Beat 'Em Up
1-4 Players
System: Arcade
Developer: Irem Corporation
Year of Release: 1993
Beaten: September 24th, 2015
This, this is the sort of game that causes me to love the medium so. Four ninja baseball batmen must travel across the United States to recover pieces of a precious stolen Babe Ruth statue. This is one of the wackiest beat 'em ups I've played and I loved every second of it. Sadly, when it originally released it was pretty much ignored across the board. It's gotten some of the recognition is deserves in more recent years at least. Anyone who enjoys solid beat 'em ups and cartoons antics owes it to themselves to check this out.
As is fairly common this is another two button beat 'em up, attack and jump. Surprisingly though this game has a fairly large number of combos, throws and special moves. I never quite learned how to pull them off with precision, but I still managed to use them quite a lot. As you probably gleaned from the poster above, there are four playable characters. Now I'm not a fan of baseball, but after doing a bit of wikipedia research each of the characters is named after a famous baseball player which is an great touch. The red batman, Jose, is the regular average joe character, he plays fine but doesn't really stand out, he just uses one bat. Ryno, the green one, was one of my two favorites, while not very powerful he attacks possibly the faster I've ever seen a beat 'em up character attack, he wields two short bats. The big yellow fellow, Roger, was my other favorite character, obviously slow, but incredibly strong to make up for it, he used a pretty funny looking baseball bat with a big baseball attached to the end making a sort of club. Straw, the lanky blue guy, was my least favorite, he has a long skinny bat allowing him a pretty sizable reach, but I just didn't enjoy playing as him as much.
The gameplay is typical of the genre, run about the screen attacking everything in sight. Health items can be found, alongside weapons you can pick up all of which, I believe, are thrown weapons, and a special pick up that summons a group of cheerleaders for massive damage, or a health boost. The real draw here is the insanity of it all. Baseball is a clear theme from the title alone, sentient baseball creatures of all kinds are the main opponents, but several other strange creatures impede your progress as well.
The bosses are especially odd, the first is a giant plane which you fight... on a plane. When his health gets low he stops fighting and just quickly runs around the arena crying until you finish him off. Another is a mechanical alligator who slowly falls apart as you beat on him, killing him sends him flying off screen and he lands transformed into a alligator skin purse. Silly touches like this really make the game a treat to play through. Every new stage brought on something entirely unique and visually pleasing.
As mentioned before the combat is surprisingly deep, while I relied mainly on button mashing and managed just fine, there is a large assortment of special moves and combos that really make this game stand out. I didn't even realize it at first, assuming just attacking several times in a row caused these special attacks, but eventually it became obvious these moves could be pulled off intentionally. Some are massive screen clearing attacks, while other just allow several hits in a row for massive damage.
My biggest gripe with this game is the length, it's much too short. I already said anyone with an interest in this sort of game should seek this one out, and I hope reading more about it and seeing these screenshots has only solidified your resolve to play it. With friends, it's an incredibly fun experience that has plenty of surprises and fantastic "what the fuck" moments. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys good times.
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