Beat 'em up
The gameplay tends to follow arcade genre conventions, such as being simple to learn but difficult to master, and the combat system tends to be more highly developed than other side-scrolling action games.
The genre then saw a period of high popularity between the release of Double Dragon in 1987, which defined the two-player cooperative mode and continuous belt scroll format central to classic beat 'em ups, and 1991's Street Fighter II, which drew gamers towards one-on-one fighting games.
Games such as Streets of Rage, Final Fight, Golden Axe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are other classics to emerge from this period.
Since the 2010s, traditional 2D beat 'em ups have seen a resurgence, with popular titles such as Dungeon Fighter Online, Dragon's Crown, Streets of Rage 4 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge.
A beat 'em up (also called a "brawler")[4][5] is a type of action game where the player character must fight a large number of enemies in unarmed combat or with melee weapons.
[12] At times, both one-on-one fighting games and scrolling beat 'em ups have influenced each other in terms of graphics and style and can appeal to fans of either genre.
[5] Some later beat 'em ups dispense with 2D-based scrolling levels, instead allowing the player to roam around larger 3D environments, though they retain the same simple-to-learn gameplay and control systems.
[11] Kung-Fu Master (known as Spartan X in Japan), designed by Takashi Nishiyama and released by Irem in 1984, laid the foundations for side-scrolling beat 'em ups.
[58] Nishiyama, who had previously created the side-scrolling shooter Moon Patrol (1982), combined a shoot 'em up gameplay rhythm with fighting elements when he designed Kung-Fu Master.
[11] Sega's My Hero (1985) adopted the gameplay format of Kung-Fu Master, but changing the more traditional martial arts setting to a more contemporary urban city environment with street gangs.
[18] Created by Yoshihisa Kishimoto, game was inspired by his own teenage high school years getting into daily fights, along with Bruce Lee's martial arts film Enter the Dragon.
[55][29] The Western adaptation Renegade (released the same year) added an underworld revenge plot that proved more popular with gamers than the principled combat sport of other martial arts games.
Compared to earlier side-scrollers, the environment was expanded to a scrolling arena-like space, while the combat system was more highly developed, with the player able to punch, kick, grab, charge, throw and stomp enemies.
[29] In 1987, the release of Double Dragon, designed as Technōs Japan's spiritual successor to Kunio-kun (Renegade),[18][55] ushered in a "golden age" for the beat 'em up genre that took it to new heights with its detailed set of martial arts attacks and its outstanding two-player cooperative gameplay.
[68] Double Dragon's success resulted in a flood of beat 'em ups in the late 1980s,[65] where acclaimed titles such as Golden Axe and Final Fight (both 1989) distinguished themselves from the others.
[70] Golden Axe was acclaimed for its visceral hack and slash action and cooperative mode and was influential through its selection of multiple protagonists with distinct fighting styles.
Another beat 'em up—River City Ransom (1989), named Street Gangs in Europe—featured role-playing game elements with which the player's character could be upgraded, using money stolen from defeated enemies.
[18] Its level design was praised for taking traditional beat 'em up settings and stringing them together in novel ways,[74] and its success led to it being ported to arcades.
Sega's Die Hard Arcade (1996) was the first beat 'em up to use texture-mapped 3D polygon graphics,[78] and it used a sophisticated move set likened to a fighting game.
[84] The same year, Italian studio NAPS team released Gekido: Urban Fighters for the PlayStation console, which uses a fast-paced beat 'em up system, with many bosses and a colorful design in terms of graphics.
[19][92] On the urban-themed side of the genre was the Yakuza series (2005 debut), which combined elaborate crime thriller plots and detailed interactive environments with street brawling action.
[93] Rockstar Games' The Warriors (based on the 1979 movie of the same name), released in 2005, featured large scale brawling in 3D environments interspersed with other activities such as chase sequences.
[94][95] Capcom's Viewtiful Joe (2003), directed by Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya, used cel-shaded graphics and innovative gameplay features (such as the protagonist's special powers) to "reinvigorate" its traditional 2D scrolling formula.
[99] Other traditional 2D scrolling beat 'em ups were released on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network including The Behemoth's Castle Crashers (2008), featuring cartoon graphics, quirky humor, and acclaimed cooperative gameplay,[100] The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile (2011), Double Dragon Neon (2012) and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game (2010).
