As a child of the 90s, I was lucky to grow up with a lot of great video games. This also coincided with the heyday of the 2D, side-scrolling, beat ‘em-up, which dominated arcades and consoles. As I’ve said before, in other reviews, I spent a lot of time with said genre.
One game I remember looking at a lot was Rival Turf — an early 1990s Super Nintendo game that stared at me from video store shelves. However, I don’t know if I ever actually played it despite being curious; the same being true of its offspring. It seems that I missed out if I didn’t do so.
Fast forward to this very month, and the series in question has surprisingly returned. It’s done so in the form of RUSHING BEAT X: Return of Brawl Brothers, which combines the franchise’s Japanese name with the title of one of its 16-but instalments. The game — which continues the story of its predecessors — is now available for Xbox Series, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC, and we got our hands on it this past weekend.
This nine stage affair begins in a MMA gym, which one of the series’ main characters has founded after stepping aside from police work. His peace is short lived though, because soldiers break through the windows, and it becomes evident that they are clones. Then, not long after, one of the game’s two villains shows herself. At this point, it becomes clear that the DNA altering virus from the previous game(s) may be back in circulation, meaning bad things for the city of Neo-Cisco.
The story found within RUSHING BEAT X: Return of Brawl Brothers is extremely convoluted, and kind of cheesy. If you’ve never played one of these games before, and happen to be going in blind like myself, then you’ll be pretty lost. They do recap what happened before, and even show screens from previous releases, but there’s just so much. It’s hard to keep track. All you really need to know, though, is that bad guys are using a biological weapon that was thought to have been extinguished.
While I respect that the developers (City Connection) strived to continue the convoluted plot from yesteryear, and understand that in-depth stories are not common in this genre, I can’t say that I was a fan. That’s especially true since this has to be the most wordy beat ‘em-up I’ve ever played. Before each stage, during the odd cutscene and during breaks, the characters talk to each other a lot. They do it in the back of a food truck, in the actual stages and before every boss battle. It’s a lot.
Maybe, if I’d grown up with these games, I’d have felt differently. It was story overload, though.
RUSHING BEAT X: Return of Brawl Brothers is the type of beat ‘em-up where you have to play to unlock new characters. That’s pretty common, but the way it’s handled here is a bit different. You see, completing a number of these stages gives you access to a new playable character, who can be used from them on. Beating the game, then, unlocks one more. Of course, they all run the gamut of types and specialties (speed, tank, all-around, etc.), and have their own stats and pros and cons. I played as all of them for at least one stage, and liked each one the most at different points. However, my favourite ended up being the quick female character who’s available from right near the start. I’d originally avoided her because her defence was low, but her speed made up for it big time.
If you’ve played one of these games before, or spent time within the genre, you’ll have a good idea of what to expect herein. However, there are some interesting differences. For instance, it’s possible to hold the attack buttons to do an auto combo, which makes it so that you don’t have to button mash. There are also lots of weapons to pick up or purchase, and these can be held in a limited inventory and cycled through. This includes grenades, shock grenades, swords, knives, footballs, exploding pineapples and more. Hell, you can even pick up and use guns, energy blasters, nail guns and launchers for a brief period of time.
When you’re not using weapons or things plucked from the environment, like a streetlight or a large metal bar, you’ll be kicking, punching, and throwing enemies. All of the above seems to fill a special meter, too, which can be unleashed for bonus damage. If you use it too early, all that’ll do is knock any enemies close to you down. However, if you wait for it to fill, it will trigger itself and cause you to flash. While flashing, you’ll have increased damage, but only for a limited time. If you press the right trigger again, while flashing, you’ll pull off the character special move, which will do a hell of a lot more damage than normal.
As a whole, the combat system is pretty good, but not without its flaws. There are times where the controls aren’t as fluid as one would hope, and it can be hard to line up attacks against flying enemies like drones. At times, the characters will also auto grapple enemies when you didn’t want them to. It can be a bit clunky, but it’s pretty fun for the most part, and can be challenging on normal — especially later on, when you are surrounded by enemies.
As with most every game of its ilk, RUSHING BEAT X allows players to pick up and eat food items to regain health. These are found in boxes, barrels and the like. However, unlike its peers, this game allows you to store multiple food items and use them as you please. Furthermore, since one of the main characters owns a food truck which serves as your safe house, cooking also comes into play. It’s possible to combine picked up foods into combo meals, or pay for ones that you don’t have ingredients for. I didn’t find or earn nearly as much money as expected, though, so I didn’t get to do that often.
What surprised me most about this game was that I didn’t even really need to eat anything. After I died the first time (4-5 stages in), I discovered that I could continue right from where I died. There didn’t seem to be a limit to this either. I’m not the best at these types of games, but I’m pretty good, though I used to be better than I am now. Regardless, I died a number of times and never had to restart a stage. I wasn’t even playing the available two player local co-op.
At the beginning, there weren’t a lot of enemies and things were slow. However, things got pretty chaotic near the end, and it could be hard to avoid getting hit by the mix of light, heavy, flying and ranged enemies. I was able to pull off a couple good combos near the end, but this isn’t a high or flashy combo type of brawler. The best I did was just over 100.
In total, it took about two hours to beat Return of Brawl Brothers. Afterwards, I tried to find its boss rush mode, but couldn’t. All I had access to was the story mode and a free-play one that lets you have more freedom to play the stages as you wish, and skip cutscenes. It also seems to introduce challenges into each enemy encounter. I don’t know if I’ll play through this one again, though. It was decent fun while it lasted, but it got quite repetitive and familiar as it went on, and the same bosses kept repeating.
Visually, and mechanically, this feels more like an early PS2 game than anything. The characters have some weight to them, and both them and the environments have a very stylized design to them. It’s almost like a mix between a comic book and Cel-shading, and it admittedly looks dated. This isn’t a title that will blow you away, or impress you much, based on its visuals. Its sound also does the job, but isn’t anything to write home about. It all fits the cheesy, late 90s, aesthetic though.
The stages, themselves, are pretty typical of such a title. There’s the streets stage, a couple of laboratory ones, a subway system, an office building, a segment that takes place on top of a moving truck and even a level based on the Golden Gate Bridge. The environments aren’t too unique, and don’t stand out a lot, but they get the job done and are slightly destructible.
With all that having been said, I doubt I need to say much more. I’ll just state that RUSHING BEAT X: Return of Brawl Brothers is a decent, relatively enjoyable and immersive entry into the genre, which fans of its long running series will surely appreciate most. It can be fun to jump into blind, but also very overwhelming.
This review is based on the Xbox Series X version of the game, which we were provided with.