VGM of the Week #37

For this week's VGM of the Week, I originally wanted to do Cody's Theme from Super Street Fighter IV. But, Don just did Guile's Theme last week, which was also Street Fighter related and my last VGM of the Week pick was from another Capcom fighting game, so maybe I should give those a rest for a bit.

But I still wanted a VGM that could honor our on-going Beat 'Em Up Month event, so I turned to one of the best beat 'em up soundtracks: Turtles in Time. Not only is Turtles in Time one of the best of the genre, it has some of the best music in the genre as well. Every track, from beginning to end, is intense and just a pure joy to listen to but there's one in particular that will always stand out and likely not just to me, but anybody who's played the game.

Yes, of course I'm talking about Big Apple 3 AM. This track is just so good. Not only is it catchy and upbeat, but every time I hear it, I just want to pound some foot soldiers into the group or throw them towards anybody who's watching. It's just so satisfying. I also love how you can hear some of the original Ninja Turtle cartoon theme in there too. I always catch myself starting to sing the theme at around the 15 second mark but then it goes in a completely different direction and I just feel foolish. Either way, this is an awesome song from an awesome soundtrack and one of the best beat 'em ups of all time.

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.