Misc. Brawlers That Didn't Make the Cut.

(yes, I realise I used an image from the SEGA game "My Hero" but I used it because it looks super generic.  Which describes many of the following games well.)

Continuing my series of brawler flashback reviews, here are the rest of the games on my list that didn't neatly fit into any of the previous categories. 

This post will cover these remaining games:

• Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja
• Double Dragon
• Double Dragon II
• Ninja Combat
• Sailor Moon
• The combat Tribes
• Ninja Warriors
• Ninja Warriors Again
• Crude Busters
• Under Cover Cops

Bad Dudes Vs Dragon Ninja.

Oh baby, this game.  I came across this game in the arcades and played it a bit.  The sound effects of the punching and Hee-huuup of the Bad Dudes  as they powered up their punch (for taking out multiple baddies at one time) was very cool.  You had two buttons to use, punch and jump.  You got a varity of moves according to enemy distance and angle you pressed the stick.  There was often two levels to the screen, an upper and a lower, which you were generally free to jump between as you wish.

Most baddies (the Dragon Ninja) were just single hit mooks, but the bosses required more finesse and care.  This game features the return of Karnov, who Data East obviously wanted to make a thing.  It was good arcade fun and I bought this game in a pack with some other games.  Possibly, but I can't find any evidence of it being released like that.  I hope I didn't buy the game alone for reasons which will soon be revealed.

I actually bought this on the C64 back when I was young and so that's where I spent most of my time playing it. It was a pretty decent conversion if I remember correctly and I enjoyed playing it.  I remember really like the walk cycle of the dude for some reason.

However, the game was bugged and wouldn't load after level 3.  Hence the reason I hope I didn't pay full price for this ( the more I think about it, I think I did though).  I still had a lot of fun on this, but it just wasn't as good as the rest in the list.

Double Dragon

Okay, full disclosure for this one, I definitely spent the most of my time playing this on the Commodore 64, which is notorious for being a really, really terrible conversion.  It is.  It is absolute shit.  All the moves do the same damage, you can't jump kick and your best tactic is to run through the enemies, and kick then run through them and kick and repeat.  It help to have a friend to do the same to one other bad guy on screen though.

Just look at those sprites, they're split in half.  You can pick up weapons, I remember a baseball bat as one, can't recall any others.  It didn't make the game any more fun.

This game was crap, but it did have generally decent title screen music.

Double Dragon II: The Revenge

Bonus round, I forgot about this one.  I played a lot of this on my friends' NES.  It was good fun as two player, but I specifically remember hating the platforming sections they added in.  Especially since one had to press both A&B Buttons at the same time.  Add in spike platforming sections, spiked rooves and insta death drops, and the game could be a right prick.  Somehow we finished it though.

Ninja Combat

A kinda naff beat em up, maybe.  It actually strikes me as a similar style as to Pu Li Ru La in that your Ninja guy has short range projectiles to fling.  Barely a brawler and very repetitive.

Sailor Moon

(The arcade game) - An interesting little game this one.  I saw it a couple of times in real life and being a fan of panty flashes in anime when I was young (i.e a horny teenager), I gave this game a crack.  It was surprisingly better than I expected it to be.

Naturally I chose Sailor Mercury to go with and at the time in the arcades, the game was a bit of fun to kick around with.  If I remember, it was a cheaper than most others at the time and managed to fill in a bit of fun for 40c.  I don't think I'd want to spend more money on it thou, as I got it for retroarch and was having a more, er discerning play and the game is cheap as shit.  The enemies are really spammy and annoying.

While the Sailors have a decent move set:

• punch combo
• jump attack
• Jump + down attack
• Running attack
• Running jump
• Running jump + down
• Grab combos
• Magic special attack using crystals.
• Panic attack (costs life to use)

Surprisingly more complex than one would think.  You just end up getting overwhelmed by bad guys everywhere.  After reading up on it recently, it turns out the game wasn't properly finished.  So that would explain a lot.  

It also made me realise that the majority of Sailor Moon's enemies are female too.

Sailor Mercury using her Crystal Magic attack, and running.

Panty Flash!!

Sailor Mars using her Crystal Magic

Running Drop kick

The anime style animations that played when you used the special crystal attacks were pretty cool and there were voice tracks in the game as well.  Overall, it was better than expected, but unfinished and kinda cheap gameplay puts in the so-so category.

Screenshot for sailor moon Courtesy of me.

The Combat Tribes

Okay, I am going to freely admit this game was a not often played game from the arcades and I can barely recall it.  However it had a couple of things that attracted me and that I though were cool. 

First off, in the picture above, you seen the guy smashing faces together?  Yeah that was a cool thing do to.  The animation was pretty good and the art style was nice as well.  Add to that the brutality of some of the moves such as the face smash and there was another where you could pick up a downed opponent and whirl them around to fling them later (and hitting others whilst whirling), and a pretty badass body stomp on downed baddies as well.

It was a generally well done game with good themes and great presentation.  I guess it's a shame the characters you payed as were not really memorable.

Clowns in general amiright?

Foreshadowing of the stage boss.

Ninja Warriors

This game was a bit revolutionary.  A huge cabinet that housed a couple of screens to provide a landscape style format of play.  You could play as robot ninjas that took visible damage as you progressed (and got damaged).  I found that pretty impressive at the time, as the damage actually happened to that specific part of the body.  Took a grenade to your face?  Then robot face, but nowhere else.  Shot in the shin? Robot leg.

Also blood spurts!

The music was pretty catchy and loud in the arcades of the time as well.  While the game was only on one plain, you could jump and block, as well as throw limited shuriken.

It was well known for its set pieces as well.

This tank has been hassling you for a while by this point.  All you have to do is get to the single guy.  Easy right?

Graphics were good, but the gameplay was repetitive, as you had very limited moves and most bad guys were one hit wonders.  Very much a game of style over substance.

It was however, EXTREEMELY STYLISH.-

I also had this game on C64 as well.  I think it had a 2 player mode, but having no friends to play with, I never could tell.  It was fine at the time and the music wasn't bad.  The moves were all there and so were the set pieces, so aside from a graphic downgrade, it was a fairly decent conversion.

I think I also hunted this down for the SEGA Mega Cd, or SEGA CD as well, however I suspect that I didn't play it much as the Mega CD was a PITA to set up.

You can see various levels of undress, er, sorry, damage.

Ninja Saviors Return of the Warriors.

A reboot of a SNES game, which I bought for Switch as many people were going on about it as being really good and I felt the need for some retro gameplay.

Screenshot courtesy of Nintendo.

The animation was pretty sweet and it was very faithful to the original game.  They added a few extra characters which had to be unlocked by playing through the game.  But for some reason this game never really gelled with me.

I suspect it's partly because I liked the concept of Ninja Warriors, but just never really liked the game as such.  Enemies can take up to 3 hits to kill, but for some reason, all you moves do 1 hit.  I think the throw does two, but what's the point?  The only real reason is for crowd control I guess.  You have a grab move that looks damaging, but only does standard damage and is too risky to pull off.

Finally there is the final boss.  Holy shit what a shambles.  You have to throw enemies at him to damage him, but the angle of some of the playable characters throws are terrible.  It's so stupid.  I spent too long fighting this asshole because the throws were so troublesome to line up.

My first online buy for the Switch and probably the one where I wanted physical the most to recoup some of the costs of this game.  

People generally seem to really love this game, but I really don't get it.  I think it's kind of shit.

Crude Busters - AKA; Two Crude Dudes.

It wasn't until much later that I discovered this was called Two Crude Dudes outside of Japan.  I guess my arcade had a Japanese cabinet.  This is a spiritual sequel to Bad Dudes Vs Dragon Ninja.  What drew me to this game was the bright graphics and the grab button.  You could grab practically anything.  Poles, cars, enemies!  Anytime that took your fancy.

Car in you way? Pick it up and chuck it at some mooks.  A mook in your way? Do the same!

Like Bad Dudes, you often had two planes to jump between.  You would often have to use them to avoid boss attacks.  The bosses were pretty nuts.

Hell this game all over was pretty nuts.

It was pretty good fun and in between levels, you could smash up a vending machine for some life giving soda.

Yes, you could even pick up the dogs.

This game was two player as well.  I think it got a Megadrive conversion but that was it.  It was a bit of a rare arcade machine for me to find, but I did enjoy it quite a bit.

Undercover Cops

AT the height of the Brawler craze there were a billion games trying to cash in on the sweet Final Fight money.  This one tried to up FF with snazzy animoo style graphics and characters and kind of got there.

The graphics looks pretty special and animation was quite good.  Sadly the basic combo was a bit slow and oddly, the final move was your close combat grab and throw, which I found odd as it slowed the pace and made your standard grab and throw redundant as you just ended up with less damage done to your opponent.

There were three characters to choose from, a chick, a skinny karate guy and a sports looking big dude.  The karate guy had this weird throw where he would jump in the air (while holding enemy) and flip over in the air (with enemy) and throw.  It always seemed super dumb to me.  Plus this was used at the end of his standard combo as well.

You could also grab huge ass columns and use them to smash bad guys with as well  they would get smaller and smaller as they crumbled away.  However the effect was pretty good.

The apocalyptic scene and moves and stuff were fine, but much like Nekketsu Oyako, while this game looks good on paper, it juts doesn't really exceed anywhere in the machine.  It's fine, but that is it.

Bonus edgy character bios:

And there we go.  I am pretty certain this covers the list of most of the Brawlers I have played over the years of my life.  I hoped you have enjoyed reading about them. A big thanks to Moby games for the majority of screen shots.

Obviously I am a fan of Brawlers and I often feel that I can't decide if I like platformers or brawlers as my favourite genre.  Really though, it doesn't matter, as long as one enjoys the games.

Would like to battle me (with words) about my opinion?  Feel free to do so.  If you have any revelations about Ninja Saviors, I am all ears.