The Dreamcast, despite being, in most respects, an incredible machine for people who wanted to bring the arcade home, had only two beat em ups released for it (as far as I can remember, at least). And one of them was Soul Fighter. The strange thing about this is that SEGA had a series of beat em ups in arcades at around that time, the Spikeout series, and two of them even ran on Naomi hardware: the fantasy-themed Slashout, and this one, Spikers Battle. They would have made great additions to the DC library, but I guess it's all just more evidence of SEGA being the Paul Heyman of the videogames world: unmatched in terms of creativity and talent, completely terrible when it comes to making money.
Anyway, Spikers Battle is a strange case, in that it's a beat em up that thinks its a fighting game. It controls like a beat em up, has weapons strewn about the place like a beat em up, and most of the stages see you fighting a boss and some goons, like a beat em up. If you were to compare it to any other game, the most apt would probably be the original Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun/Renegade, with its small stages and gang warfare setting. But on top of all of this, it has a strange fighting-game rounds system in place of lives, whereby to advance past a stage, you have to finish it twice, and to get a game over, you have to fail the same stage twice.
I haven't been able to find any information on how multiplayer modes work, but I'll assume it's like the other Spikeout games, and has multiple cabinets linked together, so maybe the rounds thing makes more sense in that context? Anyway, it's pretty much the only problem I have with this game, and it's not a big one. It's fun to play, looks really cool, everything's fine except for that one thing.
Obviously, if you're brave enough to tangle with Naomi emulation, or rich enough to tangle with Naomi ownership, Spikers Battle is one of the games I recommend you look into. It's a lot less brutal in terms of difficulty than some of its stablemates, too (I'm mainly talking about Slashout here, which is a very difficult game).
This game is MINDBLOWING FUN at 60fps, with that SEGA PERFECT arcade feel. Plays flawlessly on my Pi400 w/xbox360-style wired usb pad. It’s always you VS 3! What frustrates me is I cannot find a moves list to save my life! I can’t figure out how to pick *anything* up to use as a weapon (nothing!), and I hate all console makers for mapping their buttons differently (A = B? Or A= C? X? Triggers do zero. Maybe XBox Y = Rpi B? There’s no instructions! It looks great, runs flawlessly, no audio/video stuttering at all! But I bet I’d do better if I could PICK UP A DANG WEAPON! It IS a beautiful, fluid game so smooth… as I die repeatedly in the air before my corpse falls on a “Life-Up!” Kit!
ReplyDeleteThere’s an arena mini-map, but when fighting 1 Vs 3, good luck having a flinch to use it to spot the jerk kidney-kicking you from behind!
I have the same issue with many games on emulation: they play so beautifully, but don’t teach you how to play them! A definite BUY! Just figure out the control scheme before expecting to last past stage 3. The 3 CPI fighters don’t fight each other, no, no, no- they ALL WHOOP YOU SIMULTANEOUSLY! My hand is crazy cramped to the point of needing to use my other hand to *peal* my left hand from the controller. I just need instructions! But this is why SEGA ROCKS! Today’s console games don’t have the look or feel of the arcade at all. Now all games are 593 hours long in open worlds I don’t give a crap about! This, Spiker’s Battle, is ARCADE PERFECT fun! Screw stealth, planning, plotting, sniping and blah like a Sony game- this is SEGA, and it’s bright, beautiful, brutal 110% action! Dreamcast’s forte. But I guess it never got that home port, though you may luck into it online under “Naomi Roms”. My buddy leant me his arcade GD-Rom. :)