Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara
If you’re thinking this is just going to be another double dragon game then like what Captain Tenneal likes to say on the show MXC: “Well, YOU’RE WRONG!!!”
This game incorporates some of the most advanced mechanics you’ve ever seen in any beat-em-up. And mind you these two games came out wayyyy back in 1996. Expect to see: Critical hits in your attacks, spell casting, combos, FOUR PLAYERS!, backstabbing, infinite combos (if you’re good enough), secrets, forked paths, different equiappable weapons, level ups, and unlockable in game perks such as arts, galleries, and even house rules to play around with.
– Real player with 598.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Beat 'em up Action Games.
Gather your party before setting forth! Or just yourself. That way you don’t need to see the disappointment in your friend’s eyes as you die to a kobold.
“BY THE ABYSS
- Fighter, every time he falls down. Every time.
Chronicles of Mystara is two ported games with some retro flair - Shadow Over Mystara, which is a cult classic beatemup which has as much accolades as Gary Gygax giving birth to the 20-sided die, and there’s Tower of Doom, which can come too.
They’re coin-op arcade games with a flair for the tabletop, giving you classes, items, branching paths, Tower of Doom even has effects for enemies failing saving throws. All of this makes for a game that’s novel, intricate by nature, and has earned its cult classic status.
– Real player with 28.7 hrs in game
Double Dragon Trilogy
At this point in the history of the franchise, you either “get” Double Dragon, or you don’t. This is a side-scrolling beat-em-up in it’s purest and simplest form. You can punch, kick, jump, jump kick, and do a scant few other moves. The enemies you’ll face all have personality, but it’s of the behavior-based variety. The game is challenging, particularly on the Original and Expert difficulties, but can be finished in a short amount of time… even shorter if you become particularly skilled at the game and the nuances in it’s play.
– Real player with 19.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Beat 'em up Fighting Games.
In theory this collection should be a great experience. That’s what I thought when I booted it up. As soon as I tried to adjust the resolution, the game proceeded to crash, forced me to verify files and turn off my virus protection as a content lock occured.
Once I got it back up and running with controls set comfortably on my 360 pad, it worked well. Well enough for what feels like a lazy attempt to wrap three arcade roms into a stand-alone executable.
The Time and Score text overlay is really weird and doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the visuals. The options feel kind of barebones, there’s no intro videos or explanations or anything for any of the games, nothing. People coming into this without knowing about the games will have no idea that you can do super moves, like hitting punch and jump together in DD1 for the game-breaking backwards elbow. Or how DD2’s controls are odd. Or how you can flipping run in DD3 by double tapping move (the previous two games didn’t have it, so unless you did this by accident how would you know?).
– Real player with 8.1 hrs in game
Brawler
A classic-style beat em up made by a small team. Impressive! I enjoyed the three heroes and great variety of enemies. They looked realistic; almost like digitized actors. The music was catchy, and stages were fun. The cutscenes with the reporter, hero, and the ending were a nice touch. I felt it could use voices for landing hits, continue, difficulty setting, and maybe free lives, But well done on this indie game.
– Real player with 4.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Beat 'em up 2D Games.
Retro Classix: Bad Dudes
Classic arcade beat’em’up - fully ported with 2player capabilities, ninja punching nostalgia and the ability to feed in coins for lives without loosing all your pocket money… this time…
– Real player with 5.2 hrs in game
The real Double Dragon 3, as far as I’m concerned. This game is a ton of fun and legendarily cheesy. For my ninja game fix, I personally prefer this over the Shinobi series.
– Real player with 4.0 hrs in game
Retro Classix: Two Crude
Another great retro Beat ‘em up game to kill some time! Frustrating at times, but the action is superb.
Boo-yah!!
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
Reminds me of the 90s big time. I remember seeing the Sega Genesis version and I wanted to try this game out since I heard the Arcade version is superior but I can tell you the hit boxes on the enemies are rough and it can be completed in 30 minutes. Its fun at first but the bosses hit boxes are terrible.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle
i bought this mainly for online coop but overall i enjoyed my experience.
what i liked
-collection of great games.
-2 player online coop plays has no lag, feels smooth like local coop in my opinion.
-drop in/drop out feature lets players connect midgame, you don’t have stay in a lobby doing nothing while waiting for online player to join, you can play the game while waiting and don’t have to restart from level 1 when someone joins.
-options to adjust game difficulty and ### of lives/continues.
– Real player with 71.6 hrs in game
Rather than reviewing each of the games in this collection, this will be a brief overview of the bundle itself. I’ve only played few credits as of writing this, but it seems to be sufficient for a general feel of the collection. If my opinion changes I’ll modify this review as needed.
This is a collection of seven arcade beat ‘em ups: Final Fight, Captain Commando, The King of Dragons, Knights of the Round, Warriors of Fate, Armored Warriors, and Battle Circuit. The Japanese and international versions of each game are available. The inclusion of Armored Warriors and Battle Circuit is particularly nice as I believe this is the first official release of those games outside of arcades.
– Real player with 38.3 hrs in game
Streets of Rage
Streets of Rage is a 2 player beat-em-up game for Sega Genesis that was released in 1991 as a response to Capcom’s Final Fight and it’s SNES port, following the same formula of core gameplay: grappling and such. Final Fight on SNES was 1 player only, so it wasn’t hard to be cool despite having smaller less impressive sprites. SoR is known as Bare Knuckle in Japan and it was developed by Sega AM7 team in Sega of Japan. At least it’s probably same people who made Revenge of Shinobi, since it reuses some sounds from there. Released on 4 Megabit ROM, quite standard for it’s time.
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
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– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
The Misadventure Of Melon
the game of the good and kind of cute and it’s very enjoyable as you play and lots of good hidden secrets.
– Real player with 38.2 hrs in game
its a fun under rated adventure game!
– Real player with 9.2 hrs in game
Zeus Begins
You know, I grew up playing games like Golden Axe and the Streets of Rage series, so side-scrolling beat-em-ups games are kinda part of my gaming DNA. So imagine my overwhelming sense of nostalgia when I first booted up Zeus Begins and was greeted with a story told in pictures with text at the bottom of the screen, and then the opportunity to punch random bad peeps to a pulp!
I honestly had a blast playing this, it brought back so many memories, and there are some lovely little added extras (like every boss having it’s own unique little style, and some bullet-hell vertical-scrolling shooter stages between main levels that are reminiscent of games like 1942). And getting to play as an actual god, being able to kick some serious butt only adds to the value!
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
Zeus Begins isn’t a bad game. It just isn’t very good either. Kind of bare bones in the fighting department, which is the whole reason anyone would be playing this really. Some good ideas, like the shooter travel portions and the unique boss fights, but only barely implemented in a successful way. Solid starting point for future projects, but not worth the asking price.
Full Review: http://www.retrospekt.com.au/2019/08/review-zeus-begins/
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
Alien Storm
Alien Storm is a 2 player beat-em-up with some shooting mixed. It was originally released on Arcades in 1990, made by Shinobi Team part of Sega of Japan. In 1991 it got ported by Sega of Japan to Sega Mega Drive, where it got bonus modes, only up to 2 players instead of 3 too. And levels got remixed heavily. Not to the point where it’s a different game like ESWAT or Shadow Dancer, but certanly not exactly a same thing. 4 Megabit ROM.
And yea, arcade game had few different ports, without remixing levels, on SMS and some computers.
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
Alien Storm.. classic 16-bit side scrolling beat ‘em up. Oh, it has the ocassional rail-shooter sequence to break up the gameplay a bit too. Overall, I give this an “OK”, maybe 3/5. There are better brawlers in this collection e.g. Golden Axe and Streets of Rage series. At this point, most people will not be buying these games individually, but getting the collection packs during sales. That’s how I recommend you pick this one up too. In fact. Classics Pack 3, that this comes in, includes Golden Axe II. As part of a set it’s definitely decent, and certainly better in Local Co-op play with another person.
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game