Starts promising but gets miserable as the enemies become gimmickier and more aggressive. That stage 2 boss is the exact moment the game drops from a warm 8 to a frigid and soul-wrenching 4, but I still gotta give it credit for some kickass art and tunes. Irem in their mid-90's knew how to do it.

SNES version is maybe 70% as good, there's a chance it's more soberly designed but I didn't get far enough to tell. Limited continues definitely hurts it and I didn't have the energy to keep save-scumming.

As late as March 1995, the Varie Corporation came up with a port of Irem's 1992 arcade Beat'em'up for the Super Famicom. According to Wikipedia an American localization was planned but canceled and the SNES game had already received a review in Nintendo Power #58 (interesting, because that's supposedly the March 1994 issue). Having had a chance to play the Super Famicom version, here's my follow up to the arcade review.

While there can never be enough Brawlers on the system, with the Sony Playstation on the horizon and even the Nintendo 64 at least eagerly awaited, a game like Undercover Cops probably wasn't expected to retain enough players during a time games like the Donkey Kong Country series and Killer Instinct were providing some late surprises what the system was capable of.

Other than in Japan, where a mild success of the arcade release was carried on via the Gameboy game Undercover Cops: Hakaishin Garumaa and a Manga published in Gamest Comics, the American audience, if even aware, might have forgotten about the title anyway until the port would have been released.

Luckily, if you wanted to play the import, the necessary menus are in English. Only the rudimentary story is written in Japanese and though I try to actually read those narrations if I can, it's neither crucial to the typical Beat'em'up, nor was the plot very convincing at the arcades, so I can assure you it's not much you're missing out on.

A difference would be the weird Gameboy board game style adaption from 1993, that I couldn't make much sense of, because there you pick one of the three known characters to play on a map with a mix of slot machines, supposedly taken from the Assessment Day segments in Undercover Cops, and turn-based fights. Plenty Japanese text might actually explain what that is about, but due to the language barrier I'm not able to judge.

The question is, would you want to play the more accessible Super Famicom game? That's probably depending on the availability of the arcade original and your general interest. Though limited to one player, that doesn't mean Undercover Cops is any easier than the arcade version as a single contender.

Having read Easy Mode will end after stage 3 asking you to switch to Normal, I've of course picked that difficulty. Having played the Undercover Cops arcade quite recently made me confident enough to try and I can say the Varie port for the Super Famicom stays quite true to the original within its limitations. The screen is smaller at a lower resolution, but it even managed to keep backgrounds and details like the crows, whilst minor censorship like missing blood spray doesn't really affect gameplay.

The enemies don't seem to fight precisely the same, but they either were an even larger pain in the ass like that bat wielding dude or at least as annoying as in the original. And that's my actual issue with Undercover Cops in the first place. I wasn't all that convinced by the arcade machine anyway, but that was capitalist enough to let me pass with enough credits as backup.

I'd be totally with you that having a limited amount of continues (here adjustable to up to five lives and five continues) will enhance a game to the requirement of skill. Knowing the original wasn't much rewarding with the design or even story development, but instead punishes any success by being even more infuriating, my motivation wasn't high enough to not abandon the Super Famicom version after failing at the third boss.

Batman Returns for instance kept me hooked on a rather maddening Super Nintendo game, but Undercover Cops lacks a more unique theme by today's standards. It was too clearly designed with cashing in at arcades in mind, so it's not really supporting an elaborated learning curve and the excellence of execution super hard Irem games like the R-Type series provide just don't translates as well to the Brawling genre.

As an Irem, Super Famicom or Beat'em'up completionist, you might still want Undercover Cops in your collection, but I highly doubt you'll be enjoying it, should you not be a genre dedicated masochist.

When I recently reviewed Irem's rather disappointing Blade Master, I was thinking Hack'n'Slash or Brawlers in general might just not be their thing. Well, with Undercover Cops it turns out that might actually be the case.

Sure, I had expectations, due to the information the Undercover Cops score had been physically released and there had been two Manga issues dedicated to the Beat'em'up as well. You don't see that too often!

Having read Undercover Cops is Streets of Rage vs. Metal Slug wasn't the best introduction either, to be truthfully honest. There is a point in that description, but it's nothing like at least I would have imagined that at all.

It is true, depending on the cabinet, up to two or three players can pick amongst three more or less futuristic law enforcers with random two lines of backstory and it so happens two are male and one is female. And it's a generic Brawler, so it must be declared as Streets of Rage, right?

The team behind Undercover Cops is supposed to have moved on to form Nazca and made Metal Slug. I wouldn't say you see that directly in the art style, because here you don't have the comical cute characters, but the colors actually are from a quite similar palette.

With all the small animals to pick up and especially the vehicles of Undercover Cops you wouldn't necessarily say it's the same world as in Metal Slug, but looking back you kinda see sort of a handwriting. It's just a whole different blueprint.

I wouldn't compare Undercover Cops too much with Blade Master as well, by the way, because the Hack'n'slash, even though you are fighting monsters rather than human enemies in both, was rooting in that Sword and Sorcery aesthetics enough to make it enjoyable for its designs. Details that get lost a lot in the muted, earthy tones of Undercover Cops.

It's true this palette sets the Brawler apart from most of its contemporary rivals and may the remote spray of blood not really make a huge impact, some stages are almost an ossuary with plentiful skeletons and swarms of ravens just there to set the mood. A huge pot of blood stew might have been the most horror you would have been able to get out of a Beat'em'up of its day.

The problem is this doesn't make a game. Undercover Cops uses one button for jump, one for attack and as often pressing the two results in an escape or rescue super move, the kind that draws from your life bar. You can dash or dash attack, which can be helpful at times. Nothing really astonishing.

The reason Brawler aficionados return to those games is a miracle on its own. There seems to be a fascination about getting into the zone, beating along with the score's rhythm, taking an elevator or two and not wasting too many credits. Those games are most pleasant in co-op of course, especially with good friends and maybe playing Undercover Cops on my own was a mistake for exactly that reason.

What Undercover Cops has in common with both Irem games and the Metal Slug it was compared to is being merciless. It begins with not allowing you to approach the enemy from below, so your attacks would more likely hit before you're getting smacked. Keeping the opponents under control is difficult in general.

We are used to face multiple doubles of enemy characters in a Brawler, but Undercover Cops is relentless in introducing one type and then either immediately increasing the wave of the same face until you're definitely fucked, or it pushes the quality of the character's attacks first and then throws six and eight more at you.

It doesn't stop there. You think a cyborg with an arm telescoping over half the screen is a bitch, because if you don't immediately throw it down a trash compactor to kill it, it will do exactly that to you? Again and again? Well, congratulations, you will meet that bastard again a couple of times to have him throw you into the abyss from a helicopter and as you'd instantly lose a life then, you better use your rescue move.

You might want to call that challenging, but this, despite surprises like a screen filling carpet attack from the off, is the basic principle of Undercover Cops. So it may be fun to pick up complete pillars and i-beams as weapons, if all that the game does is swarming you more and more, obviously with the intention to collect your money for more credits, I don't think it's really satisfying.

You might miss to stop the bomb by a simple attack along the way on your first playthrough and realize you could only trigger the bad ending like I did. I don't know how encouraging this would be, if you didn't notice what you did wrong and there was no internet to research, but after my second beating of the game I can tell you it's more like calming my OCD than it was enough of a difference to legitimate another twenty or so credits (luckily played on a flatrate).

By the way, I've played the Undercover Cops Alpha Renewal Version and having compared it to excerpts from both the regular World and Japanese versions I don't think any of them would be worse or more fun than the other. It's basically the same bland game without enough modification (if at all) to make one version more special than the other. I'd especially have replaced the almost loungy score completely to complement the action instead of toning it down.

It's totally possible it's just not for me or maybe I'm just not good enough to find joy in Undercover Cops. I mean, there must be a reason others gave it five stars, right? I can just assume how I would have reacted back in the day.

But since before mentioned Streets of Rage had been out, Final Fight anyway, that kinda finally spawned that Beat'em'up mania originating in Double Dragon and the likes, Violent Storm was just about to be released and games like Vendetta offered the comical fun that is so omitted in the somewhat serious Undercover Cops, I just don't see a huge window in that Irem's game would have had a realistic chance with me.