SEGA Brawlers that Didn't Make the Cut

 

So in my series of games stemming from my experience with Brawlers, I'm gonna bang on about the Brawlers from SEGA that didn't make the cut. 

Also for brevity's sake, games that I played on SEGA hardware (arcade, master system, Megadrive, Saturn etc etc) will be included here.  So a game not made by SEGA, but I mainly experienced on a SEGA machine is here.

Awwright?  All right! 

The list:

• Alien Storm
• Altered Beast
• Die Hard Arcade
• Guardian Heroes
• Nekketsu Oyako
• Pu Li Ru La
• Spiderman: The video game
• SOR 3
• The Crow
• The Crows, Battle action

Alien Storm

This little fellow was pretty much a reskin of Golden Axe.  You could choose from a man, a woman and a robot as you character.  There were no weapons to pick up as you were already armed and unlike G/Axe no animals to ride on. 

Your task was to save the world from Aliens, although you were often fighting mutated humans, which was a bit sad.  While the two humans had guns, they only ever used them at close range, unless you were in the bonus sections.  I think you were able to do a run attack, but there wasn't quite the amount of moves that Golden Axe had available to it.

 It did have auto scrolling stages where your character ran and was able to shoot, so it was similar to a horizontal SHMUP.  There was also sections where you shot into the screen ala Operation Wolf, Operation Thunderbolt, the bonus levels of Shinobi, ya know, that kinda thing.

Getting the Runs (left), shooting shit up (right).

These extra sections added some variety into the game, but overall the game felt very basic and I guess the theme for me of blasting gooby looking aliens didn't take my fancy as much as the sword and sorcery action of Golden Axe.  

A version came out on the Master System and if I remember correctly, it had the "You must play as this character" option that Golden Axe on the MS had as well.  I also played the C64 version, which was almost the same as the G/Axe game in looks.  I wonder if the same guy worked on them...  While the MS version was decent enough, the C64 version was pretty naff.

Master System (left), Commodore 64 (right)

I think a Megadrive version also came out, but I never saw it on sale, so perhaps it was an NTSC only situation.  I played a bit of that on emulator and again, it was fine.  But G/Axe was always better.

Megadrive/Genesis

Alien Storm isn't bad, it's just that it's not as good as Golden Axe.

Altered Beast

Ah man, the screams of the transformation still ring in my ears.  Altered Beast has a well deserved place in history.  Great sound, cool concept and decent enough implementation.  The voice samples really grabbed your attention as you wandered around the arcades looking for something to eat your money.  

Starting off as a dead dude, Zeus says the now classic "Wise frob yur gwave" and you walk along a single plane punching zombies in the balls.  Then trying to grab glowing balls (not the zombies' ones though) so that you can "POWER UP" and transform into a were-creature.  All depending on the stage.  

This game looks good, but really it's not al that fun.  The white wolves can be a total pain in the arse to punch and it can get a bit tedious after a while.  Also if you're too good, you'll be at the boss fight before you know it, so you barely get any time as your were-animal form.  Which is where(were?) the overpowered fun starts.

Now that you can become a comet with kicks and punch fireballs, nothing can stand in your way.  Well, nothing except the boss.  Who usually requires the specific skills of your were-form to beat.

Arcade Lvl 1 Boss (Left), MD Level 2 Boss (right)

Oddly the powers you got were rarely related to your form.  I had no idea werewolves could chuck fireballs, dragons kicked electric shields, or bears had spinning jumps and petrifying breath (that last one could be true, I've never been close enough to smell a bear's breath), but they are generally fun.

This game was a big seller for the Megadrive and one could argue it was an improvement on the arcade.  You had parallax background scrolling, which you didn't before.  It felt pretty close to the arcade game and was two player, so things were pretty good.

I also spent a lot of time on the Commodore 64 game.  Although I lent it to a friend soon after buying it, who made of copy of it and they said they killed the disc, but were able to give me a copy of the game that was safely made.  Let me just say, that after that happened, they didn't really fall into my "friend" category anymore.  

Moving on from past trauma, the C64 actually did decent job I thought and the SID music sounded pretty swish.

 

That's a werewolf kick on the right.

It was also simultaneous 2 player and had a nice loading screen too.

Trust me, these things always looked better on the CRT monitor my dad had for the set up

I think Altered Beast had a big effect on punching games and arcades in general and the guy who made it learnt a lot from the process.  There is an interview with him somewhere.  Now when I play this though, I can't stand the later levels.  The bear level with all the holes for insta-death, those goddamn speedy ants and the boss that I think was the base for Rocksteady from the turtles is a hard ass as well.  But still, its a fun game, but just limited.  Fine for the time.

Trying to get the balls outta this dog.

Die Hard Arcade

(Played mainly on the Saturn)

This is a nice little game.  Starting in the arcades on the Naomi board, it was an easy port to the Saturn as they had very similar hardware and it shows.  The Saturn definitely feels like it is cranking the arcade action here.  It even plays in the Saturn's hi-res mode.  Which might explain that terrible interlaced screen shot of the titles screen above. 

You play as a guy, possibly John McCain (although hair colour has changed) and make your way through the sky scraper smashing heads.  Player two will take the role of a lady copper.  What I like about this game is that it incorporates Virtua Fighter type moves and combos.  This is also what I don't like, making it rather complex to get to grips with.

There are a great variety of weapons and other stuff to use as well.  Not to mention the environmental challenges to avoid.  Fans will slice and dice.  That damn fire truck will trip you (and enemies) up.  Pick up a grandfather clock and smash it on some guys head.  Pick up a rocket launcher and either swing it melee like or blow some shit up.  It's a lotta fun.

It also has some QTE reflex tests, which if you win gives you an instant knockout, if you fail, a fight then ensues.

You can even go as far as arresting people if you have a hand gun holstered!  I've never been able to work out how you do that, it just sometimes seem to happen.  But its cool.  Another cool touch is that your characters clothes get damaged at certain points of the game! Just like in the movie.  Well, kinda....

So, this is a great game, but I've just never been able to get a good handle on how to play it.  A bit like D&D .  I probably should spend some more time with it and read up on it, as it does look fun.

Guardian Heroes

Oh Guardian Heroes, what a game.  This special little fellow is made by my beloved fellows at Treasure who also made the special Radiant Silvergun, Silhouette Mirage, and my all time personal favourite run n Gun Gunstar Heroes!  This game is a slightly technical brawler which makes the Saturn hardware work for its reputation!

You can choose 6 different characters, and they all have different skills.  Special moves are streetfighter styles controls and you have 3 planes on which to jump between.  It can get quite chaotic on screen and is known for a bit of slow down, but the sprite work is FANTASTIC and the overall feel and effect is something pretty special.

I enjoy this game, but I've not spent a lot of time with it for some reason.  One that I really need to do, once I've resurrected my Saturn.  Which has currently died for some reason (age?).   What makes this game special, (aside from having so many characters to fight with) is it's a semi statistical game as well where you'll get the chance to allocate points as you see fit.

It also has a VS mode where you can actually control enemy characters encountered in the main game.  On top of that, the VS mode allows for 6 human players with the multitap.  I have a multitap... One day, I swear I'll find 5 friends to play this with me!

6 Player chaos

The screen zooms in and out as you get closer/further from your opponent and It looks very nice on a CRT TV, but rather blocky on ye olde modern LCDs now.

Overall this game looks great, plays great and is really fun.  In the story mode, you are accompanied by an undead skeleton warrior, who you can control with commands and it makes the game really interesting and a unique experience to play.  This didn't rank higher, mainly because I didn't pick it up until fairly recently and so haven't had enough time to get to grips with it.  I'm sure that teenage me would've loved this game to bits!

Nekketsu Oyako

Ah this game.  I often see this being touted as one of the Saturn's best brawlers... That is mainly because the Saturn doesn't really have all that many.  

Nekketsu  Oyako (often awkwardly translated as "Hot Blooded Family" - Accurate translation of the characters, but sounds really dumb) is a brawler that ticks all the boxes of being a good brawler, but somehow ends up just falling right into the pit of "a plain game."

It has three playable characters, big sprites, nice sound and effects, varied moves, varied enemies, interesting stages and backgrounds (the most famous being inside and on top of a whale) and a wide selection of weapons and stuff to pick up.

However even with all this, the game never really gets anywhere exciting.  The animation seems a little stiff, characters all move a little slow, everything just looks a little bit awkward.  It has a sense of humour, the big guy can drink the beer for a health boost, but the kids can't.  The kids can't use the bazooka, but they have no problem with the smaller guns. etc etc.  Somehow though, this game falls flat.  I've often started it, played for a decent while, and while playing on the theme park level, riding a roller coaster, fighting dudes with quite exciting looking action in the background, I just felt like I've had enough of the plain jane game mechanics.

It's kind of weird and hard to explain.  I'm sure on paper this game is a winner if you ticked boxes, but in reality, it's just a run of the mill brawler.  It doesn't do anything wrong per se, but it doesn't do anything amazing either.

Captures from SegaRetro.

Pu Li Ru La

This game I picked up mainly because it has rather nice looking graphics.  It's an arcade conversion where you can play as one of two players trying to save the world from some bad guy.  It's mostly famous for its whacky "Japanese-ness" and a little bit of surrealism I guess.  The developers had a little bit of fun putting themselves in the game in certain sections.

You play as either a young boy or girl and you whack enemies with your wand which turns them into cute animals.  

  The graphics are great and cartoony and the sound is pretty good as well.  Gameplay wise it's decent enough, but has no combos and most bad guys are done with one hit.  The wand even fires off little sparkles so you don't even have to make contact.

As a result, to me, this barely qualifies as a Brawler.  I would class it more like a shmup.

Spiderman: The Videogame

Ah this guy.  Kicking around about the same time as the Xmen Arcade game, I think they really wanted to cash in on that sweet sweet comic book money.

BUT

They didn't want to spend anything on it.  And we got this.  You can choose 1 of four characters and go for a little run around a level beating up bad guys.  It plays very simply in the you have jump and punch and special move.  There are no grabs, so its a bit repetitive, but I do recall being able to make Spidey swing around as an attack somehow.

The presentation was very good with comic book style cut scenes and stuff and this game also first introduced me to the Sub-Mariner.

Occasionally the game with change to a 2d platforming section and for some reason the bad guys would get really huge too.  All characters had the same abilities and it was a fine enough game.

However the one thing I just couldn't stand was Spiderman's animation.  He looks like a tired old man, its incredible they were fine with this...

Once again, this game does nothing terribly wrong, except for Spidey's walk, but it just isn't good.

Streets of Rage 3

Streets of Rage 2 rates highly, making it into my top 10 (Number 2 no less) and SOR3 is a continuation of that, so why didn't it work?

Well, for a start, they janked up the difficulty of the English release and they replaced my boy Max with Zan, a robotic doctor guy.  Now, I'm fine with that, but Zan just isn't as fun to play as.  All weapons turn into balls of light, which he bowls at enemies and it just ain't good.

Especially if you compare the other characters who have special moves with particular weapons.  Axel now has a cool dragon punching thing with swords, and a very nice multi hit slap attack with baseball bats.  Blaze has some good knife action going on and , er I am sure Skate must do something right?

Meanwhile the new guy Zan, just lawn bowls everyone.

Graphics are good although the Sprites don't look all that different.  I also don't like the colours they used.  Why has Axel's standard white shirt and blue jeans gone all black and yellow?

The levels are varied though which is nice, but a bit too similar as well.

If you play the Japanese Bare Knuckle, it's more fair and more fun, but The music is weird and experimental, the gameplay is eh, ok.  But then you have Zan.  He drags a lot of the game down.

The Crow: City of Angels

Oh shit this game....

This game is well known for being shit.  I had no idea how shit until I played it.  It was an early release Saturn game and was probably the first brawler available.  It's terrible.  The graphics don't look too bad, I guess, for the time and that's partly because it does the old Resident Evil style rendered backgrounds and polygonal characters schtick.  The problem with this is each camera angle is fixed and so making your way around the play field is a terrible experience.

The the fights happen.  They are also a terrible experience.  Controls are slow, you can't really tell what the hell is happening on screen and it's is just generally terrible.

Okay, these screenshots are from the Playstation version, but it's very similar.

What is not terrible is the animation of the main character, The Crow.  It's hilarious, he wanders around like he is on the verge of shitting his pants.  It's not a good look.

I played this for a couple of hours one day, trying to give it a good chance, but oh man.... The site I got the screenshots from (Moby games) has it's rating at 56%, which I believe is overly generous by about 53%.  If you actually look down the list of reviews, there seem to be a bunch of places that highly ranked it for some reason.  I have no idea why.

The Crows: Battle Action

This game is famous because it is incredibly expensive.  
So it has to be good right?

This game is based on some Manga and the sprites and general presentation is pretty damn good.  Sadly the gameplay is pretty damn basic.  There is no combo option, until you set up your own and map it to a single button press.  It's really drab and kind of slow to play.  The only thing going for this game is the graphics, I never hear about this manga, so I wouldn't even say it's popular now, so I have no idea why this game seems to go for 500 bucks or so, it's crazy.

The graphics are straight up amazing though.  Just a shame there isn't anything to back it up with.  When you start, you seem unable to pull off combos, however later on you can design your own combo range, but when the game is so bland in the first place, it is very hard to push through to the interesting section.

If I remember correctly you can unlock another character later on as well.  Which is great and all, you just have to get there first.  Good luck.  Graphics and presentation are pretty darn sexy, just a shame the game is kind of naff.