Top Ten Properties That Need Sidescrolling Beat 'Em Ups

Beat ‘Em Up Month may be over but that doesn’t mean we can’t still have a little beat ‘em up related fun. It’s been awhile since my last Monday List so why not make one about beat ‘em ups? Or rather, properties that should be beat ‘em ups.

Some day...

It seemed common back in the days of the arcade that every franchise worth it’s salt had a beat ‘em up tie-in. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, Batman, Sailor Moon, frickin’ Stone Protectors. Beat ‘Em Ups were the go-to quarter eating arcade game. Still, there’s quite a few franchises that never had a beat ‘em up tie-in or were simply released either before or after the beat ‘em up genre was prominent. So, I’m going to be looking at the ten franchises I think would make awesome beat ‘em ups.

To set a few guidelines here, the franchise can be anything from film, tv, comics, books, video games, anything. And when I say a beat ‘em up, I of course mean a 2D Sidescrolling beat ‘em up. Nothing against 3D beat ‘em ups but 2D is where it’s at. Some of these franchises may have had a 3D beat ‘em up before or at least something with beat ‘em up qualities but I don’t care, I’m including it anyway! Also, I’m leaving out Adamant Ditto because that would be the obvious number one. 

Let's Try That Again - X-Men

Beat 'Em Up Month comes to a close with one of the most well-remembered Beat 'Em Ups of all time; X-Men the Arcade Game. Famous for supporting up to six players, X-Men featured some of the most popular superheroes of all time (plus Dazzler) as they took on Pyro, Emma Frost and of course, Magneto. Matt, Don, Phil, Josh, viewer Charge77 and some random guy plow through the PSN rerelease of this one one dive kick at a time.



Yes, folks, unfortunately, Beat 'Em Up Month has drawn to close but boy oh boy was it fun while it lasted. We played a lot of great games like Final Fight 3, The Punisher, Knights of the Round and even some not-so-great games like WWF Betrayal. We love Beat 'Em Ups and we hope you've enjoyed watching us play through a bunch of them just for you. There's plenty more we want to do so who knows, maybe Beat 'Em Up Month will become a regular thing. But until then, enjoy our last entry with X-Men.

Let's Try That Again - Captain Commando & Knights of the Round

So, I may or may not have forgot to post an update when I upload our Let's Try That Again of Captain Commando a few days ago. Oops! I also uploaded Knights of the Round today so I guess you get a double dosage if you didn't already watch Captain Commando when I first uploaded it.

Originally developed as an official mascot for Capcom, Captain Commando stars a team of super heroic super people/mummies/babies who are out to save the world from evil doers everywhere. Matt and Don take on this surprisingly short game but it's fun while it lasts. Get ready to pile drive Blanka, Shtrom Jr. and Scumocide as a baby in mech suit. This is Captain Commando, part of Beat 'Em Up Month.




Despite breezing through it in less than forty minutes, making it our second shortest LP, Captain Commando is a pretty fun game. The characters and locations are memorable, the attacks are fun and you can get sliced in two and bleed all over the place. That's just awesome. Though you do get to play as a baby in a mech so Mortal Kombat this ain't.

This one takes place in the middle-ages in the days of Camelot; Knights of the Round. While technically it would be a hack and slash, it's still basically a sidescrolling beat 'em up so we'll let it slide. There's plenty of ridiculous horse riding and jumping around in this one, as well as some pretty intense debates about salads. King Arthur and his knights didn't see Adamant Ditto coming. So enjoy this medieval take on Beat 'Em Up Month.



Though more a hack and slash than a beat 'em up (though honestly they're the same damn thing), Knights of the Round is a pretty awesome game. I had never played it before we recorded it so I was quite surprised to see how much fun it was. Sure, it might not be Golden Axe or even Capcom's own King of Dragons but the medieval setting and the level up setting made it a pretty fun ride while it lasted. Plus, the humor and discussions were pretty top notch in this one, if I do say so myself.

Go ahead and hit the jump for the first part to both of these Let's Try That Agains.

Let's Try That Again - WWF Betrayal

Beat 'Em Up Month continued with an obscure little wrestling based game on the Gameboy Color. WWF Betrayal allows you to take the role of one of your favorite wrestlers and do absolutely no wrestling whatsoever. Instead, you get to beat up fat referees, Luigis and Cheech Marin. Let's hope your roody-poo candy ass can handle it because Beat 'Em Up Month was in full force with this one.




Where do I even begin with this one? Basically, when we were discussing games we could play for Beat 'Em Up Month, Don brought up this weird wrestling beat 'em up game called WWF Betrayal for the Game Boy Color. Naturally, out of morbid curiosity, I checked it out and boy is it a treat. I managed to beat it in about a half hour and I figured it would be the perfect game to get a laugh out of real quickly for Beat 'Em Up Month. And what a laugh we got! Not only did the game offer up plenty to make fun of, Adamant Ditto's own wrestling guru, Phil, was there to help make it even funnier and try to put some sense into it. You're going to enjoy this one. Trust me.

The Top Ten Best Beat 'Em Ups

Despite being a dying genre, the Beat ‘Em Up is one of my all-time favorite genres of video games. Very few things come even close to being as satisfying as walking down the streets of some run down city and pounding criminal’s faces in with fists, kicks, pile drives and lead pipes. They’re such a product of the ‘90’s, it’s a shame they haven’t been as prominent ever since the arcade went out of style. Since most Beat ‘Em Ups were designed to be as hard as possible to rob kids of their quarters, they were everywhere in the heyday of the arcade and boy, do I miss those days.

The manliest of beat 'em ups.

So, combined with my love of Beat ‘Em Ups, including recently doing a Let’s Play of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and attempting to play through some Japanese Sailor Moon game, I’m doing a list of what I consider to be the ten best Beat ‘Em Ups. These are the games that are the most fun to play and simply bring the most joy when bashing somebody’s head in and eating floor chicken.

Now, since I’m not a professional game journalist and don’t get to just play whatever games I want for free, there are some pretty big games missing from this list (The most prominent being Castle Crashers and the fan-favorite, God Hand) simply because I haven’t played them. I’m sure if I had, I would have put them on this list but since I haven’t, unfortunately they aren’t here. So take it all with a grain of salt, is what I’m saying.