Press B 233: The Four Pillars of Arcade Beat'em Ups

Gentlemen, you know, back when I was single, it was all about double dragging these nuts. Today on.

Didn'T know, lead up, don't.

Lead up through the intro.

Don't drag and these nuts over the intro.

Just messy all around.

Yeah.

Very hot. Welcome.

Welcome everybody to another episode of Press me to cancel your favorite retro gaming podcast. And this week, I swear, for realsies, yes, we're talking retro games this week. We are going to do something special though. We're going to talk about, yes, double dragon deez nuts, but also many other arcade beat em ups.

We're going to Dungeon dragon deez nuts.

Oh boy, here we go. It's not going to end in my cabinet. Wow, your face is a Cadillac. Maybe a dinosaur. We are going to compile a short list of the best arcade beat em ups and to determine what are the four pillars of the genre. The four games, what you can point somebody to and say, hey, if you're brand new to the genre, go play these four games. They define the beat em up category in the arcades. That's what we're going to do. Some might call it a Mount Rushmore. Not us though, because that will be ripping off a few other podcasts we're going to call the four pillars of the beat em up genre because that's more unique. That's what we're going to do. But I'm not going to do this alone. No. I'm joined by two good friends, starting with Sinister. How you doing, Sinister?

I'm doing well. I'm glad to be back for my second week since I moved. And as you can see, the wall is progressing.

I see Optimus there.

Yeah, it's a nice TV tray.

Yeah, yeah, TV tray. Oh, and a laptop just leaning over here.

Did you lunar land on that TV tray?

I did.

Do they still make TV trays? Is that still a thing these days?

Yes, yes, it's still very much a thing. It's an American thing.

Not like mock chicken though. And also joined by Chard Monk. How you doing? Chardonnay.

Mechanically separated. Chardbunk is here. I'm ready to go. I'm okay. We celebrated a nice meal yesterday. It was Thanksgiving for all the Americans out there. And it was a good time. And I'm still. I didn't gain five pounds so far. So rocking. Rocking in the free world.

Nice.

Yeah.

I'm still confused why your Thanksgiving is on the wrong day of the year. But hey, who am I to say anything as Canadian. What do I know? There's Thanksgiving. Should have been in October. That's okay.

We ask that question all the time.

A man who loves Charlie can't be right all the time.

Swear to God. We could be doing the Pillars of the Circus gaming category, but it would be a really short episode because it'd just be.

Don't worry, we got plenty of clowns on this episode.

Yeah. All right, let's get started. So we're just going to kind of go around and toss out a name of an arcade beat them up and just give it its due a few minutes and we'll add to the list and then we'll compile a short list of, I don't know, 10 or so and then we'll determine the four pillars, the four best. Who wants to start with a pick?

I'll go first because mine's not going to make it. But it's the only reason I suggested this episode is so I could gush about this particular arcade game. Many moons ago, back when I was a young lad, there was a pizza joint down the street from me called Round Table Pizza that most west coasteners may know, or at least people that are close to the west coast may know about. And on many a birthday I would spend some time there. And on many a birthday they would have Alien versus Predator. The arcade game, which I believe. Is it a Capcom game? I think it might not be. It might be. It is a Capcom Capcom is gonna. Is. It may not be. Let's. Before let's check our facts. I mean it looks fairly Capcomish, but I don't believe it is actually Capcom itself. It just looks and resembles that of one of the many Capcom beat em ups that we will be discussing.

It is Capcom.

I was gonna say. I think. Yeah, I was gonna say. I think on the. Mr. Hotego gave us this one out of his DPS set.

So I freaking love this game. This game is absolutely one that helped define a lot of the beat em ups in my personal opinion. Being able to play as the Aliens or being able to play as the Predators and just going through massive hordes of aliens and doing the whole fight and beat them up genre deal. You got the, the super quick, you know, Samurai girl and then the beefy mechanical armed marine guy and then of course the two different variants of the Predators that you could play as this game was sick. I, I always was a big Predator and Aliens fan growing up and to be able to put me into the driver's seat of one of these two and have a side scrolling, side scrolling beat him up just, just answered all the questions and the game was good. It was fun. Of course it was a quarter muncher like most beat him up were at the time, but damn, was it not a good time. We had a lot of fun playing this one and I sank many a quarter into this game. But this is easily one of my top favorites, I believe of 1994 for the arcade Beat them ups here. So I, I would highly suggest that this one gets at least an honorable mention, if not a nice home in one of our four pillars.

So funny enough, a number of these that I'm going to talk about because my arcades had, I think, what would be considered the standard core, which we'll get to on the list. But I never saw this game in the arcade. There are others, there are others from the CPS set that I never saw in the arcade either. But I have found them via the Mr. Later. And this game is epically good. I mean it's, it's, it's. It really should be called Aliens and Humans versus Predator or sorry, Predators and Humans versus Aliens because it's basically it's always the aliens that you're fighting. So.

Right.

But no, this, and I'll mention one in a minute that I picked up thanks to the Mr. Are both absolutely epically good. Coin up. Beat em ups.

I feel like a lot of the, this particular arcade cabinet was kind of hidden amongst a lot of the, the final fights and the, the Simpsons is and the other stuff that we will talk about in the, in the very near future. And it probably won't get as much love as I think it, it requires or deserves because it is such a great game in my personal opinion. But again, I, I think it's, I think it gets knocked down by its lack of availability probably is the best way to put it because it, it was found in a lot of like hole in the wall places where you're like, oh my God, I went to Izzy's Pizza. Holy. We go there once a month. Oh look, it's stuck behind all these other arcades. We're gonna play the hell out of it. It's not.

Yeah.

It's not in your Dave and Busters and your whatever else out there. I could name all the ones that I grew up with, but they're not chain franchises.

Right. Right.

Yeah.

You get what I'm saying?

So I think Capcom at this period, like they had a string of years like the 90s was Capcom as golden age. Right. They had a brand new game or two every single year.

So Predator.

Yeah. Right. And one and two are like practically back to back. And I think you had Punisher, you had this and then you had calcs and dinosaurs that were on the same hardware. So you're guaranteed to have one of the three in your arcade. But then you quickly had Street Fighter 2 come around the same time or a couple years later and that kind of sweep the spots that would have gone to these kind of games. The fighting games kind of bumped away the beat up genre, I think, and that's why maybe it was a bit more rare. I did see this in arcades, but it was always one machine and it was. And you're right, it was always in the back, which is a shame because this game is. It plays really solid. All of Capcom's beat em ups play very solid, very well. They control it really well. The music is decent, but I like the sprite work in this. Right. The sprites look awesome.

Sprites are what really I think stands out in this game. I mean the differentiation on, on all the different. I mean you could have the same drone looking aliens coming at you, but they change up the sprites and it's not just a color palette swap, it's an actual design redo on a lot of things. And some of the, some of the things you fight are pretty scary looking, to be frankly honest with you. You know, they look great. So I, I like the big sprites, I like the feel and I like the sound and everything. This game just really, even hearing the music and stuff just really gets me pumped up to play any kind of.

Beat em up for me, I think, I mean, to Jake's point. Absolutely. I feel like Street Fighter 2 in particular and then obviously Mortal Kombat as well, you know, and then the other fighting games, you know, head to head fighting games took the all the spots, which meant that there was limited room. And I always saw. We'll get to these, of course, but I always saw Simpsons or X Men or, you know, those were kind of the standards that you always saw or tmnt. Right, right.

They're still almost, they almost are kind of the standards. I mean we've probably just announced at least three of our four pillars that we're going to talk about here. But yeah, you know, we'll deep down all those guys.

Oh, did somebody notice that Circus Charlie sucks?

Yeah, someone's smirking.

All right, wow.

All right, okay. So we have, we have AVP on our short list. I think that's a great one. I think that's a good one to call out for. Sure. I also liked the 90s we, of course, had the predators move the Predator movie, and I think we had the second one, I think, around this time.

Yeah.

But we didn't have a whole lot of lore that we do today for the Predator franchise or the Aliens franchise. A lot of this was in comics and novels and what stuff and whatnot later on. But to play a game which has such detailed sprites, all these different cool bosses, and then have different style of predators when we're probably only used to the one or two from the movies, I think that's pretty rad. So I think that's a great pick. All right, so AVP is on the short list.

And it's funny because it's. It's the. Just the two predators. It's like it's the young hunter and the old hunter. Like, that's. That's the delineation between the two is you got the one that's experienced and then the one that's a little bit faster, but there's not. They just look a little like their color palettes are a little bit different, and they've got some. A little bit of different weaponry. But, you know, you. It's your pick of the litter on either one of those two you want to play. At least the humans have, like, obviously different traits that you can work with, so.

Yeah, well, they have guns. Right. Which. The other one. The predators don't. Which is. Which is neat.

Yeah, they got the. They got the shoulder cannons. They use those things.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. All right, Sinister, how about you? What's another game we can add to our list?

Well, I'm also going to go off the beaten path, and this is a game that. That I actually found, not because of the mystery, but because of a. An arcade. That's one of those that you buy in to go into the arcade. And then each arcade game is, I don't know, a nickel or something like that. Right. So it was a game I discovered later, but Dungeons and Dragons, Shadows of Mystara, or. Yeah, and I think this one's. Personally, I love this one because I'm a D and D, you know, fanatic. But at the same time, it actually made it so that the classes felt like they were classes. It wasn't just, hey, it's a reskin so and so that, you know, is just beating people up. Again, it's no. They have different abilities or magic or this that the other. So it's a little bit, I guess, golden ax, but it's also a little bit like, well, obviously D and D, but it's it's also a little bit kind of Cadillacs and dinosaurs. It's like it. It kind of goes over, you know, a lot of those different genres. But no, I love, I love. And if you don't have shadows, Miss Shadow of Mystara available to play, you could always throw up Tower of Doom as well.

So I think I found mystara. I thought I was looking for those. There should be. It's probably just deeper on the list.

Yeah, I found it here. So the two. Difference between the two. I'm glad you picked this one because this is one of my favorite arcade games growing up. You know, I occasionally. At this age I played D and D a couple times, but I never had a chance to really get into it. But I was familiar enough with the character classes and the races. So when you spin up this game or in the arcades, it was fun to play. I remember playing Tower of Doom on emulator quite a bit back in the day and I remember getting all the way to this red Dragon boss, which I think was the last boss probably. It didn't matter how many is on main. So I don't know how many quarters I threw at it, but I could not beat that boss. It was impossible. But the sequel game feels like a much better game. Much more smoother gameplay, there's more items and spells. I want to say there's more character classes to pick from. So it just. It's just an all around great game. The music is really solid and I'm a big fan of beat em ups where you don't get stun locked. Right?

Yeah.

Because when you're playing some beat em up games like Golden Axe or something, for example, you're like, yeah. And you're stuck. I hate that in this. I don't have that issue in this game. There's always some way you can maneuver on the enemies. You can drop a spell if you need to or you can do your jump attack. It's pretty responsive. Controls are really sweet in this game and I think it's a really great one. Plus there's like multiple paths. Right. All these different bosses. It's a wild game.

This is one I didn't play until I had my retro arch. So this was this like. Like Sinistar was with the last one until I actually found a retro arch that played this. I never saw this in the arcades and I'm super sad because this game is incredibly fun to play and very unique and it's. It's a blast. I don't remember how many? I used a lot of quarters playing this on Retroarch just to beat the final boss. It was. You had like. I had to hit that select button quite a bit to keep this game going. But I love the different classes. I love the magic spells you pick up when you're running around. This is. This is a really fun arcade game.

Yeah, let's. I mean I think every single game on this list is going to be a quarter sucker. Every single one. I mean that.

Yeah.

A.

That was what our gate games were. But I feel like the coin up beat em ups was like to excess.

Right, Right. Yeah.

Although it wasn't the quick time events of like you know, dungeon or dragon lair, but.

Right.

Yeah.

But they're always hard. Arcade games are hard like you're saying. Right. They've always been that way. Some are more fair than others. And I do think Dungeons and Dragons was more fair to the player's time than some of the other beat em ups that we're talking about today. I felt I wasn't. I went further on a single quarter in this game than I have in any other beat em up that we would talk about today.

It hotego who does a bunch of cores for the Mr. I think these are out of beta, which means they're public access. Both of the games that we've talked about so far I think are public access and they're fantastic on the Mr. Yeah.

There's also a package release I think on Steam. I want to say it was a number of years ago but. And I heard that was done fairly well. This is.

It has these games franchise.

I always wondered why we didn't get another one. Like why is there not a third one that is definitely popular enough.

Right. All right. How about you? What are you gonna. What are you gonna name?

Yeah, what do you got, Jake?

So I have a few that I want to make sure I bring up. So I'm gonna start with one and I want to. I want to bounce off you guys and see if it counts. And it's Kung Fu Master. Are you guys familiar with Kung Fu Master?

Yes, I am not. So it might be out of my age group.

So it came out in. I want to say it was 86 or 85, something like that. Yeah. So I want to talk about this one because when you look at Wikipedia, Wikipedia considers this to be the origin of the beat em up genre. And I don't know if it counts or not. So I want to check with you guys. This is the one you might have played the nes Version where you're basically like a Shaolin monk entering a temple. And there's multiple levels of this temple. And it's the game where when you walk in, it's that. That groovy three loop beat. Guys run at. Run at you and you just punch them and they die instantly. And if you. If they manage to touch you, they hug you. It's the hugging simulator.

Yeah.

Wolf would probably have a laugh at this game. So it's definitely a hugging simulator. And yeah, it's. It's a beat em up because you're constantly taking down multiple enemies. There's a good variety. Knife throwers, boomerang throwers. There's a mage boss, for example. The stages do scroll like beat em up should. But there isn't that 3D plane of movement that we're. That we're used to seeing in other beat em up games. But I still think this one counts as a beat em up. What do you think?

I'm just gonna throw out that if this, if this one counts, Altered Beast.

Counts, which we did argue that it may not, but it's more of an alter beast than a. Than a actually like a final fight or a double dragon or something like that.

Like, I'm willing to give on it and say it is, but I'm also then gonna say an Altered Beast belongs on this list.

Okay.

And I'm not. I'm not willing to give on it. So you, you got a 5050 ruling on this one. And whatever your decision is, I guess will be the decision that turns the tides on it.

No, I'm asking. I'm only saying as a beat em up because wiki says so. Okay, Go against the wiki. But yeah, I'm. My thing I'm hung up on is the 3D plane of movement. It's not there. Right. It's just that 2D plane and there's no combos. You have. You have two attacks, which is great, but enemies die in like one hit. Right? It's. It's. It's a. You can see how this leads to the beat up genre, but I don't know if it counts on its own. And I don't want to. I don't want to put Al Beast on this list. So I'm willing to keep it off if that's the case. Because I think there has to be a line somewhere on the genre. So if this is it, then I can't.

I can't let this one in. I can't. It. It doesn't have the. Your. Your standard like you said, the 3D plane of movement, more than one player on the screen, up to two to four, you know, at the same time doing the same thing. Fighting Character sauces. Yeah, Character select screen. This is just more like Ultra Beast. It's more side scrolling. Hack and slash I guess you could call it. Even though there's not a lot of slashing or hacking.

Okay. Oh, it works. So it's not on the list.

Okay, so what else? What else you got?

You want me to do another one? Yes, I'll do one more. That's. I think it's really important to talk about. If Kung Fu Master cannot be called the first beat em up, then it's gotta be Renegade. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Renegade.

Yeah, I can go with Renegade.

This is. You people probably know the follow up game which is Double Dragon. It was the same creator and it's actually got very similar controls, although maybe it's not as polished or refined as Double Dragon, which I guess is saying something for those who play Double Dragon. But Renegade was probably the first beat em up game. And this one's interesting for a few reasons. One, so it has three buttons. You have a jump, but then the attacks are split into attacking left button and attack right button. And that's the same control scheme that Double Dragon uses. And I feel like a lot of people don't remember that because they're probably more used to playing the Master system version of Double Dragon or the NES version where we don't have that. When we look at Renegade, it has that same attack style. Left attack, right attack. And that was very confusing to me. What I find really neat though is that in Japan this was a Kunio Ko game. For those who don't know that name, that's the series that basically became River City Ransom in the States. This is the very first one in Japan. It looks close to that style. You can see the bones of it. But when they brought it over to the US they didn't think that theme would fly. So they re themed it after the warriors. Which is a great film for those.

Sure, yeah.

But so if you look at the warriors again much later. Yeah, there's a PS2 game I want to say, which also was fantastic. So they, they took the influence of the warriors with the graffiti and the dark leather and jackets and all kind of stuff. They re raced a couple of the characters to fit the American audience. But if you play the Japanese version, it's much more colorful and it's definitely Kunikon character. Kuniko characters, although much taller. So I think that's neat that this is the first one of that franchise. That's a huge franchise in Japan. Right?

Yep. But. And I would doubt, I would definitely argue that this, this definitely meets the beat em up standard. And, and if this is an earlier version, like you said, the last one, Kug Faster, was what, 86 2. So this is 86 as well. This would probably be the grandfather of all beat em ups.

Yeah. And you have the 3D plane of movement. You have multiple different enemies coming at you. You have combos in this one, much like you see in beat em up games. There's hugging because that's a standard weapons, all that kind of great stuff. The only thing different about this game is it's hard as hell and it's unfair. Unfairly hard. Maybe it's before they kind of realized what the. What the degree of difficulty should be for these kind of games.

Right.

But you enter your quarter, you have one life and a time limit. And if you die, that's it. You start over.

It's free.

It's pretty punished.

He dies.

Yeah, he dies. He dies. So it's an interesting piece of history. The sprites, I think, look great even today.

Oh yeah.

Hard as hard as.

So now this is clean.

I go with this one. This is. And we're going to talk about its sequel as well. At least it's American sequel for sure. So.

Yeah, well, probably a few of us had carbon copy clones that we'll see later on.

Yeah.

Renegade. I can't speak renegade. All right, Shard, you're up next. Let's get another pick in the list.

Okay, well, I'm gonna go ahead and take one that we're all probably dying to talk about. Cinnastar mentioned it in one of our many discussions here a few minutes ago. This was another one that was at another actual Izzy's Pizza that I frequented many times in my childhood. Throwing quarter after quarter into a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The arcade game. Yep, the original. This game has more money. I probably put all the kids through college that helped make this game from all of the money that I threw into this game. I absolutely adore this Beat Em Up. This is one of my all time favorite beat em ups, right next to Alien versus Predator. You can't go wrong with this. This game was the one of the first aspects of me playing a beat em up and playing with my four friends, because you can actually control four players at one time. And it's one of my fondest memories in any Arcade situation is playing Ninja Turtles. The sprite work in this game is spectacular. It's freaking Ninja Turtles. You can't go wrong with them. It's just a lot of fun playing Donatello all the time and just fighting the Foot Clan and all the different hazards that around you. Falling into manhole covers or knocking over the height, knocking off the hydrant plates and helping yourself out, fighting over the pizza. Who's gonna get the pizza? Oh, fuck, I stepped on the pizza. It's my fault. I took it. You know, it's just fun. It's fun playing it. And I think it spawned a lot of other great beat em ups, including, you know, Ninja Turtles in Time and so on and so forth. They originally got the Manhattan Project for the Nintendo off of this. There's just a lot of really good things that came out of Ninja Turtles. And I. I have to put this. This has to be one of the.

Four pillars, including a very, A very modern sequel, Shredder's Revenge, which is fantastic, right?

That all four of us. Yes, we did.

Y. Yeah.

This is one of those games. When I. When I got my Mr. When I originally got my Mr. This wasn't available at the time. And this is one of the ones I had in my list of games. I would love to have come to the Mr. At some point. And eventually it did. And I could be happier to play it on an arcade machine like this. You're right. Chart. This is. The graphics are beautiful. The music, the opening of the arcade machine, the intro music from the cartoon show is there. It just. It looks so great. The personality and charm is so good. I love the home console ports of this, but the arcade is so much, so much better.

Well, I always wanted the home console ports to be even remotely close to this. And even when they did Hyperstone Heist for the Genesis and they did the Super Nintendo stuff, it still was just. It just. Something fell short on this particular. And I think it's the animation. It just didn't. Didn't have that same smooth feeling that you get out of playing this.

Well, there also is the aspect. And this will be. This will be a theme that will come up again and again. But there's also the aspect of four people standing at an arcade machine, you know, oh, I've got. I got to put in my quarter. I got to, you know, I got to continue. I got to put in my quarter.

You know, and like, help keep your friends in by throwing your quarter in so that they can stay. Keep going while they're looking for Theirs so, you know, you could keep on playing.

Yeah, this is a great one. Those epically wide arcades that had the four player, you know, posts and.

Yeah, Hell yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Is this the one that had special moves if you did a jump and attack at the same time and it would use up some of your life?

I think so.

I think this is the one. Yeah. I think this games. Yeah.

Yep. This is definitely one of those. Yep.

Yeah. And it just. Yeah. Konami is definitely one of the big players when it comes to beat em ups and this is a great one. I felt much like some like D and D if I put a quarter in tmt, I didn't feel like I was wasting money.

Yeah.

I'd at least get five minutes of gameplay if not more on this game. Yeah. It was possible to actually get deep on one quarter.

Yeah.

Pretty generous with the lives. Pretty generous with one ups. Still a hard game. They all are. But I felt this is more fair than the other ones. I, I love this game.

This was the game that made me. Made every final boss fight in a level. I wanted them to flash every single time.

Yep.

Because that way I know they're be. They're getting beat up. You know, I. When you, when you start seeing faster.

Faster.

Yeah, yeah. The faster the flashing. That was one of those things where I was like, yeah, you just, you get hyped as soon as they start flashing. You're like, we're getting them, we're getting them. So it's, it's a, it's a cool. This is a cool feeling. I got a lot of nostalgia from that one.

All right, good pick, sister. Let's have another.

All right. I'm going with one that cannot be skipped. It's got to be on this list. I don't know if it'll make the four pillars, but it's got to be on this list. Golden Ax.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Okay.

I would even argue it'd be on one of the four pillars.

Yeah. I mean, A, you got to pick your class. B, every single class had magic ability. C, the magic ability was based on how many potions you'd collected.

Yes.

You got to ride. You got to ride, you know, mounts. You, you know, I mean, I, I just, for, for some reason it is just ingrained in my head that initial like scene where the guy is beating the person over the head with the ha. The haft of the axe. It's just, I mean it's, it's all there. So. And there was nothing like when one of the players that's playing the game hits their magic button and everything pauses and it just starts flashing and you know. Yeah, yeah.

I was playing this before the episode when we went live and I made it the second stage. In the opening of second stage or the second area, a bunch of the villager people come running and screaming away from the boss. And that's really cinematic for what it did for a game in the arcade. It felt really good. I feel like a lot of this influenced Dungeons and Dragons for Capcom when they made their beat Them up years later.

Oh, sure.

It feels like a similar style in the people running the villagers, you're saving people. It's really interesting. The stages are really unique. The one stage you're on the back of a turtle in a village, for example. I love those freaking mounts. And they're different. You have the bird lizard thing with the tail attack with the tail.

One that breathes fire breather.

Yep.

Yeah, yeah. And then one that shoots a fucking fireball. But the highlight of this one is between the levels, the imps show up. One gives you meat, one gives you potions.

Yeah, yeah. It's just a beat. The imp fest.

Yeah.

And it just came up on the screen. I know it's going to be out of sync, but the. The select character screen with the skeleton with its hands, like it's. It's just. It's burned into the brain, you know?

Y. I mean the death Death Adder is by far one of the greatest in bosses on beat em ups throughout the world. I, yeah, absolutely love this game. And they. And when they ported it over to like the Sega Genesis, my friend and I would play the ever loving out of this and Golden Axe too. This was one of my favorite Sega beat Them up ports that came over from the arcade. So I've played this game quite a bit growing up.

Yep.

Yeah, there's a. There's a. Like a number of arcade titles SEGA made that were just great on the Genesis when if you were an early adopter of the Genesis, you had this, you had altered beast, you had forgotten worlds. And they all felt close enough to the arcades where it's like bragging rights. Like, this is why you got a Genesis for these titles, right? Yeah. Golden Axe is a really fun one. I do like. I agree with you. I like the magic. I especially like it if you. You hang on and don't use up your thing. You get to level eight. Like, I know the, the lady, the. The Valkyrie. When she's at level 8, a giant dragon head comes on the screen and just Roast everybody. Yeah, that's cool as hell. I don't know who you're asking. That's awesome.

The magic was cinematic. It was awesome.

You know, that's why you'd level up the magic, just so you can see how cool the attack was. And you just. That's probably a reason I hoard all my elixirs and stuff in all my other games play because I'm just like, I can't use my magic yet. We can't use it yet.

Yeah, I gotta get to magic level. Whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is. This is great with the giant. The giants with their huge stone hammer mallets.

Yeah, yeah.

This. This game was intense and insane. I love this game. It's a great pick.

Okay, I. I will say the one issue I have with this one is that you do get stun locked in this one. Oh, I never quite figured a way around that one. That one feels kind of frustrating, so. Yeah, well. But Ninja Turtles, you could wiggle the joystick to get out of it. I don't think there was escaping in this one, sir. I don't know.

Tis fair.

All right, all right.

What say you?

All right. I got another one that I think we have to call out for historical reasons and that is Die Hard Arcade, or in Japan it was known as Dynamite Deca.

Yeah.

What do you mean, yeah? What is.

This is. This was a huge one. I love this game. I played this game quite a bit. This felt like the end of arcade beat em ups to me as I aged. Like this was the last good arcade beat em up that I played back when. If you guys know what QSR is, have you guys heard of what the QSR places? It's a laser tag place. It was a really popular laser tag place in Sacramento where I grew up and they had all nighters. So you would come in at like 6pm and literally stay there until 6am in the morning. And you would do. Cues are. So you would laser tag. And then in between each laser tag, you would go into the arcade and you'd play all these. And one of these games was there and my friend and I played the hell out of this one. This one in Time Crisis, which is not a beam up. So it doesn't. It doesn't happen. But we played a lot of arcade games in that particular instance. Then they call your number, you get in line, you go play some laser tag and then you come back. A lot of cool times with Die Hard. So I. This is one that I fondly remember towards the end of My arcade career.

So I don't remember this one in the arcade. And I'm looking at it and it's. It's definitely a beat em up. It's definitely a coin up beat em up. But it's also like Virtua Fighter.

Exactly, right.

Yeah. Well, it's the 3D. It's 3D polygons that are shaded and it was the first 3D polygon. First 3D shaded polygon beat em up. It might even be the only one in arcades. But it was definitely unique and I think it stepped ahead. But you're not wrong when you think, when you think of this. Yeah. I also think of. This is the end of the genre. After this it was home consoles and I never saw a beat em up in the arcade since. At least not until recently did this.

One make it to like SEGA Saturn or anything like that. Or Dreamcast or something like that.

Dreamcast for sure. I don't know about the Saturn. It's interesting because like this is one of those games where I feel the license probably hurts it when it comes to home ports. But there is a sequel to it on home consoles, dynamite deca 2. Which if anybody is into emulation, you got to play that one because instead of the Die Hard theme, they kind of go all in on supernatural stuff like Chinese ghosts with the. The paper on the front face and zombies. It's. It's bizarre. But this, this one I wanted to highlight because the weapons, when you get the weapons in this game are epic. Right? You pick up a giant rocket launcher.

At a four barrel rocket launcher. Yeah, yeah.

And you fire it and the screen shakes. The whole thing blows up. That's funny as hell. I like their story, even if the story is stupid. But you have the. Give the. The villain behind a desk talking on the phone asking about the bomb. And then the. I guess the. The mayor's daughter or something is hiding inside of the cabinet and pans to her. The story is ultra cheesy. The effects are cheesy, but it's. It's a fun one to play. Do you guys remember the quick time events in this one?

Yeah, I was just gonna say. Yeah. Where he's. Where you're running through and you can either avoid a fight with somebody if you do the quick time at the right time, you'll sucker punch somebody running through an alleyway or hallway and. And then you would progress into the next thing or if you messed it up, then you would have to, you know, fight whoever. I love the Nakatomi Plaza logo. On the floor there.

I love. I love that. This guy that I'm watching just. Just took a rocket launcher directly in the face and lost like 5% of his health.

Yep. Well, it's because of the helmet. He's wearing the helmet protection from RPGs.

Where. Where can I buy one?

Well, I mean, it's not like beat em ups are known for their realism. Right. When we're talking about, you know, Ninja Turtles are swinging swords around, and it's a low impact.

It Low impact RB grenade.

He even did a little ass shake there. I don't know if you saw that. There was a little ass shake there.

It's. That game's got some really good animation, and it was a lot of fun playing, though. And I. I've. I could throw Die Hard on this list. That's. That's a great. That's a great pick.

Okay.

Yeah, it looks legit to me because to me, it's.

It's the end. Like, Renegade would be considered the beginning. This is kind of the end of the era of the beat em ups.

Yeah. All right, looping back around, Jared, let's hear another one.

I'm surprised nobody brought this one up yet, but I'm going to steal it from all of y'all. Everybody's played this game on this deus. I'm sure of it. You guys have gotten your friends together and have all selected whether you're going to play any one of Matt Groening's fantastically animated comedic characters. Arguing if you're going to play as Bart, or you're going to play as Marge with her vacuum cleaner, or you're just gonna fist to fist with Homer and beat the out of things as you chase Smithers. Is it Smithers? It's animated like Smithers, but it's more like the classic Smithers. You're right. I'm picking the Simpsons arcade game, which, by the way, name drop Shrum. And I, when I went and visited him, he. He and I played this game, and he and I and his girlfriend beat the hell out of it and won it that night. So.

Oh, nice.

Love this game. Another one you get together and play in parties. You get your friends together, put your coins up on the table, and you tell everybody to go find something else to do because we are hoarding this game until we beat it. And sure couple, you know, 50, $60,000 later, you're. You're fighting Smithers, dropping bombs on your head, and it is as cheap as it could possibly be. You're just feeding the goddamn Thing quarters throughout the entire end. Boss fight. One of the hardest boss fights out there. But also some really cool mini games where you can blow up the balloons and you know, you're constantly chasing Maggie and the whole nine yards. This, this game. Hilarity ensues. I love this game. Big fan of the Simpson beat em up arcade game.

Yeah. Oh, this game once again one of those where you. You all hoard around the four player posts and yeah, you're dumping quarters. Everybody's, you know, one person's continuing while the other three are fighting. You know, I mean it's just. Yeah. And. And the smooth animations, good controls. Yeah, it's. It plays like a Simpsons game. It's got that silliness factor to it. Yeah, it's a great game for sure.

Yeah. I'm glad you chose this one chart because it would have been what I take this is one of the few beat em ups I've beaten all the way through on one credit. I was one credit cleared this game. It took me a while to figure it out. I did it because I was. I was speedrunning it for a charity stream years and years ago. Yeah. I found this one really neat though because if you play it on a mame today for those who kind of dived into maim, you'll notice that there's definitely. There's different versions of games like different versions of the ROMs and there's three or four different versions of the Simpsons and some of the earlier versions have different items in the game. Some of the earlier versions of it have nuclear bombs which I guess they found inappropriate and they took out. So I found that was interesting. I love the sprites in this one as well. The animation is top notch. Like when we say that you know, TMNT had personality in the sprite work. This is just the same thing. It. It feels like you're playing the cartoon.

Yep.

And when you look at the home console games you're playing at the time, nothing compared graphic wise to me anyway than playing a cartoon like the Simpsons on in the arcade. Some of the color choices on like Bart's color choices. Weird. I wasn't a fan of how character was tied to the spot on the. The joystick on the machine you're playing on. So when you're playing home console you're usually Marge because she was always on the left.

Oh yeah.

In the arcade you got the pick. It was kind of neat. When you're playing multiplayer, there's team of attacks like Bart and Lisa would do a somersault together, which is really rad.

Yep.

Playing as Homer is freaking hilarious. It just. Yeah. What a great one. Very unique bosses, very unique stages. There's one where you, you're, you're basically asleep. So you're in the afterlife and in the afterlife you're fighting like musical instruments and letters and deviled barts. This game has so much charm. The music is great. I'm with you on the minigames are really awesome. Yeah. What a great package of a game. I'm glad you chose this one.

Yeah.

I think for sure it's shortlisted.

I'd almost go on. I'm going out there. I'm going on the limb to say that this is probably the best Simpsons video game that was ever created.

I liked Hit and Roll.

Hit Run's good, but I'm gonna argue that this is better than Hit and Run. And, and you can come at me, come to the discord at me, tell me how wrong I am. But I truly believe that this is the finest Simpsons game that was ever made.

Yeah, it's. I, I think I'm with you on that one. I like Hit and Run as well. But to be fair, I mean low bar is low with Simpson games. Right. There's a lot of bad ones There is on the home console, but when it comes to the arcade, this is pretty sweet though. Yeah. All right.

Yeah, I would rather play it. When I bought Bart versus the Space Mutants, I was under the impression it was going to be like the arcade game. How wrong was I? Gentlemen, how wrong was I?

That game is so bad. So bad. Okay, center, let's hear another one.

Well, okay, like Charge said, I gotta take this one. I'm surprised it hasn't been picked yet, but I'm gonna pick it. And that's going to be Mr. Mike Hagar and Final Fight.

Let's go.

Let's go.

If I ever played on Super Nintendo, was Final Fight all right? I didn't. I mean, I don't know until way later.

I don't know that this is, you know, daddy of which probably goes to Renegade slash Double Dragon. But I played this more than I played Double Dragon for sure. And honestly, I mean it has the simplest story ever. Fridging a girlfriend. You have to go get her. But I don't know, there's something to like a mayor Mike Haggar who's a muscle bound wrestler that does spinning attacks with his arms wide out. Right? Yeah. This, this game, honestly, I don't know. It seemed like it was in every arcade as well that I went To. So when.

When you're teaming up with your daughter's boyfriend to go rescue her, it's got to be a good time. Right?

Right.

This is the one that had. Who was the character? So it was.

It was Guy.

Mayor Hager. He's Mayor of metricity.

Yeah. And Guy. Yeah.

Is it French Quebecer? I assume it's. Gee. The only. The only Guy I know is Guy Prime. Everybody else I know is Prime.

And then. And then, honestly, third character that I can't remember.

Yeah. And Duder.

Cody. Cody.

Cody, that's right. Cody's boyfriend. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love.

I always love to.

Okay, sorry, really quick. I love that it has an indicator for when an enemy has been defeated. Like, it actually puts an X on their little, like, health bar. I love that. Yeah, Yeah.

I like how every enemy has a name too. Right. Some of them are not. Are interesting. So I love that. Tons of enemies on this. On this screen at once. It's definitely hectic. It's definitely the opening. It's Capcom's. I think this came before punisher in Alien vs. Predator and whatnot. And that would make sense, but this kind of sets the stage of what they would do later, which is. You got to respect that one. I was always more as a kid, more of a Streets of Rage person.

Same.

But, I mean, that was never in arcades, Right. As far as I know, Final Fight was definitely in the arcades first. And I know when they brought it to home ports, there were some issues with, like, the sprites being so large they could only have two characters. I think there was, like, a blockbuster exclusive version with Guy or Guy replacing Cody to get around that.

Yeah.

But it's an interesting one. I also really like how this is the same world as Street Fighter. Metro City exists in the Street Fighter universe. So when we have Street Fighter 6 coming out last year, that actually takes place in Metro City, which is Mayor Mike Hager. I think he's no longer mayor, but he's still in that world. And Cody and Guy both are characters that show up in later Street Fighter games. Cody was in Street Fighter 3. Guy, I think, is in the story mode for a few games. And Mike Hagger also had. It was in the. Was it Power Wrestling? There's a wrestling fighting game that he was in as well. So I like how Capcom has this, like, universe with multiple games in it, but this beat him up as being part of. Is kind of cool.

Yeah.

Yeah. I like this one a lot.

I mean, you look at the sprite work in this one. And you can definitely see that there's some marriage between Streets of Rage and this. I was also a huge Streets Rage kid growing up because Jake and I are both the SEGA people of the cast, and I played the heck out of him. But then when I went back and I played. Since, you know, you play the first, right, you played Streets Reg first because you didn't have access to Final Fight on your home console. And then you go play the arcade game of Final Fight and you're like, hey, some of these streets are rage bad guys. Look just like street bad guys from Final Fight, but you think the Final Fight stole it from them, not realizing the Final Fight was first. So you're like, you're barking up the wrong tree a little bit on some of these. Some of these sprites artwork because you're like, I'm gonna rage against the streets here. These sprites, the streets. That's why we're raging, because they totally stole sprites from Final Fight to make Streets of Rage.

Right.

I have to point out we actually did an episode on a game called. It's a fan game called Final Fight Ellenus Ultimate, I think it's what it was called. But it's a fan game that's basically a recreation of Final Fight, but with dozens and dozens of characters like Chung Lee and. And everybody's here. It's a really good time. The story is a bit risque in parts because, again, it's a fan game, so you know that's going to happen. But the gameplay is spot on to Final Fight. Yeah, it's definitely fan fiction, but there's a ton of characters. So if you're. If you're into Final Fight and you want something new to try Final Fight lns Ultimate, you can find copies of it. I think it's. It's. There's an English version now, if I. If I remember right, I think it was Brazilian originally, but there's definitely an English translation of it and I played it. We did an audio episode of this with. I think it was Dave actually from Tadpog way back when. So definitely one to check out.

Yeah, that was before Sinister in my time. You know, if you want to talk about really good beat em ups that you can play nowadays, I would go and talk. We need to do an episode on, like, Streets of Rage 4 because that game is freaking epic. So. Yeah, check that one out on Steam.

Yeah.

So who's.

Whose turn is that? Minor S. You're up.

It's you.

All right, then I'm going to go with X Men. Another Konami fighter.

Another.

Beat him up from Konami. How good is this one? Like, this is a great one.

Well, this is. And how good is it that everybody fights over Cyclops?

I did not.

Nightcrawler was in this one.

I think I liked using this one. I. I've always been a big Gambit fan, but Gambit wasn't in this because this was pre. Gambit's existence into the. Into the gaming systems. So Dazzler was the closest thing I could get to Gambit always went with Dazzler.

I always went for that beam weapon, man. That beam weapon.

Exploding kinetics. Come on, man. No one could stop the Blob. This one's a great game. Oh, the voice.

Colossus.

Yeah. Wolverine had the gigantic wings coming off his head.

He did. And he was also very, very, very hairy.

Yeah, he's very Canadian in this one. Very, very accurate portrayal. This was the one that was based on the canceled Fox cartoon. For those who don't know that one, go look it up on YouTube. There was a pilot for an X Men cartoon before the one we all know and love in X Men 97. There was one before that that was. That was canceled. And the theme from that is pretty awesome. But that's what the sprites here or the characters here, they look like that one. And it's very interesting. So you have the full face covering, the full face mask for Cyclops, for example. Storm has that unique costume design you don't see in the later cartoon. But yeah, as somebody who watched the cartoon as a kid, this is the next best thing. And, yeah, different bosses every stage. The environments are really awesome. I love that you get the use of mutant powers. Only twice, though. I think it was right. It's limited, but it's really cool. Yeah. What do I want? This one is also. If I ever win the lottery and I can afford to get one and I can make room for it, I want that huge honkin. I think it was two or three monitor arcade cabinet. It was massive.

It was three monitors and it was.

Was it six players? I think it might have been. Maybe it was only four, but it was. It was only four machine.

I think it was only four, but.

It was still three monitors.

Yeah, but it's still enormous. Yeah. This game is one of the bigger arcade games that you can. You can play and see right down to like the slightest detail on the screen with how big those monitors were. This. This got a lot of play. I. We played the hell out of this game because at the time we were of course watching the cartoon and I was collecting the comic cards and the books and stuff. It's very accurate to the 1980, 1970s X Men characters. So all the. All the costumes are extremely accurate to what they were doing. I love how Storm has a staff. She doesn't have a staff anymore, but she has a staff in this particular model.

That's because the more. Right.

Yeah. Wolverine has wings on everything.

Oh yeah.

He's just carrying the wings. This. This game was just. We just played the hell out of it. I love fighting the Sentinels. I loved the boss fights and fighting all the different. God, I can't remember Magneto's. I think it's the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was the team that he was playing against with Pyro and Blob and. And Toad and all those guys. There were some really cool boss fights. Really excellent sprites in this. Very cool. And I remember when I first saw Cyclops without the full cowl and he had his hair out on. On the original animated series and I was like, oh, he looks way cooler than he does. He doesn't look like he's wearing a scuba suit. Cyclops in his wetsuit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sam.

No great pick. This is a. This is an excellent.

Agreed. Agreed.

Excellent game. This is going to be hard to me. We got left pillars out of this. Yeah.

We gotta let shortlist. Is there anything else? Do you have another pick sends star or do you think there's. We've got enough add Double Dragon.

We gotta. We talked about it. We gotta throw. Well, we gotta throw at least Double Dragon on.

There's at least one or two more.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs belongs on there.

I'd argue Commando Captain Commando needs to be on there as well.

Yeah, we can. We can do. We can do kind of a lightning round here. Cadillacs or Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is. I don't think it's the greatest Beat em Up but I think it's the greatest like name for a Beat em up and like a mismatch of like. What the is this?

It was a TV show, wasn't it? Wasn't it? Our animated show at some time wasn't.

A comic as well. It was a. It was a force.

Yeah, I think it was a comic before it was a show. Yeah, I mean Knights of the Round, that's another one that we could put lightning around on there. We don't have to show any clips to talk about that one in depth but Lights of the Round is a great beat Em up.

I forgot about that one. Okay.

And Captain Commando I think definitely needs to be in there. Captain Commando is the one with the extremely weird team of superheroes. One Captain Commando obviously looks like a wish.com Captain America, but he shoots flames out of his arms. And then you've got Mac the Knife, which is some slender pink dude with a bandana that spins around with his knives. You've got the baby that controls the giant mech body and then the ninja, the shinobi that ran around with them. So very unique group of characters. And I think that's, that's kind of why I was picking that this one played this one a lot of the skating rink growing up.

Okay.

But it's got some really weird, like it's a weird team and I'm sure it's a comic or TV or something, but I don't know anything outside of just being your regular Capcom game of very unique individuals teaming up to fight evil and crime everywhere they go. So. But yeah, I played this. I know Captain, Captain Commando characters show up in, in quite a few of the Capcom beat em ups. And you know, it's, it's, it's a good run. So I again don't think it's one of the four pillars, but definitely think it needs to be at least brought to some attention. So people go, huh? I should go and find that and play it on my main and check it out.

Yeah, yeah. Double Dragon is one. You're right. We should mention too, because like we said earlier, we had Renegade and the creator, Renegade, his next game was Double Dragon. So he took a lot of the same ideas from that to Double Dragon, including that stupid left and right attack. And I hate it. But that led to some really great, fantastic home ports of Double Dragon. Oh yeah, that's a franchise that's on every single console. Probably has a version of Double Dragon, but it all comes back to that arcade game, which is really interesting. Music is music is my favorite part of Double Dragon. The opening intro. Fantastic, right?

I think this is a good place to call out. We've probably forgotten your favorite Beat Em Up. Come to our Discord and talk to us about it. You can find all the [email protected] tell.

Us how wrong we are or press.

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All right.

Okay.

All right, we got a list. So now we need to determine maybe not the best four, but the four that define the genre. So if somebody were to come from Mars and have never played video games, never Played beat em ups and we got to tell them the four Game three. The four games counting is hard. The four games that they need to play to appreciate and enjoy the beat em up genre. We got to pick that four. This is a good list of games though.

Well, things are going to get missed.

And that's going to make me sad.

I'm going to, I'm going to start and I'm going to say even though Renegade came first, I think Double Dragon has to be a pillar.

Oh, but Renegade's the first one.

Yeah, but how many people, how many people have like played Renegade versus how many people have played Double Dragon? Like I think you would find more people to be like, yeah, Double Dragon's one of the greatest beat em ups of all time. And. And then you go boat. But Renegade kind of made it. They're like, who, what? You mean the original Double Dragon? I don't, I've never played it. I would argue that Double Dragon carries more weight than Renegade no matter where it is in its timeline.

When I think of a coin up, beat them up. Honestly, Double Dragon is at least in the first two I think of every time.

Yeah, this hurts. But you guys are wrong though. Like, you're right. Like, honestly, I never played Renegade in arcades as a kid. I never heard of this game. I did not know the difference between the Japanese and the American version until just recently. And I'm with you guys, when I think of this gameplay, Double Dragon does it better. Double Dragon is certainly not the best speed em up in arcades, but it's definitely one of the ones that I think defined a whole lot of genre and influence in later games.

Agreed. We're not going for, I don't know, I would argue that it's more well known so it's better foundation.

Yeah. This isn't a bracket, right?

No. All right, so Double Dragon we think is probably one of the four pillars. Yeah, I think we got to put D and D there as well for how unique that was. It's a beat em up with stellar controls, graphics, multiple pathways, items, different characters that are very, very different. Right. The spell user is different than the cleric, different than the fighter, different from the dwarf. I think D and D is probably one of those pillars.

You go first in Star.

Yeah, no, I can, I can go either direction on this one. I think you're right. It had enough unique content compared to most of the beat em up games that it really was a standout beat them up. And so yeah, I'm willing to, I'm willing To put it there. I'm worried it's going to get bounced, but I'm willing to put it there.

I wouldn't say bounce. Okay, I'm gonna go on the. We're gonna go on the game awards argument of if we put that in one of the four slots is something that we think is more deserving gonna get denied because that one's there. That's my only argument. Your all your points are perfectly valid. It's Nick, it's got some cool characters. The animation's great. There's things that only it does that you don't see in other places. I am. I just like. I can go kind of either way on that one. But my concern is like, we'll end up with. We'll have D and D on there and X Men will miss out or something else will mix out that you're like. That should definitely be there. I'm all right with hanging my hat on it for now, but I want to see where we are at the end of this discussion.

I'll put it there for now. Nothing's locked in until we say so, but we'll put it there for now, I think.

And I'm going to argue with the. I'm going to call them the big four player stand at the console games. I think we probably have to pick one from those, you know, between Simpsons X Men. Yeah, I mean. Tmnt. Yeah, I mean, and to me, Simpson or Sorry, tmnt.

Tough.

That's the one that wins for me.

See, for me as a kid, when I walked into the arcade and it wasn't part of the rows because it's such a massive machine, but they had to devote entire corner, a section of the arcade floor space to that giant X band machine. And the sound was booming. A call to you with its massive displays. Oh, yeah. That for me, I think is. I think wins that. The only problem I'm not great on and it's huge, it's wide. My only issue with it though, and. And TMNT has this problem is there's a lack of enemy variety in both TMNT and X Men. There's a lot more. Well, maybe not. Maybe there is an enemy variety in Simpsons. There really isn't.

There's not. It's. It's hard to. It's hard to argue that fact because, I mean, the sentinels are palace pallet swapped. The Foot Clan are pallet swapped, but they have different and unique abilities. Like the gray ones have samurai swords and the yellow ones throw boomerangs and the purple ones just go hand to hand with you. Now, they might have just color swapped them, but they at least have some differentiations between them that it wasn't like, oh, I'm fighting a blue and a green that are doing the same thing. There were some changes to it. So I. I could argue that I have to go with Cinnastar on this one and my argument and it's not. You're right, Jay, because I think X Men absolutely should be on there with tmnt. But as my nostalgia is getting that itch scratched, TMNT probably was one of the earlier games that I played as a kid in the beat em up stylings before I went to X Men and went, oh, this is a game too. So it's only. It's only because of my memory that this game is getting a little bit more love. But I. I hate that X Men may not make it onto this list. I'm.

I'm going to admit X Men was the better game, but I think for me, what it's coming down to is what has had more legacy than TMNT Arcade. Right. I mean.

Yeah. Like, I also hate not putting the Simpsons on here because when it comes to story and cutscenes, the Simpsons was. Was a just a trip. Yeah. And that's when I played.

Can we just. Afterwards, can we just all agree to disagree and make it a multiplayer based and just put all three on there and just be like this Pillars. For more than one person playing at the same time.

These three.

I'm gonna say more than two people. It's the. It's the three to four player, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because to be fair, I believe is four player as well. So.

That's true. That's true.

Having a hard time with that.

The impact of TMNT is great because we had such a blast playing Shredder's Revenge. And I think that's only because we probably all played TMNT in our youth. And to play Shredders revenge in a modern age is like, it was all the callbacks to this arcade game that I love. Yep. So, okay, so I think Turtle needs going there.

I hate it. I mean, I'm.

You go on there.

I'm with you. To me, X Men's the better game. But I think we're taking into account like the pillars. Right. It's not. It's not what's the best game. It's what's the pillar of the community or the pillar of the. Of the genre. Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

And you're right. That multiplayer aspect is where that game sells. And it's interesting because we have very, four very different companies on this list of games. Right? You have, you have the origin origins of the beat em ups with Technos and Data east. Right. You have your Kung Fu Master, your, your Double Dragon and all that. And then you have your Konami fighters which are mostly focused on three or four players. And then you have the Capcom beat em ups which are also iconic. So we have the different groups, which is very interesting. I think I'm going to just throw out. But we're not talking about the best games in the genre. We're talking about the ones that define it. The death of the genre. Die Hard Arcade. How do you guys feel about that?

I would agree with that. I would put that on the pillar because it's the end of, it's the end of a legacy. Like in my personal opinion, I, I, it's, it's so weird because I, I don't feel bad about putting that one on there. I don't feel bad about it taking up a spot from any one of these other fantastic games because it was to my recollection, and we're not saying this is like this is the truth and the gospel, but to my recollection I don't remember anything else coming after this that was that as good as this was. Like this was the last legacy.

Okay, I can go with this. I am greatly pained and I am going to both of these I brought up as nominees. I am greatly pained that D and D Shadow over mystara is, is on there and Golden Ax isn't.

Yeah, that's hard.

I think Shadow over mystara actually did Golden Axe better. Like I really do.

But I mean we're talking the renegade double Dragon argument. That's, that's your stance. It would be D and D over Golden Axe.

But I mean how epic was was Golden Ax right? I mean.

Aren'T there three golden axes? I don't know. At least I know that there's there, yeah, there's, there's gold next and then there's like the death, like the end of Death Adder or something was the second one and then there was a second one for the console and I thought there was a third one for the console.

There is a third one where the dwarf rides a giant actually in the third one. Yeah, yeah. So I'm just gonna put down here for now so we can talk about it. Yeah, because that one's a hard, that one's a hard one.

Because, I mean, what arcade did you go to that didn't have gold? Next. Right. Like.

Right? Yep. The place that I played Alien versus Predator, also had Golden Ax and Smash tv. Those were the three arcades that was at that roundtable. And I was like, eating good here. It also had our. It had the RC Pro AM1 too. That was the little cars that you drive. I can't remember which other one is.

I'm not saying it replaces it, but I think it's a. I think it's a. It's a fight. It's a beat em up between those two.

All right, so we'll get back to that one. Is there anything else on the short list that we think belongs in conversation of. Of the four?

Like, I really like X Men, but.

I think I'm with you guys. Where I'm. You guys are right. I think it's tmnt, X Men or Simpsons. Not more than one of them. No, I agree and I hate it. But I think you guys are right with tmnt.

Right?

Agree. And not seeing AVP on there. Really? Really. But it's. It's so much more filler. I mean, AVP is just filler. It's. It's didn't do anything that stood out enough for it to be a. Paid a homage to it other than just taking a really cool alien concept and turning into a beat. Beat em up. But other than that, it's not like, oh, this is definitely. Everybody in this. This deos is like, yes, absolutely. That. No, it's. It can't be that way.

So I'm going to say if, If. If you haven't played. If you're listening and you haven't played any of these that are on the short list.

Not the.

Go play them all.

Like, absolutely.

Every single one of these is good, by the way. I just thought of something. Kung Fu Master. We need to have another pillar of that because Rastan would be a competitor for Kung Fu Master.

So that's where you get into. Is it a beat em up or is it a platformer?

And I mean Alter.

Right. And that's Altered Beast is another one. That's why I'm like, I didn't want to see Alter Beast on this list. I think that's more of a platformer.

No, I'm just saying we need to have one of these for like the side scroller.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rastanza is a classic. You're right. We should do.

I hear that music in my head right now. Yeah.

Okay. So we're Saying the four pillars that define the genre. All right, so we have something old, we have something new.

Yeah.

Something borrowed and something multiplayer. Getting married.

The hell's newish. But I think the conversation then is if we're defining the four things that define a genre, you have the end of the genre. As far as I'm concerning arcades. I know there's beat ups after that, but I'm there. Right. But this is when we had the trend was fighting games, not beat ups anymore. You have I think is probably your eyes are right. The best of the multiplayer four player cabinets. And then you have a really solid Capcom beat em up with a whole lot of extras, multipass, a lot of great stuff. And then we need an old one to represent the older generation of beat em ups. So I think the conversation I would say we have. Is it Golden Ax or Double Dragon?

Oh right. You just swapped it on me. You just swapped it on me.

So then now I would argue that Golden Ax is better than Double Dragon.

I'm. I'm there. It's a better game.

Yeah. Because I realized that it's not. Because Double Dragon is not the one that started the genre that was Renegade. But we're saying we're not gonna do Renegade. It's the second one in the genre. Or I don't know if there's other ones. But yeah, I think Golden Ax is also very early. Like what is the years on these? I'm gonna look that up.

I want to say 90, 89 or.

90 golden axes earlier.

I think it's earlier than that.

Seven. 86. Really seven. That's what I'm gonna guess later than that.

Double Dragon is 87.

Okay.

Double Dragon. Yeah.

And Golden Ax came after it.

So it has to be 88. 89. 91 of those three.

89. So 89. So still an 80s game. Right. Because I think that's clear. Right. You have the 80s, then you have the 90s and then. Yeah, I think it was 96 was Die Hard Arcade. It was. It was not as.

I. I'm gonna go on the stance that I feel like Double Dragon is more popular because of the NES cart.

Yeah.

And not as popular in the arcade format. I think more play people have played it on Nintendo than they did in the actual arcade.

That's true.

People yours in my age, Jake. No offense nsr, but I don't. I don't know. I never saw. I can't honestly say. You're just older than us. And that's. That's not supposed to be a snap at you. You've probably been to the arcade and seen it where we never got around to seeing it because we didn't see it on our. We saw it on our consoles first. Golden Ax I've seen in the arcade. I've played in the arcade numerous times. I don't think I've ever played Double Dragon or seen it until way later when I went to like a retro themed arcade in my area and was like oh but I think Golden Axe is just more prevalent than Double Dragon. The arcade, not the game but the arcade. So I have to go with gold next. And as you can see there's a theme here. A very fantasy esque type love between D D, Golden Ax, TMNT and Die Hard. Being the only one that is is not a fantasy version game that we have in here. That's just me though.

Maybe it is fantasy.

Well, you got your low impact RPG helmet.

They were, they were Nerf guns. They were nerf guns.

Yeah, I played a lot of nerf guns. But you guys can.

I think you probably have a good.

Point, but that's my argument.

No, I think, I think I agree with you in that. Double Dragon, when I think of that game, for me it will always be the master system version that I played as a kid. That's where my memories are. I did play it in arcades and I didn't like it because it wasn't the home console version I was used to. And I think if we're looking at arcade specifically beat em ups then I think Golden Ax is better. If this was a category, if we were talking about best beat em ups period or console beat em ups, I think it's a very different conversation when it comes to Double Dragon and Golden Axe.

Absolutely.

Okay, I can go with that. And honestly, I'm not going to feel bad if Golden Axe replaces Double Dragon. I'm not. I. Yeah, I think Golden Axe is the better game. I love Double Dragon. Don't get me wrong. I love Double Dragon. But you're right, that left right attack thing is just weird.

Yeah.

And I'm glad that that wasn't there on the nes, you know.

So yeah, it's not that it wasn't hard enough all ready that you had to put that in there. Too stupid.

I, I love this system. I love the magic. We have two with great magic systems.

I think this is a decent list. I think it's a decent list. I think, I think there could be an argument for Golden Axe and D and D both being on here. I could see that. But I think TMNT is the top out of the three multiplayer. Three or four multiplayer ones that we. We selected D. And D has just got. It's got so much uniqueness to it that it kind of has to. It holds its own. It's such a. And it's a DND game. Like it's. You can't. It's not like it's taking from anything other than what the book's designed for it. And it does cool. Like Jake said, multiple paths, magic systems, multiple class and party members that you can play as. It's a cool game and I've played them, played it and I loved playing it. It's a great one. Die Hard. End of an era. Completely agree with that one. And. And Golden Ax being kind of the. The door opening for a lot of us in the beat Em up genre.

It's kind of the culmination of all the great things on Beat Em Ups. You know, you got to ride. You got to ride things. You got weapons, you got. You know, I mean, it was. Yeah. Magic system. Yeah.

I.

A little bit of platforming.

If. If I'm really going back into my mind palace and really digging deep, I want to say Golden Axe was the first ever Beat him up that I've played. And then I saw like way back.

Really?

Okay, yeah. At the pizza place that I. I frequented.

How. How great was it when there was like those, those. Those cliffs that you had to jump, you know, the empty spaces and you'd miss. How great was that?

I see. Stealing from them. Battletoad you.

Yeah.

Placement jumping in a Beat Em Up.

All right, well, you know, if we.

Did a console version of this, we'd have to talk about Battletoads being on there.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Restraints of Rage. Battletoads, all those Cyborg justice. Terrible game, but I loved it. Would not be one of the four.

All right, so, you know, I also like that we have a SEGA game in Golden Ax. D and D was Capcom, TMNT was Konami. Those are the big hitters for arcades. Diehard arcade was also Sega, but it was also a later generation, so it's a bit different. All right, so I guess we're locking it in. There's nothing to change. So according to Press Me to Cancel, if you're brand new to the beat up genre, the four games that define that genre, the pillars that hold it up are Golden Axe, Dungeons and Dragons, Shadow Over Mystaria, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Die Hard Arcade. That's a pretty good list, guys.

That's decent.

If you see any of these in an arcade, try them out.

If you see anything out of our list in an arcade, please go and peruse and throw some coins in. See what you see, what you get.

Yeah. Yeah. If you just want some insanity, throw on some Cadillacs and dinosaurs if you want. If you want to fight aliens, AVP man, all day long.

Yeah, it's good.

Absolutely.

Yeah. All right. And like Sinister said earlier, if you feel as a game we missed, I'm sure we missed a few, then please let us know. Drop a comment on the YouTube video or come to our discord. You can find links@presbyter cancel.com or presby.org and again, you can find our podcast wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts and shows from Amazon Music to Spotify and anywhere else. And of course, we're also on YouTube. Before we say goodbye, Sinstar, you want to shout out anything you're doing.

I'm finishing up moving.

That's right. Assembling the wall.

Yeah, I. Well, as you can see, it's making progress. I got rid of Bard's Tale because those are trash games. Trash games. Wow.

Not on the pillar.

Yeah, no, I. I have. I don't really have anything going on besides this because we are getting our old house sale ready. But once that's done, I'm going to work on this actually is the. Is the wrong wall. I'll be on the other wall of my office once I get things going.

We're going to see some spin a star, come back here in coming months.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Awesome. Fantastic.

Yeah. All right. And Chard, how about you? What have you been up to lately?

Finished up Alan Wake 2 last weekend. Great game, Very interesting. It's a good game. I really enjoyed it. Some of the combat got me a little pissy, not going to lie. But the story was very unique. The design and the gameplay itself was exceptionally unique. I really had a good time playing that one. Probably going to do some feel good in December and go back to Dead Space remake because I've been itching to play that one again. And then we've got Sisyphean games that we have been discussing. So eventually we'll be firing up the next set of Sisypheans and I might be doing a two for next year. A back to backer.

I want to battle toads it like I did. Is that what you're going to do?

I've already batched battle toads. That game can't hurt me anymore. I'm done with it.

I Want to call out that our listeners should join us. You should be thinking about your SisyPhean game for 25.

Hell, yeah. Probably towards the end of the month of December, you might hear an episode about us talking about it. We're still trying to get all ducks in a row and select. And some of us are still trying to finish their Sisuvian games before the years end. But I'm excited. I've got some really good choices. One of these episodes, guys, if you are okay with this, or down with me. I almost like our team, our listeners, to almost pick our Sisyphean games. And we'd throw up like two or three of them.

You nuts?

Then they can pick out of those three.

Oh, oh. So we. We generate our own list.

Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, no. And be like, oh, you gotta play Die Hard Arcade.

I was. I was not gonna finish Circus Charlie.

No, no, no. I mean, you would select like three and then we'd throw it up on the Discord. And then.

Okay, what they want to see out.

Of that, that'd be kind of neat. But that's for a later time because I. I have things that I want to finish. So.

Yeah. Yeah. So when we say Sisyphean game, that's the. The game that you feel like you should have beaten from your youth or a game that you've always wanted to beat and try, just never made time for. It's kind of the excuse to kind of buckle down and play through it. For me, personally, because I picked battletoads last year and I was not able, sadly, to beat it after months of trying. I had to spin the Wheel of Pain and I still owe my playthrough my two hours of penance playing Buck Bumble. So I gotta figure out how I'm gonna do that and when I'm gonna do that. I want to do it before we do the Sisyphean episode. And then, like you said, Wolf is doing. Is finishing Mikami. It sounds like for this year, everybody beat their game, which. Which is nice because I don't have.

To make a wheel beat our game in, like, February. So, yeah, we had our. We were overachievers. Yeah, we were overachievers.

Yeah, you guys gave me a reprieve, and I got to switch my game to Elden Ring, which was not an easy switch, but I managed to get through it. So we'll do an episode later this month, and then, yeah, we'll figure out some other stuff to do for during the holidays. But I think that's an episode guys. This is good. Yeah.

Yeah.

All right. Well, thanks, everybody, for listening. We are. Press me to cancel till next week.

Turtle power.