2D Beat Em Up Guide

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The Beat ‘Em Up Defined
Beat ‘em ups (aka BEUs or Brawlers) are side-scrolling martial arts video games that saw peak popularity in arcades and on home consoles during the late ’80s through the mid ’90s. The beat ‘em up differs from the 2D fighting game in that it features multiple on-screen enemies, has both horizontal and vertical movement, and is typically set in a harsh urban environment. However, games such as The Behemoth’s Castle Crashers, SEGA’s Golden Axe, and Capcom’s Knights of the Round successfully placed the genre into a medieval settings.

Renegade: The Birth of the Beat ‘Em Up

image courtesy of arcade-history.com

The model for the contemporary beat ‘em up arrived in 1986 with the release of Technos’ Renegade. There had been other games before it featuring brawlers delivering fists and feet to face, but Renegade gelled the gameplay, action, and environments into what would prove to be genre-defining title.

Gamers, for the first time, duked it out with a diverse cast of street vermin in such grimy locales as a subway or pier using roundhouse punches, kicks, leaping attacks, and a sweet ground and pound move worthy of Tito Ortiz. There’s even the opportunity to trade blows with the enemy in a particularly kick ass scene that sees you, and your combatants, speeding down a street on a motorcycle. The NES port keeps the spirit of the game, but contains the usual 8-bit console gimping: the sprites are small, enemy design is blander, and level layouts are altered.

The Technos Factor
Technos upped the ante a year later and produced Double Dragon a year later. Set in a post-apocalyptic future where large, muscle-bound thugs rule the land, Spike and Hammer (aka Billy and Jimmy Lee) seek to bring peace–but only after a hot P.O.A. is gut-punched, thrown over the shoulder, and kidnapped. Similar to Renegade, this post-apocalyptic brawler’s NES port is radically different than its arcade counterpart with the most notable change being the removal of the 2-player co-op (which effectively slices the double from the dragon) and the addition of rather annoying platform elements. Double Dragon would go on to inspire a number of official sequels and clones.

It was 1989’s River City Ransom, a tale of kidnapping, revenge, and bad ass high school students. It contains cartoon-like SD characters, RPG-styled leveling, and a nice amount of button-mashing action. Initially, River City Ransom’s popularity was a bit of a slow burn, but in the 20 years since its original release on the NES, it has achieved cult status.

Capcom and SEGA Enter The Fray

image courtesy of techmynd.com

Final Fight, the story of a muscled mayor and his two vigilante partners, appeared the same year, courtesy of Capcom. When the insidious Mad Gear gang kidnaps Mayor Haggar’s daughter shortly after he’s elected as the head of Metro City, the former pro wrestler-turned-politician is joined by her boyfriend Cody, and his friend, a ninja named Guy in an effort to sweep the human grime from the streets. This arcade smash has a number of home conversions and direct sequels (Final Fight 2, Final Fight 3, and the horrendous Final Fight Revenge). It should be noted that a number of Final Fight characters (Cody, Guy, Rolento, Sodom, and Poison) would go on to star in a number of Street Fighter including Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Street Fighter III: Second Impact, and Super Street Fighter IV.

Although SEGA made a name for itself amongst the beat ‘em up set with 1989’s Golden Axe, it’s 1991’s Streets of Rage that took the company to the next level. The plot is typical beat ‘em up fare, but the game features a secret ending (should you guide your character to the dark side), and a special move that sees the police bringing hard justice to criminals. Streets of Rage 2 gives the four playable characters more individualized movesets, which include special and super moves. Streets of Rage 3, a massive 24-bit cartridge, adds weapon-based supers, co-op attacks, and multiple endings. The Yuzo Koshiro-penned soundtracks, especially in Streets of Rage 2, are widely considered to be some of the best of the 16-bit era.

The Beat ‘Em Up Goes Underground

screenshot 09 2D Beat Em Up Guide

The side-scrolling beat ‘em up, sadly, saw a tremendous decline as the industry shifted to polygons in the age of optical media, but there have been a few choice genre representatives to appear in recent years. The SEGA-produced Die Hard Arcade (1996, Saturn) and Dynamite Cop (1998, Dreamcast) – - despite their polygonal character models – - keeps the essence of 2D brawlers alive by featuring over the top enemies, big weapons, and hard-hitting fisticuffs. The Bruce Willis-themed games feature massively over the top brawling that allow players to wax criminals with machine guns, pepper shakers, rocket launcher, and even mini-nukes.

The beat ‘em up may never reclaim the popularity that it once had nearly 20 years ago, but genre is still trucking along. In 2009, Dungeon Fighter Online melded beat ‘em up action with MMO elements to allow your character to acquire new attributes, gear, and spells.