers, a four player beat ‘em up that is very similar to the aforementioned Guardian Heroes. Hell, they even have the same screen for increasing stats in-between levels!

So I just mentioned that Castle Crashers is four players. Well, I think we found what Viewtiful Joe and Godhand were lacking most! With this console generation, the amount of people playing games had increased, especially casual players. Not only that, every console has the ability to have multiple controllers hooked up without buying a multitap or you could play games online. Gamers are no longer into playing alone like they were when Sony’s consoles were dominating; they wanted to play games with other people.

Castle Crashers came in at the right time and in the right way. It was downloadable through the X-Box Live service(and is now available on the Playstation Store) for a very reasonably low price. At a fourth of a cost of a new retail game, it’s quite a bargain.

The game isn’t long but it is very charming and colorful and captures all the elements that made fantasy beat ‘em ups fun. There’s the ability to level up, learn new attacks, make your magic more powerful, and equip different weapons and items. You can even ride on animals like in Golden Axe! It also has online play which made many people happy but it handles death in cooperative play very well.

You only have one life in Castle Crashers and if you die that means you can no longer fight. However, one of your teammates can revive you back to life so you can keep fighting. It’s done very well too! While your healer is not being attacked, they can pumped life into you with timed button pressed. If they time the button presses to two icons lining up above them, then they will get you the most amount of health you could possibly get back.

Castle Crashers also pays homage to Double Dragon several times. When a princess is rescued, the players while fight each other to the death to determine who will get her. They even have an achievement to unlock is a player wins all of the princesses!

Only weeks ago, Ubisoft unexpectedly delivered a fantastic beat ‘em up that in not only is easy to get into, but it draws heavily from one of my favorite games ever, River City Ransom.

You can beat up enemies and take their money to buy items and food at shops that boost your stats. You can pick up enemies when they fall on the ground and use them as a weapon. As you level up, much like Castle Crashers, you will learn new moves that are pretty much Grand Slam, Acro Circus, Javelin Man, and others. Hell, they even call their bookstore “Flatiron Books,” making the connection very obvious.

River City Ransom never got a true sequel. The Japanese Kunio-kun games that came out after never did any justice. Luckily, Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game is well crafted and has a lot of the same spirit and changes some things up to prevent it from becoming a clone.

Castle Crashers and Scott Pilgrim do many things right. They are bight and colorful with a focus on keeping things simple enough for lots of people to get into. Both games stick to the definition of what a beat ‘em up is as they borrow the right things from many classic games.

Multiplayer is a core part of both games and they handle the consequences of losing for a modern audience that has less patience for failure by letting characters revive other characters or even share items. Being able to individually level up characters and learn new attacks are brilliant choices to have in the game and should keep many players coming back. Overall, both games are well crafted and should be downloaded by all of you immediately.

For those of you who started playing beat ‘em ups thanks to Castle Crashers and Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game, I hope you understand the rich history of the beat ‘em up genre and which games contributed. After you are done playing the newer games, I want you to look for some of the games mentioned in both parts of this article and give them a shot. You might find that those older games will offer something new to you.

As for the future of the genre? Like anything else, the genre will fade in and out. The interest to beat lots of ass with friends will always come back. I think if a solid beat ‘em up with strong game mechanics and and some imagination comes out once every two or three years, and they are kept cheap and dowloadable, that will keep the genre alive for new audiences. Until then, keep that justice burning!

No, I am not telling tall tales of my bizarre adventures. Rather, I am recalling a time when some of my favorite games were fresh and prominent and were the talk of the schoolyards, arcades, and convenience stores across the country.

They are called Beat ‘Em Ups- games about players taking matters into their own hands when there was no law and destroying armies of foes in hand to hand(or weapon) combat -that ruled arcades and Nintendo in the late eighties, died off in the early nineties, and after several failed attempts, have begun to make it back into the spotlight.

Many of you may remember those golden years of gaming when real bros were going around the shady parts of town beating on punks until the girl was rescued. Therefore, you will be nodding in agreement and feel nostalgic for much of the following article. Others may have just discovered the genre through recent downloadable games like Castle Crashers and Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game. I’ve played through those games during the past month while sticking to many of the classics that influenced them.

For those you who have never played older beat ‘em up games, I want to let you know that there is a rich history of how the genre developed. A lot of games from several different game developers helped establish the genre and many of the core mechanics and clichés that beat ‘em ups are known for. But where did it all begin and what games would contribute something fresh to the genre as it grew?

In the Summer of 1984, Golden Harvest would release Wheels on Meals, a Hong Kong action film directed by Sammo Hung and starring Jackie Chan that would be the beginning of it all. The movie would be released in Japan as Spartan X and Irem would develop an arcade game based off the movie and release it at the end of the year.

As you have already guessed, the game was brought over to America as Kung-Fu Master. In the game, you would storm the Devil’s Temple as Jackie Chan’s character Thomas and fight off groups of martial artists before fighting the master/boss at the end of each floor. You would go up these floors and fight martial arts masters similar to Bruce Lee’s movie, The Game of Death.

At the end of the game you would fight Mr. X, who had kidnapped Thomas’ girlfriend Sylvia, in order to rescue her, thus establishing the greatest trope of the beat ‘em up genre.

Being the first beat ‘em up, Kung-Fu Master’s gameplay was very primitive. Action moved only left or right and Thomas could punch or kick while standing, jumping, or ducking. That was it! You had three lives and could get more as you scored points for beating opponents. Once you lost all three lives, the game was over and you would have to start from the very beginning. (This was a common form of punishment in eighties videogames.)

Almost a couple years had passed and with the popularity of Kung-Fu Master, it was smart business to make games similar to that. Technōs Japan would be the first to evolve the genre, all while taking the first step to becoming a company that would champion many games that gamers of the NES era fondly remember to this day.

Their first big hit would be the beginning of a cult classic franchise that would contain many beat em’ ups and action sports games: Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun which translates to “Hot-blooded Tough Guy Kunio.” The game, like many in the Kunio franchise, would have its graphics, character names, and cultural references changed to sell to American and European markets. In this case, the first Kunio game was sold here as Renegade.

Yoshihiso Kishimoto would direct this game and mechanics established in Kung-Fu Master would be built upon. You could now move in four directions in addition to jumping. (But you could no longer duck.) Instead of martial arts, Kunio would brawl against gangsters, hookers, and other high school delinquents. So with Renegade, the urban setting of fighting street gangs would be established and reused many times over. And yes, you would still have a girlfriend to rescue!

Kunio could dash into opponents and clothesline them and he could also get on top of fallen enemies to deliver some vicious ground and pound. In addition, he could grab an opponent by the hair and knee them in the face repeatedly or by their shirts and either choose to throw or headbutt them. After this, grappling becomes standard in almost every game in the genre.

At the end of the game, Kunio ends up having to fight the end boss who is armed with a gun. The gun tends to be used as an instant kill weapon in many beat ‘em up games that have final bosses. So being able to dodge and time attacks while not getting shot becomes very crucial.

Renegade is not really a fun game to play. It has a lot of great ideas but it controls poorly and you often have to use cheap tactics in order to survive. Not only that, something was missing. In 1987, Technōs Japan would launch a dragon kick on arcades everywhere.

Double Dragon takes place in post-apocalyptic New York. Billy and Jimmy Lee, two twin martial artists that follow the teachings of Sousetsuken, or Twin Intercepting Fists, fight the Black Warriors, a street gang whose members are named after characters from Enter the Dragon. Why? Because Billy’s girlfriend got kidnapped of course! By now, it’s pretty apparent that videogames are trying to tell us what the consequences should be if women stray too far away from the kitchen.

The Black Warriors will give the Lee brothers back Marion in exchange for the secrets of Sousetsuken. Billy and Jimmy, being nice gentlemen, decide to teach them those secrets… by using it on everyone in town until they get Billy’s whorish-looking girlfriend back!

Kishimoto takes everything about Renegade’s gameplay and refines the controls and pacing of the game so that it is actually fun to play! Back elbows are added in as means to attack enemies approaching from behind. A new innovation to the genre will be the ability to disarm enemies and use their weapons during the fights. Baseball bats, whips, throwing knives, and even dynamite are among the weapons available to use. When a group of enemies were defeated, players would be notified to advance to the next section of the level.

Did I say “players!?”

The really important part of Double Dragon is the discovery of the secret ingredient: cooperative play! That’s right, it was not as cool to whoop ass to rescue a babe on your own as opposed to having your best friend help you out! With this, Double Dragon establishes a life-long fantasy of having my hypothetical girlfriend get kidnapped by a street gang so me and my super-bro could tear through town kicking ass until we get her back!

The amount of fun players would have playing beat ‘em ups would skyrocket since now you could jump in at anytime to help a friend in need. This was not only great for the genre but for arcade business as well.

As an added bonus, Double Dragon also featured a twist! If both brothers are victorious in their rescue mission, why should Billy get the girl at the end? What if Jimmy was the better fighter? Well, Kishimoto thought of that so if you beat the game with two players you could fight it out and prove which of the brothers is the alpha male that would get Marion! What a manly game!

The port to the Nintendo Entertainment System would not have cooperative play. The quality of the game suffered but an interesting mechanic was added: players could unlock attacks by earning specific increments of points. You would get points for the kinds of strikes you did on enemies. Usually, the less damage an attack did on an enemy, the more points it was worth. Therefore, it was a common strategy to start off NES Double Dragon using only punches for attacks so all of the special attacks were unlocked as soon as possible.

1989 would prove to be another awesome year for beat ‘em ups. Technōs Japan would make one more critically important beat ‘em up that would go down in history as one the greatest videogames ever. It’s near and dear to my heart as it’s been in my life for almost twenty years.

In Japan, Kunio and his buddy Riki would return to kick lots of ass and rescue Kunio’s girlfriend yet again, but in America, we got Ryan and Alex taking back the streets, the schools, the malls, AND Merv’s Burger Joint, out the sinister hands of the twisted villain known in a ransom letter as “Slick.” And just in time for Ryan’s kidnapped girlfriend Cyndi to finish her shopping!

River City Ransom is not only the pinnacle of the beat ‘em up genre, but- as truthfully stated before -one of the best games ever made. Directed by Mitsuhiro Yoshida(Super Dodge Ball) and Hiroyuki Sekimoto(Double Dragon II: The Revenge), a beat ‘em up was built from scratch specifically for the Famicom/NES as opposed to being an arcade port.

The game was unique for it’s time. In addition to standard beat ‘em up mechanics, elements of stat-building, earning money for beating enemies, buying food and other items from shops, wearing equipment, and the ability to choose what fighting moves you want to learn by purchasing and reading books were all big parts of the game.

The RPG elements gave reasons to keep playing the game. This would help because River City Ransom was a little bit longer than normal. Because of the length and the inventory of items you could obtain, the game had a password system so you can come back and play the game another time. Unfortunately, the game’s password system was flawed since each password was very long and one incorrectly written character means you have lost all progress.

Stat building was a nice way to handle the increasing difficulty of enemies. You could choose to do it to make the game easier or not if you want that challenge. In-between fighting sections would be malls with restaurants and stores. There, you could purchase items like food, toys, or music that would boost your character’s stats. You could even take some items to go and use whenever you want.

Speaking of stats, there are a couple notable ones. You have the standards such as punch, kick, weapon, agility, and others that are all self-explanatory. But there were two that worked well together for players to get that second wind and make a comeback in fights. The stamina stat would represent your health. Normally, if you lost it all that would be it. However, there is the willpower stat that if high enough, would cause a player to regain some stamina back after getting knocked down. It was a pretty cool way to turn things around.

This is also the first time lives and “game overs” are non-existent in a beat ‘em up. Instead of starting the game over when all stamina is completely gone, you actually lose half your money and return to the closest mall. If you don’t mind losing money, you can get your ass kicked as much as you want and still be able to move forward in the game.

I could go on forever about everything River City Ransom did that was awesome, but the goal is to cover it’s contributions to the genre. So with that, I give you a free smile so we can finish off the decade!

In the same year River City Ransom came out, other companies decided that Technōs Japan could not have all the glory to themselves. With that said, Capcom, Sega, and Konami all entered the market in a BIG way.

At some point, developers realized that perhaps the characters in these games should fight differently and have specific strengths and weaknesses. In Final Fight, designed by Akira “Nin-Nin” Nishitani and Akira “Akiman” Yasuda, we get a lot of the same old “rampage through the streets and beat a bunch of thugs up to save a girl” formula. However, this two-player game would let players select between three characters.

You could be the quick but physically weak Bushin ninja Guy, average-skilled brawler Cody, or THE MANLIEST CHARACTER TO EVER ORIGINATE FROM A VIDEOGAME, MAYOR MIKE “PILEDRIVING SHARKS” HAGGAR. It would really come down to which player could select powerhouse Haggar first. Sometimes it was settled with coin tosses, other times the dispute would have been appropriately settled with fisticuffs.

In this game, you could beat up transvestites and pick up and eat food you found on the streets and in trash cans to regain health. (No, really.) Each character also had a special move that allowed him to knock down a bunch of enemies around them at the cost of some health. It was a nice trade off and it was pretty easy for enemies to surround you for a beat down. When a character lost a life, they would re-spawn and knock all the enemies on screen down with prevented the player from getting overwhelmed right away. (It even chipped a bit of health off of enemies.) This was also the first beat ‘em up that you could see your enemies’ health as you beat down on them.

Final Fight would be the official start of the 16-bit era of beat ‘em ups. Not only did it take advantage of better technology(it was an early Capcom CPS-1 game), but it added many features that many 16-bit brawlers would use, including the elevator stage where players fought against waves of enemies that dropped from the skies as the elevator would go up.

At some point, it was time to leave the streets. Since Renegade came out, almost every beat ‘em up was an urban justice simulator and it was time to change things up a bit. Makoto Uchida, who created hack ‘n slash action game Altered Beast, made a Conan the Barbarian inspired fantasy beat ‘em up called Golden Axe. It was a Sega arcade game that would also appear on the Genesis and Master System.

Characters fight with a set weapon and they also have magic they can cast to hurt all enemies on the screen. Ax Battler uses a two handed broadsword and casts earth spells. Gilius Thunderhead fights with a battle axe and uses lightning spells. And then there is Tyris Flare, the FIRST ever playable female character in a beat ‘em up. She battles with a longsword and summons the power of fire. Each vows revenge on this villain called “Death Adder” while they go forth to rescue the King of Yuria and his daughter.

The amount of damage that a character’s magical spell will deal on enemies is dependent on how many magic bars are currently available. Players can fill those bars as they get magic potions by kicking little sprite that are found throughout the game, whether it be during the regular levels or the bonus stages in-between.

One other addition that was in Golden Axe was the ability to ride beasts like the Cockatrice seen in Altered Beast or dragons. While riding those creatures, they can attack for you and some are more powerful than others. Golden Axe did well to break from the “fighting street gangs” formula and proved that other settings could work for beat ‘em ups.

The highlight of many childhoods in the late eighties, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a nationwide phenomenon that you could compare to something contemporary like Pokémon or Harry Potter. No. It was bigger than both combined… on their best days.

All the merchandise and tie-ins you could think of was there and an arcade game was a no-brainer. Learning from the success of Double Dragon, it was clear that players enjoyed kicking ass together. Why not up the ante and have a FOUR player beat ‘em up, where you could play as any of the turtles!? The game probably made BILLIONS.

That was actually the only major contribution this game had for beat ‘em ups. The only other thing that may be noteworthy is that when a boss is about to be defeated, they will flash orange and get really aggressive. The turtles fought with different weapons and, like Final Fight, each had a special attack that would would deplete some of their health when used successfully on enemies.

Other than that, Konami had made a hugely popular beat ‘em up that would open the floodgates for even more to come out. As a matter of fact, almost every Konami arcade beat ‘em up made after played nearly identical to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with the only difference being in audio and graphics.

The arcade experience Turtles offered could not be duplicated on consoles(the NES version only supported two players) so the coin-operated game business would boom for quite some time. Kids would flock to any place that had the game, as often as they could, and spend lots of quarters. I know because I was one of them! For two years, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would be the most popular arcade game out there.

With Turtles as the king of arcades, so were beat ‘em ups. It looked like it could go on forever, but like all truly great things that happened in the eighties, it must all come to an end and become relevant again fifteen years later.

Sega Dreamcast came out in the United States 10 years ago on September 9th, 1999. It had a great library of games, brought online gaming to consoles in a big way, and was considered by many to be the best gaming console ever. I disagree with the latter; the Super Nintendo holds that title. However, Sega Dreamcast had a lot of amazing games and innovations throughout its short lifespan. Production of the console ended in 2001, but games were still being made for years after. The power that Sony wielded with the Playstation branded and easy Dreamcast software piracy led to the console’s early death. Despite that, Dreamcast had many classic games in its library of over 700 and I am going to name off a bunch of them and the people who brought them out.

Contributions made by Capcom
Capcom released a lot of awesome arcade ports for the Dreamcast, mostly consisting of shmups and fighters. This massive list includes Marvel vs Capcom 1+2, Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Power Stone 1+2, Rival Schools, Capcom vs SNK 1 +2 , Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Plasma Sword, Tech Romancer, Giga Wing 1+2, and sequels to some of the aforementioned games. Not only that, this was the first console to get Resident Evil: Code Veronica. The Dreamcast versions of many of these arcade ports were excellent; not only that, games like Marvel vs Capcom 2 are still played at the Evo Championship series on that console.

Contributions made by Midway
Sega Dreamcast was the last console that Midway released games for that weren’t classic arcade compilations and still worth playing. This company has fallen far from its glory days but they did release the best version of NFL Blitz with its “2000″ edition, and they also ported one of the most fun racing games ever, Hydro Thunder. Other great games they released on the Dreamcast included NBA Showtime and Ready 2 Rumble Boxing. They excelled during the Dreamcast era at making arcade sports games, but then they fumbled the ball when they couldn’t decide between making Blitz and arcade football game or a simulation like Madden.

Contributions made by Namco
Namco made Soul Calibur more awesome than its arcade counterpart by putting it on the Dreamcast. This was unprecedented and was unfortunately the beginning of the end for many arcades. I think the first Soul Calibur is still the best in the series, even with its weird physics. Some also consider it to be the best Dreamcast game ever.

Contributions made by SNK
As the Sega Dreamcast died, so did SNK. They did come back as SNK Playmore, but the Dreamcast had some of the best SNK games ever. For starters, they had The King of Fighters ‘98, ‘99, 2000, 2001, and 2002. Some of those games had extras that other versions of those games didn’t have, including characters and strikers. But SNK kicked it up a notch with Last Blade 1+2, a weapons-based 2D fighting series that does some things better than Samurai Showdown, and some things that series doesn’t do at all. But that’s not all. SNK also released their best game ever on the Sega Dreamcast, Garou: Mark of the Wolves. That game deserves its own post and some day, I am going to write it.

Sega, the leader
Sega had its work cut out for them. They had some solid support from some of the big third party publishers at the time, but were missing EA and Square, who were dominant on their respective sides of the gaming planet. Sega countered EA by making better sports games with the NFL2K, NHL2K, NBA2k, and Virtua Tennis franchises. EA later countered, not by making better games, but by buying exclusive rights to the NFL license. Not having Final Fantasy or its copycats didn’t help Sega either, but they did try things with the genre like airship battles in Skies of Arcadia and attempting to simulate a life experience in Shenmue. Speaking of simulating life, they had a game called Seaman in which you could communicate with this creature that conversed with you. Its genius seems to have been forgotten during the recent storm of Peter Molyneux’s latest hypefest, Natal.

Sega released a lot of original games and arcade ports on the console that are also noteworthy, including Chu Chu Rocket, Phantasy Star Online, Crazy Taxi, Jet Grind Radio, and Samba de Amigo. That’s a lot of amazing stuff! Sonic and his shitty friends also went 3D with Sonic Adventure 1+2, which where okay games. I thought the second of those games was more fun to play, but that’s not saying much because the first one had you play as Big the Cat, a retarded cat fisherman(or is it fishercat?) who is essentially the Jar Jar Binks of the franchise. If I were to pinpoint the exact moment that the Sonic franchise started going downhill, it would have to be the second you had to start controlling Big the Cat. In all honesty, I think Big the Cat is the real reason Dreamcast died. Okay, not really, but his presence had a negative impact on the Sonic series of games from that point on.

Dammit. I hate to end this post on a negative note, so I won’t. Sega did some awesome things during the time of the Dreamcast and a handful of publishers also put out their best work ever. A lot of the Sega Dreamcast games have some things in common; they are typically bright and colorful, simple arcade-style games that are very easy to jump into. I think that was the strength of the Dreamcast, but it’s possible that lacking games with deeper experiences didn’t help the console too much, nor did a lack of support from some key third party developers. In spite of those shortcomings, the Dreamcast is still fondly remembered for having a great collection of games and will continue to do so.