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!

What I do have a problem with is what games they recommend to buy for kids and why. All Star Cheer Squad and a Nancy Drew game? High School Musical 3? Seriously!? The list of recommended titles has more hits than misses and has many notable omissions. So Mr. Ward here is going to help any of you blog-reading parents out with your game holiday shopping. Hit the jump below to see my awesome list of games you should buy for your kids this holiday season.

Mega Man 9 – Wii, XBOX 360, PS3
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Mega Man 9 takes the platforming series back to it roots from the 8 bit era of gaming. The game is challenging as there are a lot of obstacles and traps for players to avoid. These situations, in addition to boss battles, give players the opportunity to think and form strategies of their own in order to win. This is great because kids have it way too easy these days. For some reason, designers have felt having “accessibility for all” meant making many modern games brain dead easy to complete. To compliment the old school and challenging nature of Mega Man 9, the graphics and music resemble the best of what the NES had to offer many years ago. This game is just as good as Mega Man 2 or 3, and this download-only title is a great gift for your kids so that they can see how good you had it when you were their age.

Super Street Fighter II: Turbo HD Remix – XBOX 360 and PS3
ESRB Rating: T for Teen
Ridiculously enough, MediaWise forgot to exclude Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe from their games to avoid. Normally the level of violence would be a good reason to not buy this for kids, and even though the violence and fatalities were toned down for a Teen rating, it’s still noticeable. Putting that aside, kids are going to want it because it has Batman and Superman and it. That may be nice and all, but the gameplay is actually trash; furthermore, the execution of many aspects of the fighting engine are heavily flawed. The game is ultimate crap(I will post at a later date specifically as to why) and it scares me that parents will their children their first foray into the fighting genre with this. Please don’t do that. Instead, be a good parent this holiday and download Super Street Fighter II: Turbo HD Remix for your kids so they can have one of the greatest fighting game experiences ever. I spent much of my Thanksgiving Break playing it. The graphics and sound have been redone(and you can choose to go old-school) and the game has been rebalanced for a much fairer competitive play. For a fourth of the price of MK vs DCU, you will get way deeper fighting game experience.

LittleBigPlanet – PS3
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
This is a cool platformer in which players can use teamwork to solve puzzles. The game is very aesthetically pleasing, with excellent level design and cute sackboys to control. This game also has the ability to create detailed levels and share them on the Playstation Network. Sony has been moderating player submissions as best as they can and so far the level of user-created content available is incredible. In addition to being a great game for the kids and family, this is one of the must-own titles for the Playstation 3.

Rock Band 2 - Wii, XBOX 360, PS3, PS2
Rated T for Teen
Don’t waste your money on Guitar Hero: World Tour. Get this game instead. I don’t care either way when it comes to the Simon Says music games, but everyone who is into them has told me that RB2 is the way to go. You can download songs in addition to the ridiculous amount of songs already available and on the PS3 and XBOX 360 versions, you can convert your old Rock Band songs for a small fee. Just make sure you have your kids play the classics so their musical tastes aren’t rotted by the emo scene!

deBlob – Wii
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Let’s face it, Nintendo dropped the ball hardcore with the Nintendo Wii this year. You probably have a good amount of dust on your Wii because nothing very notable has been released for it during the past few months. There is at least one good game this holiday for the Wii you should try out: deBlob. The game has you control a blob that has the task of restoring color to town that has had it taken away by an evil organization. The ways you can do this are very creative and overall the game is a fun and light-hearted experience. It has the visual appeal and warm nature that you would find in a Super Mario game or a Pixar film.

World of Goo – Windows, Mac and Wii
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
World of Goo won a couple of awards at the Independent Games Festival earlier this year. It’s a very unique physics-based puzzle game where you have to save a certain number of goos each level by manipulating them with the mouse(or Wii-mote) and using them to construct objects such as towers and bridges to get them to safe locations. One of the main strategies to win is to provide support as you extend your towers and bridges since the goos carry weight on them. This can cause for some interesting situations to happen as towers and bridges can topple and break or the goos can cling to surfaces you do not want them to. World of Goo is very addicting and the PC version has a demo you can try out and I highly recommend doing so.

Spore - Windows and Mac
ESRB Rating: E+10 for Everyone older than 10
This game was hyped for years and while many people didn’t have their expectations met(and certain gameplay features were cut from the final release), this game is still a great present for kids. It’s a very simple evolution game where you take the most basic form of life, evolve it into a customizable creature, build a civilization, and then travel and conquer the galaxy to your liking. There’s a lot more to that, but like the aforementioned LittleBigPlanet, Spore encourages players to be creative have some control as to how they play the game. There are more than several different stages of the game divided into smaller metagames that are based on existing genres like strategy games(Civilization, Age of Empires) and simulation games(Sim City). These metagames are nowhere near as complex as the full games they are inspired by, but I think that is good for younger players who made not be ready to handle games of such complexity and depth.

The winter looks good for gamers of all tastes and ages so do your best to go out and get some great games this holiday season!

Most of my break consisted of playing Street Fighter II, and also catching up with various friends and my younger brother. My favorite day of vacation was Friday when I made batter for Oatmeal Raisin cookie dough and baked those cookies with a super awesome friend! We also watched a Jet Li and Morgan Freeman in Unleashed and went Ice Skating!

So I loved my Vacation break, how was yours?