Best Beat-Em-Up Series?

Since I'm more than certain we have a good number of members who appreciate a good one on five slaughter fest now and again, I was curious as to what you guys considered the best beat-em-up series of all time to be

Hard to say as a lot of my favorite beat'em-ups are one-off arcade titles.

You could still have a favorite series, while your favorite beat 'em up is an individual game.

That said...there's quite a few series' missing here...
Denjin Makai(there is a home console port of the original with Ghost Chaser Densei on the Super Famicom)
Golden Axe
Rushing Beat(Rival Turf, Brawl Brothers, and The Peacekeepers)
Crime Fighters(CF, Vendetta, and Violent Storm)
Kunio-kun/Nekketsu(includes Renegade and River City Ransom)
Spartan X(includes Kung Fu/Kung Fu Master)
Sailor Moon has a series of beat 'em up across the 16-bit consoles and arcade.
^I think the same could be said of Power Rangers(minus the arcade part, but including some handhelds).
Capcom's D&D games(or do duologies not count, as that would technically DQ Denjin Makai)
Knights of Valour
Oriental Legends(again, duology)
Sengoku
Tenchi Wo Kurau(again, duology, Dynasty Wars & Warriors of Fate)
Dynamite Deka(duology, Die Hard Arcade and Dynamite Cop)
Guardian Heroes(duology)
Depends on how you look at Splatterhouse as well, especially if Battletoads is considered for the genre.

Lord only knows what I'm forgetting here, especially in 3D outside of Dynamite Deka.

That said, Denjin Makai, followed by Streets of Rage. As a singles, Night Slashers is one of my all time favorites as well.

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Originally Posted by midnightrider

That said...there's quite a few series' missing here...

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Yeah, I meant to include an "Other" option, but forgot to at the last second

Wish you could edit polls :/

I also had considered including Kunio-Kun, but there's a quite a few games in the series that are sports related, thereby making it kind of inconsistent

Well, at least I had a chance to jog my memory here.

Kunio-Kun/Nekketsu Brawlers:
NES:
Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-Kun/Renegade
Downtown: Nekketsu Monogatari/Street Gangs/River City Ransom (with other ports, and Ex on the GBA)
Downtown Special: Kunio-kun no Jidaigeki Dayo Zenin Shuugou!/Technos Samurai: Downtown Special!
(http://www.romhacking.net/translations/226/)

SNES(really Super Famicom):
Shodai Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun (almost more of an RPG though)
(http://www.romhacking.net/translations/893/)
Shin Nekketsu Kouha: Kunio-tachi no Banka
(http://www.romhacking.net/translations/598/)

There's recent 3DS games I don't know much about as well. Plus the sports games may as well be half beat 'em up anyway :p.


I think there was also supposed to be a connection between Bade Dudes and Crude Buster/Two Crudes Dudes, as well.

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Capcom's D&D games

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Ah yes... really awesome games especially Shadow over Mystara.

I love the Kunio Kun games as well. They're fun and funny and sometimes also include RPG elements. River City Ransom was the first time I remember seeing something like that in a beat'em up.

Among of those five games, Double Dragon is the one I rarely play anymore.
I feel the game's just too slow to play right now.

I see an utter lack of Golden Axe. Is it because you don't consider it a Beat'em Up and more of a Hack & Slash? In which case, the same could be said about TMNT. ;)

With the votes so far, it's pretty clear what the consensus is.

^ I think that's why this thread died on page 1.

If the snes final fights had full animation instead of the jerky mess it is I think I would choose that. However they are what they are and streets of rage is a pretty excellent series.

^How does animation improve a game that much? It helps it look nice, but it took the 3rd game before they decided to bring about any gameplay improvements, in '95, the year the genre started to peter out.

Compare both part 2's to their part 1's, and it's easy to see that there's a lot more to why Streets of Rage comes out ahead, than animation.

Rushing Beat might have stood a chance if it had a better start.

Same with Crime Fighters, though I'm not entirely sure that Violent Storm is part of the series(it does have the hit-'em-while-they're-down thing though), but it is easily Konami's best effort with the genre.


Thinking about things nowadays, I'd put Streets of Rage, as a series, ahead of Denjin Makai. 1/Ghost Chaser Densei isn't bad, but it's the quality of Guardians/2 that elevates the whole series, whereas with Streets of Rage 3, a few steps back from Streets of Rage 2 is still quite a few steps ahead of most beat 'em ups, and 1 started the series off pretty well for the time it released.

SOR; In before lock!

Combatribes was better than Final Fight imo.

While that FF, SOR and DD are in same category i dont know about Battletoads and TMNT. I guess not.