The Punisher (Arcade) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
762A playthrough of Capcom's 1993 license-based arcade beat 'em up, The Punisher.
Played through on the default difficulty level.
The Punisher, based on the bad-ass Marvel character, marks the very first time that Capcom and Marvel partnered up, predating the beginnings of the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise by a good few years. It was also one of the few games that ran on Capcom's CPS Dash hardware, which was something of a half-step between the CPS1 and CPS2 platforms.
Alhough the game is (at least in my opinion) far, far too easy - especially for an arcade game - The Punisher is another of my favorite Capcom beat 'em ups. There's a solid variety of easy-to-pull-off moves that are nicely supported by a veritable truckload of weapons for you to maim and murder with, and thanks to the upgraded hardware, you will regularly get swarmed by huge groups of enemies without any sign of slowdown.
The graphics look amazing - there is a ton of variety to be found in the (massive) sprites and backgrounds, and a fair number of items and scenery bits can be destroyed in each stage. The music and the sound effects are also really good, even though I have no idea what those digitized voices are supposed to be saying.
If you've only played the Genesis port, get ready to be surprised. The difference is absolute night and day. The Genesis port wasn't a particularly bad game, but it was a piss poor imitation of the arcade original. This version right here is what you want to play - unless you like your games excruciatingly difficult, watered down, and heavily censored, that is.
If you'd like to see that version, though, you can find my playthrough of it here: https://youtu.be/qw7fOvOrT20
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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