I know i’m not the only one who misses them, because the announcement of Guy and Cody returning in SSF4 brought on a wave of Final Fight nostalgia throughout literally every gaming forum on the internet. Over the past couple years, we’ve seen various classic franchises such as Streets of Rage and Golden Axe ported to nearly all the current gen consoles. Now Capcom is rereleasing Final Fight and Magic Sword on XBL and PSN with GGPO netcode.
Someone’s obviously buying these things, yet there haven’t been any new titles to speak of. Why is that? Sure, we have seen a few modest offerings such as the 3D remake of Turtles In Time, but nothing that truly captures the feeling of playing Streets of Rage 2 on the Sega Genesis in glorious 320×224 resolution.
It’s almost as if the game industry has forgotten what made the beat ’em up genre so fun to play. This isn’t a 2D versus 3D issue because third-person 3D action game developers still know how to do combat properly, as evidenced by incredibly polished series like Devil May Cry and God of War. For whatever reason, nobody can figure out how to get the hits in a modern brawler to feel right anymore.
The question is, why haven’t we seen anything like Capcom’s Aliens vs Predator or Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara? Ask anyone who’s ever played those games in the arcade. They won’t shut up about how awesome they are.
Obviously there are licensing issues preventing those titles from being rereleased, but the characters weren’t what made those games great. It was all about the combat mechanics, which can always be reproduced without legal repercussions. Simply replace the D&D characters with their Red Earth counterparts, add a couple extra levels, and you’re all set.
Sega, Capcom, Konami – What’s taking so long?
Does anybody remember Konami’s Crime Fighters/Vendetta/Violent Storm?…that games were freaking awesome.
I’m no expert on the genre, but I’ve always enjoyed brawlers with slightly more complex game mechanics. Like the D&D games or Alien V Predator where each character has a ton of special moves and unique properties. I’d put River City Ransom up there too. If anyone knows of any other more complex brawlers I’d like to hear about them. I honestly can’t stand mashing my way through something like The Simpsons arcade game.
Also, I had played just a little bit of an xbla title called Shank that had kind of fun combat system.. it may have been a bit more of a platformer than a traditional brawler but it was all hand-drawn 2d. And what about Castle Crashers? Does something like that give you any hope? =)
“Simply replace the D&D characters with their Red Earth counterparts, add a couple extra levels, and you’re all set.”
This. Red Earth should have been another Capcom D&D-style game anyway.
I think with the advent of 3D a lot of developers might feel like the 2D style was too confusing or dated, having to find the right plane for attacking, etc. It’s also hard to show off graphics with 2D (and consumers seem to be disinterested with 2D) Maybe they could do it ala the Turtles in Time remake, where the gameplay is like old beat-’em-ups or hack-n-slashs but with 3D models.
It’s somewhat baffling that no company has tried to go back to roots. Castlevania:SotN proved that in a 3D world you could still have gorgeous 2D gaming.
I read awhile back that early in the Dreamcast’s development, Streets of Rage was supposed to come out, and there were even brief video clips of the game in action, though very rough. However, the powers-that-be did not know their Genesis history and realize how stupidly popular SoR was. So it was canned. SoR2 is still the gold standard for me.
Turtles in Time / Hyperstone Heist I would play through all day sometimes. *sigh*
Keiko: The first game in the series was terrible, but Vendetta was pretty good, in a disturbing, R-rated 80’s movie kind of way.
zafo999: Have you tried the CPS2 game Battle Circuit? It’s practically an RPG.
I asked about it like 5 years ago on the MAME boards and someone said the last ones made were the Knights of Valour games. (Still true?) As others have said, it seems that when 3D came out, 2D became taboo, but the 3D evolutions like DMC turned into something cool but completely different.
A defining trait of beat-em-ups is the cramped quarters and limited mobility. Getting swarmed just isn’t the same when you can walljump to safety and throw crap at the enemy. An old school beat-em-up in a (forced side-scrolling) 3D environment could be just as good, if they’d make the damn things.
When we were kids, the ones my brothers and i played the most were Streets of Rage 2 and TMNT Hyperstone Heist on the Sega Genesis. Then later on we got SoR3 which we played a lot as well. To this day, i don’t think anything beats SoR2. Although i won’t argue if someone lists it as tied with the other classics like AvP.
It’s sad that we still don’t have XBLA/PSN versions of the Capcom arcade classics because i barely got to play AvP, D&D, and Punisher. I know they’re emulated but i can’t convince anyone to stare at a tiny computer screen when there’s a nice, comfortable TV in the living room.
Don’t get me wrong, i’ve got nothing against modern third-person 3D action games because i totally enjoyed DMC, DMC2, GoW, GoW2, all the Onimusha games, and i’m really looking forward to GoW3. But if these games are supposed to replace the 2D brawler genre, well, i don’t see it.
Ah, I guess I should mention this here.
A little known 3-player TAS of D&D:SoM, recorded with blip’s original FBA patch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4925d3WKhuY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxPq2WnNF54
What about Dungeon Fighter Online? It’s not a pure beat-em-up (it has some RPG elements) but it shows promise.
Dammit: The boss fights in that TAS are awesome. It must have taken a lot of time to figure out optimal tasks for each of the three characters. Though it would have been a little cooler if the Magic-User was included cuz he has all the best looking attacks. Was he left out because he slowed down the game too much?
dromer: All the screenshots i’ve seen of that game look great, but i try to stay away from the online RPG genre. It’s too much of a time sink and i hate being forced to grind in order to unlock moves. That’s easily my least favorite game mechanic of all time. I used to play Diablo 1&2 a lot, but since then i can’t go back to lvl1 characters with leather armor and wooden shields. I tried playing Ragnarok Online for a couple weeks, but never got past the lower tier of magic spells. Once i realized it was going to take months to unlock everything with even one character type, i lost interest instantly.
@Maj
I’d have to say that even though you unlock your moves over time, most classes get their fundamental skills at an early level, allowing people to develop their BnB combos more efficiently. However, the game has the balance of an elephant to a mouse, so PvP isn’t very fun.
The same person, str8 aka straightmb, also made this solo magic-user run which is even faster thanks to critical hit abuse:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4EqEvo0jcg
str8 said it was hard enough controlling three characters but wants to try again with four.
dromer: Ah ok, that doesn’t sound too bad. I’d try it out but updating this website on schedule doesn’t leave me much free time. Either way thanks for the heads-up.
Dammit: Awesome, thanks. I’m really looking forward to that four-player run now. It’s funny that daggers kill things faster than magic. Any idea why he had two warriors randomly join in at the end?
That staff with the red stone can cast a one-off spell powerful enough to almost kill the dragon all by itself (at the cost of putting everyone near death). I forget what the specific conditions are, but it can’t be done solo.
I should try to find str8 and ask him how it’s going…
I’ve played a few failed ones back in the old Playstation 1 days. Most are so-so and seemed to fail to capture the fun of it all. One game that almost got it right for me was Crisis Beat ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACokNejbewg ) , the camera, fighting system, the enemy mob, the bosses and it was amazingly fun to play with my brother. Then Square’s Bouncer came and everyone overlook Crisis Beat. Sad indeed.
@Dammit
The requrements are:
1. Four party members hit ALL their buttons at the same time (except for Magic user)
2. The staff has to be glowing. (You get this by raising the cumulative total.)
3. On the hardest difficulty, all of the members have to have full health.
It does about a bar and a half of damage, and leaves everyone at 1 hit point.
Wow that is elaborate. But it’s actually a really, really cool idea for a hidden spell in a multiplayer co-op game. Now i want an XBLA version even more.
I wonder if the success of little big planet as a three plane 2d playing field could at all be a beacon of hope. I mean I know it’s the wrong genre and is less crucial what plane your on and has aspects of automatic plane selection but it shows developers that it still works.