Side scrolling brawlers: a personal history. The first of these games I played was the Master system version of Alien storm, a game that often appears now on Mega Drive collecttions (which has taught me that the music is amazing (as goes for so many Mega Drive games)), and I enjoyed it at the time, but was terrible at it (this would be a problem for many years). It had some weird shooting sections and was very short, not that I'd have known at the time as I'm pretty sure I never finished it (what with the being bad at it). From here I moved up to the mega drive with streets of rage, golden axe and captain America and the avengers (and oh so many more). These all followed a similar trajectory of renting them from the local video store (Oscars video Rubery shout out) and playing them with a friend for several hours, but never getting very far, no matter how many roast chickens we ate. And then they went away.
They did for me anyway, right up until Scott Pilgrim verses the world on 360. I'm probably forgetting some game that came in between but this seemed like the grand return to me, and it looked great, was fun, great to play with friends, and still I was awful. For many years it would go on like this with games like castle crashers and other less memorable titles, it wasn't in fact until Power Rangers mega battle that I put a large amount of effort in to finishing a side scrolling beat 'em up (and I did, hooray!) which was helped by nostalgia, great presentation and of course, easiness (if it didn't have a childhood favourite tie in this would also be very forgettable and would probably never have been purchased, yet alone completed by myself (what I'm trying to say is it's bang average)). And then there was Foul Play
What makes it so good? The way the stage plays work means that the crowd are more entertained with the bigger combos and cooler moves you do, which results in them throwing gangs of simple enemies at you, allowing you to get the big combos you need, while slowly introducing harder enemies as levels go on. Then at the end they add a boss. All the plays (stages) follow this same basic layout, while getting slightly harder and introducing new elements, because that's how games work, and just lets you have fun throughout, without an apple in sight.
The set up is that you are 2 gentlemen from the turn of the the 20th century chasing down mythical beasts as you try to track down your father (hmm, maybe this could have been a supernatural tie in game). The simple cut scenes are played out to a crowd and the game really 'plays up' to the stage performance theme with the enemies being actors in costumes and stage hands appearing to pick up fallen enemies and broken objects. It's classic brawling, done to perfection.
Naturally on line and offline co op are in here to play with a friend and the story is made for their being two characters so you're expected to be playing co op. Unfortunately when I tried to play co op my partner in crime wouldn't shut up and I missed the plot, the tutorials and he started moaning after 15 minutes because it was a new IP even though he'd happily play The Simpsons arcade game all day long. Rant over. the game is to be played co op, if possible.
You may also Like: Castle Crashers
Still plugging through Days gone and forcing my way through Sonic Rush.
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