The
Beat 'em Up is a subcategory of (or precursor to) the
Fighting Game genre that is popular today. Most games that fall under this genre have
very little in the way of story, and lots in the way of bash-the-other-guy's-heads-in-with-your-fists action.
These games eschew one-on-one duels for the protagonist (and a friend or two) rampaging across the map, handing out unmerciful beatdowns to every group of gangsters, mutants, robots and ninjas they meet, acquiring weapons from their environment and
finding cooked chickens inexplicably hidden inside arcade cabinets.
Another variation of these is the
Hack And Slash, a beat-em-up that primarily includes weapons. Expect some cross-pollination.
In Japan, beat-'em-ups of the
Double Dragon/
Final Fight variety are known as "belt-scroll" games due to their semi-isometric perspective and the fact that the characters are always facing left or right despite being able to move up and down as well. Games like
Kung-Fu Master (which is completely side-scrolling) or
Beat-Down (which is in 3D) are not considered belt-scroll games.
Games in this genre include:
- The Adventures of Bayou Billy (which also contains Driving Game and Light Gun Game sections)
- Altered Beast, one of the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive's launch titles. ("Wise fwom youw gwave!")
- Anarchy Reigns (The Spiritual Successor to MadWorld).
- Armored Warriors (Capcom Humongous Mecha brawler; the predecessor of Cyberbots)
- Asura's Wrath
- Bad Dudes (Are YOU a bad enough dude to save the the president?)
- Bad Street Brawler
- Battle Beavers, a 2D Flash Beat 'em Up with some RPG Elements.
- Battle Circuit, Capcom's last traditional 2D brawler
- Battletoads
- Bayonetta
- Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance (dismal 2000s 3D beat em up from Capcom made to capitalize on Grand Theft Auto's success; mainly remembered for the characters' liberal use of the Cluster F-Bomb)
- The Bouncer
- Captain Commando
- Castle Crashers
- The Combatribes
- Comix Zone
- Crime Fighters and its sequel Vendetta (aka Crime Fighters 2)
- Crisis Beat
- Crude Buster aka Two Crude Dudes: Spiritual Successor to Bad Dudes.
- Cyborg Justice
- Darksiders
- Defenders Of Dynatron City
- The Dishwasher
- DJ Boy, with narration by Wolfman Jack, recorded shortly before his death.
- B Rap Boys, notable for having an entirely lyricized soundtrack, supposedly done by a then up-and-coming Raekwon.
- The Devil May Cry series, and its upcoming reboot, Dmc Devil May Cry
- Double Dragon
- Dungeon Fighter Online
- Dynasty Warriors and its many sequels from Koei. On that note—
- Fear Is Vigilance: A free Web Game 2D beat-'em'-up about a pair of college students trying to get college students to pick up free personal alarms to keep them safe at night — by creating something for them to keep safe from.
- Fighting Force: considered to be one of the earliest attempt at a 3D beat-'em-up, was original developed to be a Streets of Rage sequel.
- Final Fight
- God Hand, a modern revival of the genre, which had been pretty moribund for the previous ten years.
- God Of War
- Golden Axe, depending on which character you pick.
- Grand Chase goes with 3D character models but 2D gameplay. Overlaps with Hack And Slash due to almost everyone using weapons. And magic.
- Growl
- Guardians/Denjin Makai II, a dual-titled obscure beat'em-up with 8 characters with massive movesets.
- Guardian Heroes
- Karateka, in 1984 being one of the oldest available for home computers.
- Kenka Bancho
- The King of Dragons
- Knight's Contract
- Knights of the Round
- Kung Fu Master, known in Japan as Spartan X, a very loose adaptation of the Jackie Chan movie better known as Wheels On Meals in the west.
- Little Fighter 2
- Lugaru, an amateur effort.
- MadWorld, featuring over-the-top violence and a comic-book style.
- Metamorphic Force (Altered Beast applied to a typical belt-scroll engine; made by Konami)
- Mortal Kombat Mythologies Sub Zero
- Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks
- Mutant Rampage Body Slam
- Ninety-Nine Nights
- Ninja Baseball Bat Man (the general concept and initial designs were made in America with the intent of it being a Follow the Leader platformer game; it was sent to Japan for programming, and when it came back, it became Power Rangers WITH BASEBALL!)
- The Ninja Kids
- The Ninja Warriors
- The Ninja Warriors Again
- Oni is a rare 3D example, with a bit of shooter mixed in.
- Overgrowth
- Panzer Bandit
- Project M
- Pu Li Ru La
- Ragnarok Battle Offline
- Rampage
- The Kunio Kun series, with two main notables:
- Renegade (a.k.a. Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun), the first beat-em-up that used the "belt-scroll" perspective, which allowed characters to move along both the vertical and horizontal axis while still facing primarily to the left or right.
- River City Ransom, a cooperative brawler with RPG Elements.
- Rushing Beat
- Rush'n Attack (a.k.a. Green Beret)
- Ryu Ga Gotoku (a.k.a. Yakuza)
- Sengoku Basara
- Shank
- Spikeout
- Splatterhouse
- Streets of Rage
- Super Smash Bros Brawl mixes beat-'em-up and fighting game in its story mode.
- Team Fortress Arcade
- Tekken Force, a minigame included with home releases of every Tekken game since Tekken 3.
- Death By Degrees, a spin-off centering around Nina Williams.
- Tokyo Beat Down
- Trio the Punch, a game that deliberately tries to reduce its player to sputtering confusion. One of the earliest examples of "kuso-ge", games primarily enjoyed for their laughably bad nature.
- Twin Blades, an iPhone app and recently an Xbox Live Indie game.
- Undercover Cops, a post-apocalyptic beat-'em-up that has a cult following in Japan, but is mostly unknown everywhere else.
- Urban Reign, a 3D brawler from Namco featuring Paul Phoenix of Tekken fame.
- Vendetta
- Viewtiful Joe series
- Violent Storm (a post-apocalyptic beat-'em-up by Konami, often mistakenly labeled as the third Crime Fighters game)
- Warlords: Heroes, a side scrolling hacky-slashy Beat 'em Up from Ben Olding Games.
- Zeno Clash
- Zombie Revenge: side game to Sega's House of The Dead series.
For a time, it was common for licensed games to be made in this format. Some of the more famous ones include:
- Alien vs. Predator - Two different beat-'em-ups. A single-player SNES version by Activision, where you control a lone Predator, and an unrelated three-player arcade version by Capcom featuring two Predators, Dutch Schaeffer, and Linn Kurosawa.
- Astérix
- Astro Boy: Omega Factor- A good GBA game based off of the Astro Boy 2003 anime series.
- Batman, from various sources to various consoles.
- Bucky O'Hare (arcade version)
- Cadillacs & Dinosaurs
- Captain America And The Avengers
- Cutthroat Island
- Dungeons And Dragons
- Fist of the North Star : Ken's Rage (a.k.a. Hokuto Musou)
- Hook
- Judge Dredd (the unreleased Midway arcade game)
- Kamen Rider (Super Famicom)
- The Pirates of Dark Water
- The Punisher (a 2-player arcade game by Capcom co-starring Nick Fury, also released for the Genesis)
- Sailor Moon had a few alongside the fighting and puzzle games. It can be very entertaining to see tiny girls like Mercury and Moon bust out DDTs and suplexes.
- Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game. Yes...Scott Pilgrim, in the form of a Guardian Heroes style brawler.
- Spider-Man: The Video Game (four-player arcade game by Sega featuring Namor, Black Cat, and Hawkeye)
- The Simpsons
- Superman - Two different beat-'em-ups: a 1988 Taito arcade game, and The Death and Return of Superman for SNES and Sega Genesis.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game (for the arcade, released as T.M.N.T. II for the NES)
- The Manhattan Project (for the NES, aka T.M.N.T. III)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (for the arcade, released as T.M.N.T. IV for the Super NES)
- The Hyperstone Heist (for the Genesis)
- T.M.N.T. (GBA beat-'em-up by Ubisoft based on the computer-animated film)
- Arcade Attack (DS beat-'em-up by Ubisoft developed as a "homage" to the older games)
- The Tick
- X-Men (a six-player arcade game by Konami loosely based on the "Pryde of the X-Men" animated pilot featuring Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Dazzler)
- X-Men Legends and its sequel, X-Men Legends: Rise of Apocalypse, as well as its Spiritual Successor series Marvel Ultimate Alliance, are more recent additions to the genre.
