The 10 Best Beat’em Ups on the SNES

I love a good Beat’em Up. While they can be repetitive and are better in the arcades, many were released on home consoles. They were ports of arcade games, but a few were unique to consoles like the SNES, SNES, NES, etc.

I have many memories of playing these games with my friend Drew. Some were played in arcades, but these were at places like Chuck’e Cheese, Maze Craze, or movie theaters. Most were played at Drew’s house after he started collecting SNES games.

When I started collecting games again, I ended up with many games I hadn’t played before. I found there are some amazing games that I didn’t know about. I don’t pay much attention to what other people have written about retro games, so this is my experience going through the SNES library.

Bottom Line Up Front: Beat’em Ups are some of my favorite games.

Selection criteria

Let’s talk about what qualifies for this list. I’m not just going to be putting any random game on this list. Here are the criteria I used to compile this list:

• Has to be a Beat’em Up or a Hybrid genre.
• I have to own the game.
• I have to enjoy the game.

The Pirates of Dark Water

Developer: Sunsoft

Genre: Beat’em Up

Review Score: 6.6/10 (Moby Games)

My love for the cartoon might be clouding my judgment on this one. I really like The Pirates of the Dark Water, and it would’ve been awesome if there was an RPG based on the show’s story. While that didn’t happen, we did get this excellent Beat’em Up.

This is exactly what you should expect from a Beat’em up. You can play as one of three characters, there is a two-player mode, and there is a life-draining superattack. The game looks great, and the controls are excellent. The enemy AI is rather stupid, but that adds some humor to the game.

I wish The Pirates of Dark Water would come back in some form. Its story was left unfinished as the cartoon was canceled, the comics retell a few episodes, and the video games don’t tell the whole story. Anyway, this is a wonderful game that I don’t hear much about.

Final Fight 2

Developer: Capcom

Genre: Beat’em Up

Review Score: 69/100 (GameRankings)

Final Fight is fantastic! However, it was single-player only, so I went with Final Fight 2 in this spot, and Final Fight 3 is also on the list. It is an excellent Beat’em Up, and it wasn’t split into two parts like the first game when it was ported to the SNES.

This classic arcade Beat’em Up has been faithfully ported to the SNES. You pick one of three characters, can play with two players, and you fight against a criminal organization. You can see it as your character wandering around a city and beating up people who were minding their own business. Vote for Mayor Haggar, or he will beat the crap out of you!

Final Fight 2 is a great game. I remember playing it with my friend Drew when we started collecting SNES games. I have played a ton of different beat’em ups over the years, and this is one of the better ones.

Final Fight 3

Developer: Capcom

Genre: Beat’em Up

Review Score: 6/10 (EGM)

One gang is gone, and another has moved into the city. I’m beginning to think that Mayor Haggar isn’t very good at his job since he seems to think the only way to fight crime is for him to do it literally.

This game looks and controls great. It has four playable characters, more moves, and a combo system. It is still a beat’em up, which means the combat isn’t too different from the previous games. The story isn’t anything special, but it doesn’t need to be.

Final Fight 3 didn’t stand out to me that much. It is a fun game, and the developers tried to add some things to it, but it wasn’t anything special. After this game, the Final Fight series would take a break for a while, and some of the characters would end up in the Street Fighter games.

Rival Turf

Developer: Jaleco

Genre: Beat’em Up

Review Score: 48/100 (GameRankings)

There isn’t much to talk about with this one. It is a good beat’em up, but Jaleco made the bizarre decision to cut the story out. This was supposed to be part of a series of games called Rushing Beat. We didn’t get that in North America.

The gameplay is great, and the graphics are good. The only bad thing is that the story is gone. I wanted to like this game more, but so much was missing.

This was probably the start of the trilogy in North America. It doesn’t really matter because these are treated like separate games. Nothing connects them in their North American release.

Super Double Dragon

Developer: Technos

Genre: Beat’em Up

Review Score: 7/10

This is an odd game. It is like some of the other classic franchises that received a reboot on the SNES. This one got butchered by management before it was released. The game was rushed, and the story was cut from it.

That isn’t usually a big deal, but the story in the manual is still there, and the end of the game contradicts it. The rest of the game is fantastic! It is everything you would expect from a Double Dragon game, for better or worse.

Super Double Dragon is a good game, but the nonsensical story was problematic. The gameplay is excellent, the super attack system is great, and the graphics are wonderful. I like the game a lot.

The Combatribes

Developer: Technos

Genre: Beat’em Up

Review Score: 5.6/10 (Mobygames)

This was weird. There were so many little things missing from this game that I was having a hard time figuring out what to do with the review of it. I liked what was there, but the missing stuff was strange.

The console release is close to a single-screen beat’em up. It scrolls like a fighting game instead of having you move through a level. There are also no items in the game. It looks fantastic, the controls are good, and it is a ton of fun.

This feels like a starter beat’em up. If you want to get into the genre, I suggest you try this game. It is simple, it looks good, and it has quite a bit of humor in it.

TMNT: Turtles in Time

Developer: Konami

Genre: Beat’em Up

Review Score: 83/100 (GameRankings)

This is probably the best of the bunch. Konami made the best beat’em ups in the arcades at this time, and their home console ports were awesome. Modern reviews of them have some complaints, but in the 1990s, I don’t remember anyone complaining about them.

Like most TMNT video games, you have to defeat The Shredder because he is doing something evil. Hyperstone Heist is very similar because that game was based on Turtles in Time. The graphics and controls are spectacular, and this is a wonderful game to play.

TMNT IV: Turtles in Time is one of the many games I discovered when I started collecting games. I didn’t know about the arcade game and was pleasantly surprised this wasn’t the TMNT fighting game. It is my favorite of the games on this list and one of my favorite beat’em ups.

Brawl Brothers

Developer: Jaleco

Genre: Beat’em Up

Review Score: 65/100 (GameRankings)

This is another game in the Rushing Beat Series. Canonically, it is the second game in the series, but because Jaleco butchered the North American release, you could play these in any order. There isn’t much of a story in this game, which isn’t a big problem, but it is strange.

Brawl Brothers is a good-looking game. The controls are decent, and the graphics are outstanding—what you should expect from an SNES game. The lack of a story was the only thing that held it back for me. It isn’t a big problem, but it is noticeable when you learn this is part of a trilogy.

The story of this series is more interesting than the games. I’m unsure if the story about the localization is out there, but I would like to know more about why they were released this way. I like this game more than Rival Turf.

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs

Developer: Rare

Genre: Multi Genre

Review Score: 78/100 (GameRankings)

Rare seemed convinced that they could combine several genres to make a good game when it came to Battletoads. Difficulty spikes and bad gameplay hold back the games at times. The beat’em up sections are usually solid, but when the game tries to be a platformer, things fall apart a bit.

I like this game more than the NES and Genesis games. It isn’t necessarily a good game or even a well-remembered game like Battletoads on the NES, but It is a decent game. The controls are okay, but I wish they had stuck to one genre.

This can be a fun game, but like the other Battletoads games, it is frustrating. This franchise is incredibly strange and can be hard to talk about. On the one hand, it is a fun game, but on the other hand, it is a very difficult game to get into.

The Peace Keepers

Developer: Jaleco

Genre: Beat’em Up

Review Score: 61/100 (GameRankings)

This was my favorite game in the Rushing Beat Series—at least in the North American version. This game has a story, good gameplay, and wonderful graphics. The story is probably my favorite part of this game.

This is the only game in the series with a story, and it is great! By great, I mean it is ludicrous, which makes it awesome! It involves some evil guy doing genetic testing and creating mutants or some such nonsense.

The Peace Keepers is my favorite game in this series. I would like to see what the Japanese games were like. The core gameplay is probably the same, but I would like to know what connected them. There is a recurring character in the three North American games, but his name changes each time. While I like this game a lot, the series is a bit of a mess.

Conclusion

I know that I missed several beat’em ups on the SNES. Part of this was due to not being able to afford them or not wanting to play a single-player beat’em up. I also left off some that I didn’t like that much.

A few trilogies and series of beat’em ups on the SNES exist. Final Fight faired the best, as most of those games faired better than others. Capcom’s trilogy is better than Jaleco’s Rushing Beat series.

There are several more that I left off of this list. I had considered calling this a Best of List, but I didn’t think that was appropriate. These ten are the ones that I like the most, and I think they’re good games.

This was going to be a list of fifteen games, but I couldn’t put some of them on the list as I didn’t like them that much. There aren’t too many lousy beat’em ups on the SNES, but there are a bunch of single-player-only games that should’ve been multi-player.