The History of Beat em Ups Part 1 - The 1980s 

It was cool when you finally defeated the elevator boss who used grenades, he would throw a ring of grenades around himself to commit suicide.

@@perfectsplit5515 forget his name but he was in Street Fighter alpha.

Rolento? Odd name for a suicide bomber... Hasan, Ali, Mohammed etc

same here

Thanks to these games I have a wonderful adulthood.

Same here. I miss the arcades of the 1980s

me too . were amazing back on the day

I was about to suggest Tough Turf and then I've seen your comment... I think it's a very underrated Double Dragon "clone", with a few wonderful ideas like having some weapons hidden behind the scenery (like a crate, or a silo). Finishing this game with my older brother, putting coin after coin, is one of my best arcade memories.

*Tough Turf* must be better in 2 player co-op. I played it in MAME and it does not let me continue indefinitely.

it is one of the titles I actually thought a lot about, since you do elbow people and knee them when grabbing them, but ultimately I placed it on the hack and slash list since your main weapons are swords and an axe. I will be doing a video on those in the future since there are SO MANY awesome titles that fall in that category.

Hack n slash is essentially the same genre, just with permanent weapons. Most people list them separately.

@Bob Duckington you're just arguing semantics, which is what I already said. The fact that the term "hack n slash" even exists proves that some people think it should be listed separately. The only thing that would be different about this video if they were included would be that somebody would be arguing semantics that shouldn't have been included. And no, it's not worthless since they specifically said they'll be part of a different video. No need to be so dramatic about it.

@Bob Duckington I think you are technically correct. It is shame most people separate the weapons side scrolling brawlers into a _Hack & Slash_ subgroup of games. Capcom's *Warriors of Fate* AKA *Tenchi wo Kurau 2: Sekiheki no Tatakai* is one of my favourites and has 5 selectable characters. 2 with permanent weapons, 2 who fight bare handed and 1 who has a permanent bow with endless arrows! All can still pick up additional swords to use temporarily.

@@almightycinder , he and I both speak the truth, you hypocritical Jackass McGees! If it has a weapon, then, by default, it is a hack-and-slash game, according to your Level 99 dumb ass semantic rules. Hell, even the Diablo games, and their clones, are technically beat-em-up/brawler/hack-and-slash games, to say nothing of Dungeon Fighter Online/Offline, if one were to be even more particular about things.

Agreed. the stuttering framerate is odd. I never got past stage 3 in the arcades. I did beat it on the NES though. Thank you for the compliment.

and if you beat the game all the way through twice it goes into free mode. The boss rush was the most memorable part of the games. Most beatemups just have you fight the previous bosses one at at ime on one level not all at once

Konami did it again in X-Men in 1992.

@@mrmovieprop , now the free mode thing I honestly did NOT know about, but thanks for the information.

I think the first level boss with the claw hands was based on Mister Han at the end of Enter the Dragon, with his claw hand.

The narrator mispronounced the word.

I probably hadnt thought of Karateka in 30 years. a summer school program i was in had computers that had it on there and we loved when we got to play it. Wow. like part of me still remembers that excited feeling when we knew we'd get to play it. definitely shaped my love for fighting games.

Yep it's not a beat 'em up. One of many wrong things about this list!

"from my fighter background perspective" : you sound like a wimp. Actually, reading your profile sounds like the same nonsense Steven Seagal and Frank Dux used to say. "I was in the special forces and have won dozens of tournaments" jabbering in broken, illiterate, English. Absolute fraud confirmed.

Had the exact same thought. And is the distinction really whether there's a weapon sprite drawn over the character? note: I still enjoyed the video.

Superman had something like a “Haduken”, but you had to first charge up to use it. The game was really a mix between beat-‘em-up and shooter.

Did not know. Awesome info. I agree. Huge impact on beat em ups.

Actually, those films were only PARTS of the inspiration for Kunio-Kun/Renegade...the other part had to do with the childhood of the person that had created the series. Yeah, basically, he came from the Japanese equivalent of Compton or South Central and there were literally fights all throughout the school, and his neighborhood.

@@paxhumana2015 I don't think there's a Japanese equivalent to Compton, it's most likely he was a juvenile delinquent and got into fights alot.

Youre right, seems unreasonable. Not only that, at 0:46 he excludes "hack and slash" games like "Ninja Warriors" ...dafuq? Its the same thing and just as much helped shaping the genre.

@@DustMan2704 It's because I don't think he knows what genres create what when it comes to video games. I mean, Golden Axe IS a beat-'em-up as well. Even if he takes weapons into consideration, that doesn't change what the game's genre was.

@@JavaBum yeah i find the exclusion of Golden Axe to be particularly baffling. It's got the same basic structure as games like Streets of Rage, only with a fantasy medieval setting

@@tigerfestivals5137 It is technically a hack n slash, so he's probably going to cover it like that.

@@aweirdredtoad3637 sure, but it's also a beat 'em up first and foremost. To not include it in a video about the history of beat 'em ups would be like not including Mega Man in a video about the history of platformers because "he shoots so it's a run n' gun"

thanks for watching.

thanks for watching!

glad I could help.

Everybody liked Guy because of his distinctive karate-like stances and techniques. (Even though his profile said he was a ninja). And people liked Haggar because of his flying pile driver. It took me a while to figure out it’s jump, THEN attack, not simultaneous like the instructions indicated. I swear, Sodom was the freaken hardest boss in the whole game!

@@perfectsplit5515 Totally. Usually had to spam the super attack to beat Sodom when I couldn't grab him. Rolento was even tougher.

@@TV-Tony And wasn’t it weird that they named one of the masculine male tough-guy badass bosses, “Abigail”?

@@perfectsplit5515 I know right? Capcom must have been big wrestling fans, with Andore looking so much like Andre The Giant. I believe they called him that because when you see Andre matched in Japan when he's introduced there by ring announcers, his name sounds more like Andore. Although I've heard he was also based on a staff member. And Abigail always reminded me of one of the Road Warriors, who were also big in Japan.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it. More content coming down the pipeline.

Thank you. Will do. Check out my latest video on the Top Gun games. Hope you enjoy.

Double dragon hands down.

Practically the entire game was in slow motion. The sprites were too much for the hardware to handle.

@@gaylordfocker7990 That only happened if too many enemies was on the screen.

@@retiredsnowbunnyhunterx5106 Which was 90% of the time. If there's more than 2 enemies or if there's a barrel or boulder onscreen. Take the nostalgia goggles off.

@@gaylordfocker7990 😂 well true. I learn to get around that. If you keep moving forward the more enemies would appear. Take out the one or two enemies at a time otherwise a whole group coming on screen to slow the screen down. 😂 When I was a kid I used to go up to the laundry mat after school an play it every day. I got so good at it I would actually beat the whole game off one quarter 😂

Glad you enjoyed the video. One of the things I hate the most when editing my videos is having to hear myself talk. Ugh. 😄

I agree. TMNT (and, by extension, Golden Axe), as I view it, is more of a Beat 'em Up............or more accurately, a Hack n' Slash-style Beat 'em Up [Which distinctly differentiates itself from "Hack n' Slash" games usually assigned to games such as Dynasty Warriors and such]

good question. I included captain commando under beat em ups due to that exact reason. Since I chose to separate the genre into two, it could have gone either way. I chose beat em up as a coin toss. Could've gone either way. But I will be doing a video in the future where I will give the hack and slash games their due. There's so many awesome classics to mention. Golden Axe is one that I grew up with. Also decided to separate the genre since my channel is just starting and placing all of them together would require long video run times. I figured people would skip my small channel if they saw videos being too long. Hope this answers your question. Thanks for watching.

This.

Glad to hear you liked the video. part 3 coming in the next few days. Working on it.

@M Taylor did you get Shredders Revenge?

It’s more of a parody of gaming in general, as per the Zelda section as well as Ballon Fight.

I can't say that I am, but I will definitely check that one out. Thanks for the info. Glad you enjoyed the video.

That game is awesome! There is also a PC game that is DD2, I believe, with much better FPS plus you could use some of the wrestlers from the WWF Superstars arcade game as playable characters. I can’t recall the name but it’s easy enough to find.

​@@martinbrundage2092oh my god, its an OpenBOR 4 player game; i love those!!! ive played the tmnt one where you unlock several characters throught the game like splinter and april and plqy with them

There's a playthrough on avgn.

No lie bro: I was sick from school 1991 3rd grade. I beat Double Dragon 2's final boss with a hurricane kick, and no lives or bars left. One of my greatest achievements. 😀

@@morbidcorpse5954 And the girlfriend came down from heaven as an angel...

Double dragon 2 on nes nailed it tho. My favorite beat em up.

glad to hear you enjoyed it. Working on part 2. Should be out in the next few days. And yes, the music in downtown is...odd.

Once you went Beast Mode, you could really start kicking ass and taking names! When I played it on my Genesis in college, my Radical Christian roommate said the game was “demonic” for depicting dead people being resurrected.