Tag Archives: beat ’em up

Streets of Rage: Dawn of a Phenomenon

The Streets of Rage series is an all-time great in gaming, and you could practically hear the collective sigh of relief from the entire community when the brand new fourth installment, released at the tail end of April 2020, turned out to be good.

How do the older installments hold up today, though? Having not played them for a few years, I figured “while I wait for my Limited Run copy of Streets of Rage 4 to arrive” would be the perfect time to revisit them all. So that’s exactly what I’m doing.

We begin, of course, with the first game in the series, which first hit the streets in 1991 with releases for the Mega Drive, Master System and Game Gear. We’ll be concentrating on the 16-bit Mega Drive release for today, since that’s still the most readily available version for modern audiences. Let’s dive in.

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Ninja Combat: From a Distance

One cool thing that we’ve started to see in the last couple of console generations is publishers bringing formerly Japan-only releases to the West — not necessarily fully translated, but simply providing us access to games that were previously difficult or impractical to get hold of.

One such example is ADK Damashiia compilation of Neo Geo games that was released for PlayStation 2 back in 2008. It was ported to PlayStation 4 in 2015 for Japanese players — then, two years later, it got a surprise Western release via digital download, followed by a limited packaged release courtesy of Limited Run Games at the tail end of 2019.

ADK Damashii features five games to enjoy, all developed by former SNK partner Alpha Denshi Kabushiki Gaisha, also known as Alpha Denshi Corporation or, you guessed it, ADK. Let’s begin with a look at the rather literally titled Ninja Combat.

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Waifu Wednesday: Kurokishi

I may well be writing myself into a corner with this one, but after this week’s discussion of beat ’em ups on The MoeGamer Podcast, I spent some time with Denjin Makai. And I’m in love. Or possibly just lust.

Denjin Makai, for the unfamiliar, is a beat ’em up from Winky Soft and Banpresto that originally hit the Japanese arcades in 1994. It got a port to Super Famicom under the name Ghost Chaser Densei, but neither the arcade version nor this port ever came West in any capacity.

Which is a shame, because Denjin Makai is superb — as is its sequel Guardians, which likewise didn’t make it over here — and Kurokishi is super-hot. Let’s see what we can find out.

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Warriors Wednesday: Her Name is Rio – Warriors All-Stars #5

Arnice takes a back seat this time around as Rio decides to lead the party into battle.

We do our best to fulfil some of Kasumi’s unreasonable demands before moving on to face Laegrinna, star of Deception IV: Blood Ties. She does not want to go down without a rather sneaky fight, but surely the invincible Girl Power team of Rio, Arnice, Christophorous, Kasumi and Honoka will prevail, non?

Warriors All-Stars is, so far, doing a very good job of paying homage to its incredibly diverse source material through a combination of its playable characters, stages, music and overall game design. We’re in this for the long haul, I think!

Warriors Wednesday: Who’s That Girl – Warriors All-Stars #4

You know sometimes how you see someone and you know that you know them, but you just can’t remember their name? Yeah, that.

How could I forget dear old Honoka, though? She’s become quite a high-profile mascot for the Dead or Alive series in various crossover collaborations — besides Warriors All-Stars she also had a guest appearance in Senran Kagura — but her name just fell right on out of my head for some reason.

Oh well. At least I remember her name once she’s said it a few times… and once she’s joined Arnice’s brigade of brave warriors!

Warriors Wednesday: Kasumi’s Arrival – Warriors All-Stars #3

Now we’re past those pesky introductory missions, it’s time to get down to the real Warriors All-Stars.

This game doesn’t mess around either; it immediately provides you with a huge variety of things to do, including time-limited events, battles where you can recruit new playable characters to your cause, and story-critical Key Battles.

The whole thing actually unfolds rather like a cross between a traditional Warriors game and Hyrule Warriors’ excellent Adventure Mode, which is a recipe for a lot of fun over the long term so far as I’m concerned!

Warriors Wednesday: Starting Life in a New World – Warriors All-Stars #1

With Warriors Orochi finally down for the count, it’s time to start a new game!

Warriors All-Stars came out in 2017 and was originally intended as another Warriors Orochi game, but subsequently grew into its own standalone project that de-emphasised the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors characters in favour of… well, an all-star line-up drawn from a variety of different Koei Tecmo games.

And what a cast! We’ve got Sophie from Atelier Sophie; Arnice and Christophorus from Nights of Azure; Kasumi, Honoka and Marie Rose from Dead or Alive; and many more besides. With 15 possible endings ahead of us, we’ve got to start somewhere… so where better than with my favourite lesbian vampire (half-)demon, who seems a lot more cheerful than the last time we saw her?

Warriors Wednesday: Grand Finale – Warriors Orochi #60

We made it, everyone! After 60 weekly(ish) episodes, we finally made it all the way through Warriors Orochi from start to finish.

The funny thing is that there’s still actually a bunch more of this game I could continue to play if I wanted to, and I might just do that off-camera. There are harder difficulties to challenge, hidden items to discover, weapons to collect and even more characters to unlock.

But for now, this particular “season” of Warriors Wednesday is over. Next week, we’ll be kicking off a look at something a little different: Warriors All-Stars, which brings together characters from a variety of different Koei Tecmo games to save a fantasy world from destruction. Please look forward to it.

And if you’ve watched any or all of this series… a sincere thank you! I hope you enjoyed it. But our job here is far from over!

Glutton for punishment? Watch the whole thing here and admire my gradual progression of confidence in both making videos and editing them!

Warriors Wednesday: Just a Quickie – Warriors Orochi #58

It’s nice when things go your way for once, isn’t it?

In the first instance of that happening for quite some time in this Warriors Orochi playthrough, Cao Pi, Nene and Xiahou Dun all find it remarkably straightforward to struggle their way through Nan Zhong and deal another significant blow to Orochi’s forces.

It’s nice when you get a clear, quick, simple, decisive victory like this, as it’s good motivation to keep going! And there’s not long to go until we are well and truly done, once and for all! We’re coming for you, Orochi… again!

Warriors Wednesday: Daddy Dearest – Warriors Orochi #57

Cao Cao, father of Cao Pi and Warriors series fixture, has been conspicuously absent for much of Warriors Orochi.

Okay, we’ve sort of seen him a few times when Da Ji has been up to her illusory tricks at various junctures, but the man himself has been nowhere to be seen… and strongly implied to have died before the events of the game even got underway.

You can’t keep a good Cao down, however, as Cao Pi and friends discover while attempting to take Mount Tennou for themselves as their campaign against Orochi continues to escalate.