Rushing Beat / Rival Turf / Brawl Brothers

[Sketcz-1000]

The Rushing Beat trilogy are some fairly bog standard Final Fight clones courtesy of Jaleco, which were all connected in Japan but released under different names in the US - Rival Turf!, Brawl Brothers and The Peace Keepers.

www.hardcoregaming101.net/rushingbeat/rushingbeat.htm

[Allie]

The Peace Keepers really wasn't that bad at all aside from the "Ambient Sound" thing causing for half the BGM to be cut out to put it in. The names didn't bother me, and I actually preferred the new super moves to the old "four gods" references of the Japanese game.

I'm absolutely terrible at games in general, and managed to beat Peace Keepers with its 12 continue limit. Mind you, I used Flynn, who has certain major advantages over the rest of the cast,

SPOILER: Click to show

specifically that he's got that "I'm actually a robot" super mode that nobody else does

, but I managed it.

[Sketcz-1000]

I distinctly remember a web page, many, many years ago, which spoke about one of these games - I think. It mentioned how dialogue was ripped out, sprites were changed, and an entire enemy was removed (or possibly lost) as a result of the hack localization (the writer's theory was that changing the sprites meant it glitched and that enemy had to be cut).

I tried Googling for it, and in hindsight I'm wondering if I wasn't mixing it up with a different scrolling fighter. Ring any bells for anyone?

However, I did find these web pages, which seem relevant to discussion at hand:
rq87.flyingomelette.com/RQ/region/rivalturf/rivalturf.html
rq87.flyingomelette.com/RQ/region/brawlbros/brawlbros.html
rq87.flyingomelette.com/RQ/region/peacekeepers/peacekeepers.html

[nickz]

Something strange I keep noticing in games: tough guys wearing police hats. It's in here, it's in Jojo's Venture, it's in Puzzle Bancho, and it's in Savage Reign. Was this look shorthand for "tough guy" back when this was made? I don't know, but I've seen way sillier things people wear to try to look tough.

[ReyVGM]

Rival Turf:

It IS at least a somewhat better game than the dreadful SNES version of the first Final Fight

No, come on. Are you serious? The SNES FF might have been butchered when compared to the Arcade version, but it is miles better than Rival Turf.
Personally I never played the Arcade Final Fight back then, the only version I knew was the SNES version and even still, without knowing it was butchered, it was still much better than Rival Turf. I have never found a single person (until now) that though RT was better than the SNES FF.

- There's a cool code in this game that allows you to change the names of every single character!

- It would be nice if the article contained images of the removed intro, ending and credits.

Some more info here:
tcrf.net/Rival_Turf!


Brawl Brothers:

- The game was released in some European countries as Brawl Brothers: Rival Turf 2 ( www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/1015386/img/Anonymous/Brawl-Brothers---Rival-Turf!-2-%28NOE%29.jpg )

-It would be nice if the article contained images of the removed attract mode and credits.


Peace Keepers:

-There's a PK FAQ on GF with an email from one of the Jaleco USA staff talking about the (made up) localization process.

-The part where it shows all the characters, the USA names should be noted there too just like in the first game's article.

-I think when talking about the characters, if the Japanese name is going to be used, then both of their regional names should be named (Flynn/Dick) because most people are familiar with the USA version and thus, wouldn't really know who you might be talking about. I know their regional names get mentioned, but they get mentioned at the end of the article instead of the beginning.

See more info here:
tcrf.net/Peace_Keepers


Here are all the Rushing Beat endings translated to English, by several translators, but most by jonny2x4. These are real translations, not the made up bull found in the USA version.
www.vgmuseum.com/end/snes/c/rushbeat.htm
www.vgmuseum.com/end/snes/c/rushbeat2.htm
www.vgmuseum.com/end/snes/d/rush3.htm

[Discoalucard]

I had several extra pics of the Japanese versions, so I added them.

[roushimsx]

When my brother and I bought a SNES, we picked up Super Mario World (!!) and Rival Turf. We were huge fans of Final Fight, but the clerk informed us that it didn't have a 2p mode but there was this other game that did... so we grabbed "that one".

Really had a lot of fun with it and look back on the trilogy more fondly than I do the Final Fight trilogy. The Peace Keepers in particular was fucking sexcellent.

[Ryu the Grappler]

Jul 13, 2012 16:09:28 GMT -5 ReyVGM said:

Rival Turf:

It IS at least a somewhat better game than the dreadful SNES version of the first Final Fight

No, come on. Are you serious? The SNES FF might have been butchered when compared to the Arcade version, but it is miles better than Rival Turf.
Personally I never played the Arcade Final Fight back then, the only version I knew was the SNES version and even still, without knowing it was butchered, it was still much better than Rival Turf. I have never found a single person (until now) that though RT was better than the SNES FF.

I second this. Frankly I find it downright annoying how the SNES Final Fight has gathered such a bad reputation over the years just because it was single-player only, had a stage missing and didn't have Guy in it (at least until they made that second version that brought him back by removing Cody). It's not a pixel-by-pixel reproduction of the arcade original, but at the same time it doesn't deserve to be lumped alongside the likes of Pac-Man 2600 and the SNES Pit Fighter either, considering everything else about the game is pretty solid. Hell, they even managed to include Cody's infinite combo trick, something the Sega CD version botched due to its slower attack speed (something not many reviews bother to bring up).

The first Rushing Beat by comparison is a so-so beat-'em-up, even by straight-to-SNES standards. The only thing it had going for it was the fact that it was the first SNES belt-scroller that offered a 2-players co-op. I always preferred its sequels though, especially Syura.

[ReyVGM]

I don't get the hate either. Tons of Arcade ports were not Arcade perfect and don't get as much hate as FF. And the SNES FF has something much much better than the Arcade version: awesome heart-pumping music and sound effects.

[Allie]

Jul 13, 2012 21:44:48 GMT -5 ReyVGM said:

I don't get the hate either. Tons of Arcade ports were not Arcade perfect and don't get as much hate as FF. And the SNES FF has something much much better than the Arcade version: awesome heart-pumping music and sound effects.

Hell, Gradius 3 gets praised for NOT being arcade-perfect.

[Ryu the Grappler]

I got around reading the article and got to Sotenga's comment about the SNES Final Fight and he definitely has no idea what he's talking about.

So that's the first Rushing Beat in a nutshell. It's not a great game, and there are quite a few similar games on the SNES alone that are far better. Then again, it's not all that bad either even if derivative and uninspired. It IS at least a somewhat better game than the dreadful SNES version of the first Final Fight. Its difficulty is slightly fairer and it allows for two-player carnage, a feature sorely missed in Capcom's botched port. That being said, there's not much reason to play it unless you like the later two Rushing Beat games and want to give this one a shot out of curiosity. The original Japanese version is decidedly preferable, as its names for the heroes and enemies are decidedly less stupid, and it allows you to adjust lives and continues in the options menu to make things easier or more difficult.

Rival Turf "fairer" (read: easier) than the SNES Final Fight? I'm sorry, but that's pure A-grade BS. As someone who had extensive experience with both games, I can easily reach the fourth stage of the "botched" SNES port Final Fight without losing a single life on the hardest difficulty, yet I usually struggle to do the same thing with Rival Turf on the first stage alone. The enemies in Rival Turf are more capable of landing consecutive hits than the ones in Final Fight, especially the Skinny/Stick enemies.

Judging by the fact that he praises the Japanese version for having adjustable lives and continues, I get the impression that the only reason he considers Rival Turf fairer is, not because it's possible to survive on one life based on your skills, but because the continues in that game take you to the same exact spot where you died, which means it's an easier game to life/credit-feed.

I've found plenty of no-death playthroughs for the SNES Final Fight, but none for Rival Turf.

[ReyVGM]

I played both games extensively back then too (had both carts), I was able to beat Final Fight on my own. For Rival Turf, I had to beat it in two players mode because by the last stage I was out of continues thanks to all the cheap hits.

I know it's Sotenga's opinion, but I really don't understand this hate for Final Fight. Did people actually expect Arcade games to get Arcade-Perfect ports back then? Did people get as pissed off with the NES port of Double Dragon 1-2? Or Street Fighter 2 or Mortal Kombat 2?

All of those games were very inferior to their Arcade counterparts, but they played excellently, such as Final Fight does.

[Ryu the Grappler]

Incidentally, the NES Double Dragon gets bashed a lot for lacking the 2-players co-op mode and not being a faithful reproduction of the arcade original (it's not a real port, but the same can be about pretty much every 8-bit game based on an arcade title), even though it's a really well-made game by 1988 NES standards. I think the NES version holds up a lot better than the arcade original, which was an excellent game for its time, but incredibly buggy (constant slowdown when there's more than three characters) and broken (the elbow strike turns the game into a joke).

Going back on topic, here's the opening intro of Rushing Beat with English captions.

[Discoalucard]

Jul 14, 2012 11:16:48 GMT -5 ReyVGM said:

I know it's Sotenga's opinion, but I really don't understand this hate for Final Fight. Did people actually expect Arcade games to get Arcade-Perfect ports back then? Did people get as pissed off with the NES port of Double Dragon 1-2? Or Street Fighter 2 or Mortal Kombat 2?

All of those games were very inferior to their Arcade counterparts, but they played excellently, such as Final Fight does.

Well, I can't speak specifically for Sotenga, because strictly from a playability standpoint the SNES Final Fight is pretty alright, and I haven't played Rival Turf! at all. No one expected NES games to be arcade perfect, but one of the draws of the 16-bit era was close-to-arcade replications. The very first game for the Genesis was Altered Beast, and while it wasn't ENTIRELY perfect, it was close enough so that the average kid wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Same thing with Street Fighter II - back then everyone was perfectly okay with it, because it was close enough, and had all of the features.

Final Fight didn't though, and not because the SNES couldn't handle it. I don't know if it was time issues to make launch or Capcom being too cheap to spring for more ROM space, but when your port looks okay but is missing a whole playable character and a whole level, it really kinda puts a wrench in things. I'd venture to say that the lack of a two player mode is a huge blow to beat-em-ups too, because growing up, playing them with a friend was a LOT more fun than playing alone. (Same, incidentally for the NES Double Dragon, even though I agree the port is fairly decent on other merits.) From that perspective, it's practically a death knell for the product.

[ReyVGM]

Well, I don't really mind if he (or anyone) thinks Final Fight sucks, but to say that Rival Turf is better? That's just wrong