FEBRUARY 2018 UPDATE www.arcadequartermaster.com
Part 1 of the site’s 10th anniversary shrines are here as it’s back to its roots of beat-em-up games!
GAUNTLET LEGENDS: I got the chance to play the original Gauntlet during the mid-90s at a school fair, and I was hooked, esp with that glorious 4-player cabinet. By 2000, I found a back issue magazine featuring Gauntlet Legends which I definitely have to get. It was not until around 2006 when I saw a 4-cabinet linked GL beside Shadow Over Mystara. And so began my fond memories of playing the game mostly on co-op with other regulars of that arcade with their saved characters. This is one of the titles I wanted to feature for quite a long time back, making some dummy character pages as drafts. The shrine is largely inspired by the magazine’s coverage and my personal experience in playing the game. The shrine only covers the arcade version, since its console ports have drastically different mechanics and location layouts. If you ever encounter one at the arcade, I really hope the shrines will be of great help you guide you across the realms as you raise your own heroes/secret characters!
BATTLETOADS: As most are aware of the notoriously-hard NES version, Rare made a more straightforward beat-em-up for the ‘toads a few years later, with the shooting segment only far into the game’s final stage. Rash, Zitz, and Pimple still had their signature attacks to pulverize the Dark Queen’s army of vermin and the fourth wall, along with some bloody finishers that border on dark comedy. Face off against familiar (and enormous) villains as you traverse through their lairs in outer space!
DOUBLE DRAGON 3: One of those titles marred by western localization, the Lee brothers are aided by different rival clans in search of the Rosetta Stones along with the fortune-telling crone Hiruko. Infamous for its credit-munching nature of requiring an extra quarter/token to buy weapons, power-ups, or the other brothers as back-up lives. These characters are playable right off the bat in the original version, and weapons are dropped by enemies.
DENJIN MAKAI: Banpresto’s cyberpunk beat-em-up features six crimefighters who hunt an elusive syndicate, aptly named Ghosts. The game is also ambitious with its plethora of special attacks and cooperative combo moves requiring a power meter just like a fighting game. Aside from its solid gameplay, it’s also quite ruthless as most of the normal enemies can mop you on the floor once you are caught in a stunlock. Similar to Irem’s Undercover Cops, the World version suffers from some omitted stuff like bonus games, the expanded backstory between stages, the endgame revelation, and a rather muted color scheme for Kurokishi.
Part 2 continues on the 23rd of February, featuring a similar game that kicked off the site’s advent on its days as a dedicated Capcom beat-em-up shrine!
