Arcade Archives GROWL - (Normal Difficulty, Japanese Version)
1Growl (Runark in Japan) developed by Taito in 1990, is a side-scrolling beat 'em up. The plot isn't exactly a deep running one, but it takes place in the early 20th century. The local wildlife is being threatened by a massive group of evil poachers (and as we all know, animal poaching was the worst thing you could be in the real-life 90's, right behind serial killers, tax evaders, and child actors), and you take the role of one of four forest rangers who go out to stop said poachers from making our beloved animals extinct.
Our four heroes, are all nameless, but they ARE all color coded for your convenience. Each ranger has different stats, ranging from attack power, how high they can jump, and how much life they have. This is one of the very few beat 'em ups, if anything, takes a different approach to the general standard up to anywhere between five or six enemies at a time, and pretty much sends HORDES of baddies at you at a steady pace. Sometimes it feels like you're fighting anywhere up to fifteen to twenty enemies on a screen late in-game.
Sounds like a one-sided kind of fight, eh? Well, the game isn't shy about giving you a few advantages. You can pick up firearms such as a rifle, a handgun, grenades, and a rocket launcher. You can also use melee weapons such as knives, whips, and swords. Aside from the usual punching combos, you can grab enemies while they're stunned and continue to wail on them, repeatedly body slam them (somewhat similar to TMNT: Turtles in Time), and you can perform jump kicks by pressing specific direction and jump and attack buttons together. Did I also mention that the animals you rescue you can also help you fight the enemies, such as an elephant, baby lions, and birds? Yep, couldn't expect those baddies to get away poaching those animals without some sort of payback!
Growl/Runark isn't too bad of a game, but it has its issues. For example, even the Arcade Archives manual admits that the game's enemy AI can be cheap, since it's extremely easy to get overwhelmed and get caught in an endless combo and there's literally nothing you can do about it until you die, so you have to play carefully. A perfect example is the bosses such as the hockey mask wearing strongman, and the fat fez wearing brutes. However, one thing I like about this game is the explosions - if an enemy gets caught in it, they explode into bloody pieces.
I'm showing a playthrough of Runark, the Japanese version, because when I originally played through Growl, I encountered a particularly nasty bug crash right before the final boss. I died just before the final boss was supposed to spawn in, and when I continued, the graphics for the giant tank corrupted and appeared as the segmented graphics for the title screen (particularly the lion section). It was extremely strange, and game locked up right on the spot. The music stopped, and I couldn't move my character. Oddly enough, I could still insert coins, and I could clearly hear "HEY, COME ON!" as I did. But I had to force quit the run.
Anyway, see you next game!