Memory not found. I'll take your word for it.

Not really that great but not terrible. Whenever Banpresto strays away from SRW into other genres it always seems to just be not quite as good as you want it to be.

Replay. Nowhere near as bad as TMNT or The Simpsons - when you punch something it actually feels like you punched it - but it still features Konami doing their credit-stealing best to take your money. Colossus roar rules though.

The huge sprites and zooming and the cut-ins are all cool for the time but I don't remember it being very hot to play. Arabian Magic kind of wiped most of my memories of this away.

Pretty much the same feeling as the first game. Atomic Guy is cool though!

A little sluggish for the time, but full of cool monster designs for you to punch. Also has a fun title to say.

Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff other than the gimmick of being able to smash enemies into the background and break it, which does not get old.

Has that high-quality Irem look but I remember it feeling really slow.

Think this is the one that's really zoomed out and a lot the environment is destructible? Cool concept but it didn't feel very good to play.

Replay. Loved this game as a kid and still enjoyed it here. It's very basic and enemy variety is nonexistent but it just feels good to hit stuff and it's colourful! Great music too. OK, GO!

Indiana Jones shoots hordes of animal poachers and also an alien (?). I dunno, I think this game is pretty cool!

Not much to say about this. Not good.

Fairly standard beatemup but the Conan aesthetic is very strong here. Has that one great track that's in Taiko as well.

Okay NES platformer, only really playing it for the license.

Impressive effort for a NES game but playing it in amongst so many technically superior games did it no favours for me. Maybe one day.

A lot of bright, creative designs but the gameplay is very basic. Can't hate though, fun name to say.

A little overlong from what I remember, but otherwise pretty much on par with King of Dragons.

What came out in the West as Shatterhand. Movement is a bit weird but you punch everything, including bullets, and that is cool. Good music too!

Replay. One of Capcom's many remakes of Final Fight But in [Setting]. This time it's the grim future of...uh...4 years from now. It's fine, mostly gets points for being a little weird. Mack the Knife rules.

Originally played the SNES version, so here I went for the arcade release, which like the '89 game is trash. Legendary soundtrack but that's it.

Golden Axe II - it's like Golden Axe. I like Golden Axe. I like Golden Axe II!

Darius Gaiden's little brother. Great atmosphere and boss designs makes up for slightly subpar gameplay.

Thought 2 was a bit of an easier ride and then 3 decided they'd given me enough leeway. I was happy to finally go through all of these but they were an ordeal and a half.

Is there any earlier example of Just Defend in a game? Capcom beating SNK to the punch by 8 years. It's fine enough I guess, but later efforts are much better.

Replay. Playing it alongside all these other games in the genre, you can see how basic it is in terms of level design and so on, but it really is just the coolest game of all time. The style, the sound, all of it really plants you directly onto the streets as you plant crims directly into the street. Love it.

Played under the name Vendetta. Konami's first real pretty good effort. OTGing people is good and punching people's fingers so they lose grip and fall off the stage: great.

Replay. Designed by Cenobites. You know how everyone talks about the Turbo Tunnel? Real testament to just how bad the Turbo Tunnel is that you never hear anyone talk about the level immediately after it which is even worse.

Looks and sounds pretty good but is just doodoo otherwise. It's embarrassing that stuff like this was getting released by this stage.

Backloggd tells me that I played this, so I must have. I must have!

Not much to say about this one beyond flying cars being cool.

Wasn't really into this either. Wouldn't be the Game Gear if it wasn't hit or miss, I guess!

I played the Japanese version, Gun-Dec. Ninja Gaiden-ish for the most part, there's also some driving stages that are essentially on-road shmup sections. Had never heard of it before this year, it's cool!

All the big colourful sprites are cool but I wasn't that into it at the time. I might give this one another go.

Pretty standard shmup but with all kinds of weird cyberspace environments and enemies, it's really cool. The cutscenes where the main character enters cyberspace are the good stuff. The final boss of this game is Cyber-Hitler's skull, which has skeletal spider legs.

Replay. The worst of these Konami licensed games, I think. Just total guff.

Don't remember anything about it, but I didn't finish it so I must not have liked it, which is disappointing for a game called Karate Blazers.

Every ship just being a flying gun is incredible, but I didn't much like it beyond that, partner.

Replay. Another one where I think I like the idea of it more than I do actually playing it. When characters from it show up in other SNK things I think that's cool!

Another kind of drudgy SNK effort but worth a look for KOF history reasons.

This is what I wish wizards in movies and stuff were like. Just firing huge amounts of magic shit at everyone constantly. Doing a highest level Dragon's Dogma spell 50 times a minute. ZAP

Very cool setting but otherwise a slog to play. Might start specifically calling this the SNK Style.

Replay. SNK tries a Final Fight rip but with added ripoff music. Okay, but again feels like they can't keep up with the curve.

Replay. Thought this game was cool as hell as a kid, and hey, I still like it! The first-person sections are still very fun. Did this have Menacer support?

I finished this one but am totally blanking on anything about it.

Kind of cool, but just a little too annoying for me.

Interesting idea, but that's all.

Decidedly less cool.

Really tough in parts, but still a really cool game. Honorary Amemiyacore.

Still hard, still cool. Great music in this.

Another NES platformer that wasn't very good. Think I was playing these because they had translations.

I have no idea what the original cabinet was like for this, but this is a bit of a chore to play on a regular controller. I like the general weirdness of it though, and the invincible Robojacko. However it is unbelievable that it has tons of licensed Jackson music and the zombie level does not have Thriller. What the fuck!

Understandably similar to the sequel. Love that box art.

Not a good game at all, but the obvious big thing here is that it's one of the first instances of microtransactions, and is pure evil.

Now this is how you do an arena brawler, Renegade! Silly and fun. Bouncing someone's head off the concrete as an OTG attack is extremely satisfying. "The Slash Skate Screamers" is an incredible name for a gang.

This is also awesome.

Kudos for being weird but it's not particularly good.

Replay. I finished this as a kid and remember thinking it was cool. Adult me is less enamored with it.

Replay. Have never liked this game - I guess you can say the RPG elements were worth trying at the time, but I think the implementation here just goes against what's actually fun about the genre. And obviously it directly led to the Scott Pilgrim game, which is even worse.

Another Neo Geo release that feels like a relic for the time.

I think the C64 might not be the best system for this genre.

Jesus, these avalanche sections! Whose idea was this?

Bad. Move on.

Pretty standard stuff for the time, I guess. It's interesting to see what characters Sega were throwing out before they came up with Sonic.

Wanted to like this more than I did (due to it being a few characters removed from being called Dynasty Warriors).

I do not remember a single thing about this game.

Not good!

Only got this partly working from what I remember. Whatever, it's Renegade, I didn't care.

Liked this more than the first game, but the difficulty is still absolutely sadistic.

Weird. In order to jump across gaps, climb ladders, etc. you have to stand on little X marks and watch the animation play out like it's a film set or something. Pretty janky.

Just not that engaging after playing a bunch of games that were the same thing but better.

Mainly played this port to hear the music. Sadly not as good as I was hoping, but this version also has a bunch of low-rent cutscenes where the Brothers Lee are Kenshiro clones with turn of the 90s anime hair. Dope.

Also very hard! Such a cool game though.

Replay. The daddy. It definitely shows its age these days but it's still just so cool. Easy to see just how influential it was. What a game!

Replay. I don't know who it was that convinced the world that the licensed Konami beatemups are really good but they were doing the devil's work. I guess I can see how it would be fun if you had four players on the go and it does look and sound great, but the gameplay absolutely reeks. No impact to a single thing you do.

Played the Japanese release, where it's a game adaptation of the anime Area 88 (high melodrama, watch it). Why is this game so hard!

Not great. Interesting for its setting, I guess.

Replay. Fucking hell, man. Just one of the most tedious games ever made.

Genuinely awful. Konami were really not good at this early on.

Replay. I like this game still! The not-Conan world is really cool, love the big turtle village and the eagle stage.

Replay. Superseded by the remakes but this is still okay. Obviously the music rules.

Woooof. I actually finished this one and I have no idea why - it's not fun at all.

Replay. Awesome game but it is so incredibly punishing. Whoever designed the bird enemy should face charges.

Replay. King shit. Double Dragon II is a good-ass game.

Probably wouldn't have played this if it wasn't attached to an Amemiya movie. Very frustrating at points!

Replay. I'm still amazed a game like this got made and released on home console at the time!

Arcade version. Didn't like it as much as the NES version, just felt a lot shakier overall.

Not terrible, but the SNK stuff always feels like it's behind the curve even at this relatively early stage.

Played the Mega Drive version as a kid so I went for the arcade version here. Similarly clunky and not really all that fun, but all the monster transformation stuff is still cool and the voice clips are always funny.

Replay. Bad Dudes is not a good-ass game.

It's Renegade again, so it's not really very good, but the Tim Follin soundtrack is hot fire.

Notabe for laying a lot of the groundwork for the genre and as an early Technos effort, but this just isn't particularly fun.

Relentless game. Cruel!

Gave it a bash because of the associations it's had with Castlevania, but I wasn't that into it. That one track is still a banger though.

Now we're getting it. Still very playable and has one of the best title themes of all time.

The only thing I can remember about this is that I didn't like it.

Didn't think this was really all that good but I do like the Conan-rip aesthetic.

This was utter guff and there was no reason for me to finish it, but here we are.

The up/down/middle system of blocking and attacking is interesting enough for the time I guess, but this is too jank to really be fun.

More bog-standard stuff.

The first stop on my journey of playing every game listed in the beatemup history book Go Straight. Not great.