Judge Dredd, The Great Battle II, and Sailor Moon (Greg and James Beat 'Em Up!, Ep. 89)
000:00 Beginning (Theme Song by James!)
05:08 Judge Dredd (Arcade; 1992; Midway)
51:25 The Great Battle II: The Last Fighter Twin (SNES; 1992; Nova Co., Ltd.)
1:21:18 Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon (SNES; 1993; Arc System Works Co., Ltd.)
We almost clear the backlog of pre-1993 games I added to the list in this episode!
First, we tackle an unreleased (and unfinished!) attempt by Midway to adapt Judge Dredd to arcades before there was even a major motion picture of the property! I was skeptical going into this one, due to how hideous the implementation of Midway's beloved digitized sprites is in the first level. Fortunately, if you can look past the eye-searing graphics and the extremely repetitive assortment of enemies, it turns out that Midway was really cooking here!
Most notably, the game uses a standard belt-scrolling perspective, but goes further than most beat 'em ups in making the fighting itself pseudo-3D: the Judges Dredd (no Judge Hershey for Player 2...) can direct their attacks in eight directions, allowing you to attack enemies that aren't aligned with you on the z-axis! Even in its abridged form, the game engages in some genre-hopping: level 2 is primarily a side-scrolling shooter (not a great one), while level 3 integrates shooting into the beat 'em up style along with a gimmick of preventing either side of a shootout from getting the upper hand before the riot police arrive.
Then... it just ends. Man, though: what could've been if they'd brought this all the way to fruition! We're willing to look past some of the warts here. *VERDICT*: MID-BOSS Tier!
We try to check out Jangun-Ui Adeul for the Sega Master System, but emulation issues thwart us (since resolved! It's coming soon!).
Next up, a little treat for Greg: Nova Co. Ltd.'s The Great Battle II: The Last Fighter Twin turns out to be a superhero crossover game where Gundam, Ultraman, and Kamen Rider collide! Unfortunately, that little surprise and some charming SD graphics are the full extent of what this game brings to the table. The fighting is dull, all four playable characters are exactly the same, and the "tag team" style, where each player selects two characters and can switch between them, offers nothing to the game (your two characters have the same abilities and share a health bar). Its competent enough to escape Goon Tier, but that's about it. *VERDICT*: MID Tier!
Finally, we move on to Arc System Works' Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon. The most exciting thing here is probably when I drop the ban hammer on a real human being for the first time (we'll tolerate some personal insults if they're at least slur-free, but it's a whole other thing to follow the insult up by trying to tell US, the guys who play *ALL THE BEAT 'EM UPS*, that an obviously mediocre game is actually a classic of the genre).
The game itself is pretty disappointing. It has beautiful graphics and well-composed music (adapting actual music from the anime!). Even the music is a double-edged sword, though, since almost none of the songs the developers adapted sound remotely appropriate for action scenes! Meanwhile, the characters seem to all control the same, except for their one "drain your own health" move (and you know I hate that style of move to begin with!). The fighting is astonishingly dull, especially coming from Arc System Works. Perhaps the worst thing is that there's a "sequel" to this game that was developed alongside it and released in the same year, so we've got a near-identical slog coming up. That said, we're fair men, so we acknowledge the quality of the aesthetics and the mechanical competence, and assign another game to what is surely the very bottom of the Mid Tier. *VERDICT*: MID Tier!
It occurred to me that, given the wide gulf in quality between the top and bottom of the mid tier, we might've been better off giving ourselves additional nuance by adding a fifth tier. "Mid-Goon Tier" just doesn't quite have the right ring to it, though, does it?
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Greg and James Beat 'Em Up is our ongoing exploration of the beat 'em up genre! Broadcast on any Tuesday evening where schedules and Greg's health allow at https://twitch.tv/58DreamStreet
In Phase One, we played 40 "notable or notable-adjacent" beat 'em ups released through the year 1993!
Now, in Phase Two, we're playing the NINETY-EIGHT+ other beat 'em ups released through the year 1993!
Theme Song composed by James, using Famitracker!