20XX.
Global Warming has swallowed up the earth. Pollution has made most environments uninhabitable, and nuclear war has made sure to turn the rest into a wasteland.
After spending 500 years underground, humanity reemerges to find dinosaurs once again kings of the planet.
Mechanics and engineers are revered for their technological knowledge, and that's where the Cadillacs come in.
Essentially, this is Mad Max with dinosaurs, and child me could not be more captivated by a premise.
I played this game religiously back then, and it's a real shame that it never got a rerelease on anything other than the arcade, since being based off an animated series based off a comic book made dang sure navigating the licensing and rights required to publish this again damn near impossible.
It's sad especially because this is still, in my mind, the best beat 'em up Capcom has ever produced.
Cadillacs & Dinosaurs was the second game published for the CP System Dash, one of only five games, and it sits at a half-step between the CPS1 and CPS2 arcade boards.
While Warriors of Fate, the previous title for the board, was a feast for the eyes in terms of color, it didn't really innovate the genre, mostly cribbing ideas that were already established in the previous, hugely influential beat 'em ups Final Fight and Knights of the Round. It crucially omitted one of the best things Capcom brought to the genre, that being the 8-way dash first pioneered by Captain Commando.
As a result Warriors of Fate was a very slow and methodical beat 'em up, not that it's a bad thing, but I'd argue Final Fight was still on top in terms of design in that specific style.
Then came Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, and this time, they decided to go all out.
Not only was the 8-way dash brought back, but now we had the throw combos that were so sorely missing from Captain Commando, giving us a way to get invincibility periods while beating the shit out of enemies with our main string.
The music was vastly improved, with incredible percussion and great instrument samples, the graphics were more detailed than ever before and the animation and game-feel incredibly fluid.
Weapon pickups included firearms and grenades that would gib the opponents and send blood spurting everywhere, air strikes were called on the player's position on every respawn and it all felt so gosh darn empowering.
This is the first Capcom beat 'em up that feels truly freeform and improvisational, chaining grounded strings into throws and then into your special input move (done with down, up, attack), or flying across the screen chasing down enemies with your incredible dash attack, or grabbing enemies and being able to follow up with throws, input moves or superjoy, they got it all so RIGHT.
The last time I ran through it with a friend, he managed to punch a knife that was thrown by an enemy out of the air, then pick it up and use it as a weapon, to the hootin' and hollerin' of the both of us when we realized that was a possibility.
The characters are 4 this time, withCody Jack, Hannah, Mess and Mustapha.
Jack, as the name suggests, is the balanced one, pretty decent range, strength and speed, and his dash attack can be a great tool to get enemies off of you since it's a low slide to the ground that can go through a lot of stuff.
Mess is the grappler, he gets two different throws, although no Haggar piledriver here.
He has some funny momentum stuff with his dash jump attack, and one of the most ridiculous dash attacks I've ever seen.
Hannah is the fast one and she gets the good stabbys with knives. Her input move is basically Claw's rolling crystal flash from SF2, and is very satisfying to land.
Mustapha is also kind of like Jack but completely bonkers strong, both his dash attack and input move are probably the best in the game. He has the Guy walljump too.
Enemy variety could be improved, something a lot of the genre has always struggled with, but the combat is so fun that there isn't really any enemy type that makes you groan when having to deal with them. C&D has a very good difficulty curve all around, and is on the easier side of the genre.
This game stands head and shoulders above the rest of the genre, with only Streets of Rage 4 managing to surpass it in my eyes.
Play it, by whatever means.
Global Warming has swallowed up the earth. Pollution has made most environments uninhabitable, and nuclear war has made sure to turn the rest into a wasteland.
After spending 500 years underground, humanity reemerges to find dinosaurs once again kings of the planet.
Mechanics and engineers are revered for their technological knowledge, and that's where the Cadillacs come in.
Essentially, this is Mad Max with dinosaurs, and child me could not be more captivated by a premise.
I played this game religiously back then, and it's a real shame that it never got a rerelease on anything other than the arcade, since being based off an animated series based off a comic book made dang sure navigating the licensing and rights required to publish this again damn near impossible.
It's sad especially because this is still, in my mind, the best beat 'em up Capcom has ever produced.
Cadillacs & Dinosaurs was the second game published for the CP System Dash, one of only five games, and it sits at a half-step between the CPS1 and CPS2 arcade boards.
While Warriors of Fate, the previous title for the board, was a feast for the eyes in terms of color, it didn't really innovate the genre, mostly cribbing ideas that were already established in the previous, hugely influential beat 'em ups Final Fight and Knights of the Round. It crucially omitted one of the best things Capcom brought to the genre, that being the 8-way dash first pioneered by Captain Commando.
As a result Warriors of Fate was a very slow and methodical beat 'em up, not that it's a bad thing, but I'd argue Final Fight was still on top in terms of design in that specific style.
Then came Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, and this time, they decided to go all out.
Not only was the 8-way dash brought back, but now we had the throw combos that were so sorely missing from Captain Commando, giving us a way to get invincibility periods while beating the shit out of enemies with our main string.
The music was vastly improved, with incredible percussion and great instrument samples, the graphics were more detailed than ever before and the animation and game-feel incredibly fluid.
Weapon pickups included firearms and grenades that would gib the opponents and send blood spurting everywhere, air strikes were called on the player's position on every respawn and it all felt so gosh darn empowering.
This is the first Capcom beat 'em up that feels truly freeform and improvisational, chaining grounded strings into throws and then into your special input move (done with down, up, attack), or flying across the screen chasing down enemies with your incredible dash attack, or grabbing enemies and being able to follow up with throws, input moves or superjoy, they got it all so RIGHT.
The last time I ran through it with a friend, he managed to punch a knife that was thrown by an enemy out of the air, then pick it up and use it as a weapon, to the hootin' and hollerin' of the both of us when we realized that was a possibility.
The characters are 4 this time, with
Jack, as the name suggests, is the balanced one, pretty decent range, strength and speed, and his dash attack can be a great tool to get enemies off of you since it's a low slide to the ground that can go through a lot of stuff.
Mess is the grappler, he gets two different throws, although no Haggar piledriver here.
He has some funny momentum stuff with his dash jump attack, and one of the most ridiculous dash attacks I've ever seen.
Hannah is the fast one and she gets the good stabbys with knives. Her input move is basically Claw's rolling crystal flash from SF2, and is very satisfying to land.
Mustapha is also kind of like Jack but completely bonkers strong, both his dash attack and input move are probably the best in the game. He has the Guy walljump too.
Enemy variety could be improved, something a lot of the genre has always struggled with, but the combat is so fun that there isn't really any enemy type that makes you groan when having to deal with them. C&D has a very good difficulty curve all around, and is on the easier side of the genre.
This game stands head and shoulders above the rest of the genre, with only Streets of Rage 4 managing to surpass it in my eyes.
Play it, by whatever means.