The death of side scrolling beat em ups as a genre still saddens & baffles me. They felt so dominant at one point, & yes, most don't stand up so well today, but I wish we could find a way to rediscover walking right & smashing things as a ludic formula, akin to thriving indie platformers.
Aren't they kind of having a resurgence? River City Girls 1 & 2, Shredder's Revenge, Streets of Rage 4, Double Dragon Neon a few years ago, the upcoming Cosmic Invasion...
Marvel Cosmic Invasion, Absolum (sp?) New Scott Pilgrim beat em up, and a few other indies. I think it gets fair representation. They'll never be as ubiquitous as they were in the late 80's, but they're by no means dead.
Playing the remake of Streets of Rage 4 gave me all the nostalgia in the best of ways.
I thought they nailed it with streets of rage 4 but I guess that was 5 years ago now 😭
As other replies have said, there's still plenty of life in the old dog and the next big Marvel game, Cosmic Invasion, is also a side-scrolling beat-em-up.
I want to play an indie retro treatment of side scrolling beat em ups that is like a meditation on grief or something
Mate, I also just remembered Fading Afternoon. It's a side scrolling beat em up with life sim interludes that's about a Yakuza getting out of jail and going through a mid-life crisis. You control whether he falls back into a life of crime or not.
Enough Mario-platforming to solve depression, more River City Ransom beating the ghosts of your insecurities to death with a lead pipe
My brother and I have been playing through River City Ransom every Thanksgiving for over 30 years
It's still *so* good.
There were some pretty high profile ones not too long ago. Have you checked out Final Vendetta, Fight n Rage, or that ridiculous Pit Fighter style one?
I have not. Does Final Vendetta have the Vendetta licence or is it just an homage?
It’s an homage I believe. I am not sure how much it resembles Vendetta. People say it’s really technical and refined but SoR4 has gotten all my beat em up time.
monkey's paw curls and it's a """roguelike""" action rpg with pick three and somehow there's a deckbuilding element
I mean a beat em up with roguelite mechanics could actually be pretty addictive & chill
I lived for Double Dragon back in the day. Ninja Gaiden too but that I never finished because I smashed the cartridge in a fit of rage 😂
Am I the only one who feels like they release a new ninja turtles games every 2 weeks?
This is coming from the Streets of Rage 4 team. store.steampowered.com/app/1904480/...
I mean, are we not counting Ninja Gaiden Ragebound or the new Shinobi in this ilk? Those both were met to praise and seem to be a good taste of what you are looking for.
There's a new one every now and then. I think river city girls got a sequel a few years ago.
I feel like players nowadays expect a bit more depth and less quarter-munching behavior from their games. I doubt they were the first, but I remember one of the guilty gear games had a beat-em-up mode that incorporated the full fighting game moves and mechanics and it really fixed a lot of problems.
A lot of modern games like river city girls add something like this, but the rpg mechanics make it a bit too grindy to be pick-up-and-play like the beat-em-ups of old.