Back at the time of its release in 2005, Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance had the misfortune to find itself lumped alongside a load of other games in a trend hated by many people (including my friends and I). That trend being the embarassing array of gang-themed games released in the wake of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, each expending so much effort telling you how tough and cool they were that it made you wonder who they were trying to convince. But many years later, when I was picking up PS2 games for cheap, I noticed that this one was developed by Cavia, a B-game studio only a few rungs higher on the ladder than the likes of Tamsoft.
So I gave it a go, and in the isolation from its peers afforded it by the distance of time, I've been able to see Beat Down in a new light. Thematically, it's still a lot more silly than it seems like it wants to be, but it's in a charming way. It's very much a bunch of Japanese game developers making their idea of what the tough streets of inner city America are like. Mafia members wear identical matching suits, assassins look like vampires with their own trademark weapons, and the tone generally feels kind of like an inner city immersive theme park. In fact, some of the stuff is so strange that I do wonder if it was originally meant to be a Vampire: The Masquerade-style setting that got changed into a gangland theme at some point during development.
Themeing aside, there's also a lot of interesting mechanical systems in here, too. Fighting, for example. There's two types of fights you'll take part in. There's one-on-one fights, used for bosses and some other situations, and gang fights, where you beat up a bunch of weaker goons. They both play the same in terms of controlling your character, but the one-on-one fights have the camera somewhat fixed into a fighting game-style position and the characters are locked into facing each other, while you can move the camera and yourself more freely in the gang fights.
Furthermore, the one-on-one fights have a second meter below each character's health. This is the pride meter, and it's got a couple of purposes. If you lose the fight while your pride meter is empty, you can't re-try it, and are forced to either beg for your life and end up in hospital, or get a game over and have to reload your save. More interestingly, if you deplete your opponent's pride meter before you beat them, you can grab them, and upon doing so you're given a few options. You can rob them, interrogate them (some story missions requitre you to find a bunch of specific enemies and interrogate them), and even recruit them as cronies who follow you around to fight alongside you in gang fights and act as team memebers (like a fighting game's team battle mode) in one-on-one fights.
The other big interesting system the game has is the stealth/dressing up system. Because the game starts with you turning your back on your mafia life, and because you're still a criminal, there's two gangs who want to get you: the mafia and the cops. Luckily, they both have member bases with memory problems, who can only vaguely remember what you look like. So, while you're going around the city, there's two recognition meters at the top of the screen. They go up a little every time a member of the corresponding gang sees you, and when a group's recognition meter is at 100%, members of that gang attack you on sight! To get the meters to go down, you've got to change your clothes, hair, and accessories! Best of all, once you buy an item of clothing, you keep it for the rest of the game, so eventually, you'll build up a decently-sized wardrobe of stuff out of which you can construct different outfits whenever the need arises. I can't think of another game that isn't specifically about dressing up, but which incorporates doing so into the gameplay in such a way. Which is a shame, really. There's so much potential for this kind of thing, especially with how popular open-world games and action RPGs are nowadays.
Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance is a game that I unjustly derided and shunned when it came out, but now, eighteen years later, I can admit how wrong that was. It's a game with a lot of interesting ideas, that's decently fun to play. Of course, I recommend doing so, assuming you have the means to play PS2 games in the year 2023. (And I'm sure that most of the people reading this probably do.)
Oh yeah, I think this game is super interesting too! It's also available on the original Xbox, which deserves mention - I have it on a modded Xbox with, like, 90% of the library pre-installed (along with emulators). I was interested in checking it out because I have a general fascination with "Fighting RPGs" ever since playing Tobal No.1's third person dungeon mode, and... I mean, why aren't there more of them? So many Fighters have long-running stories, as they should - just look at media like Shonen anime, Comic Books, and Pro-Wrestling. The storytelling revolving around getting people to fight each other is an age old tradition. But they always just tell their stories through cutscenes and side-media and it kinda sucks. They really COULD sustain a proper RPG too, and every once in awhile, someone will half-ass it. I mean, all us retro gamers know that Shenmue began as a Virtua Fighter RPG and then went off-rails, and talk about a game with some great lore that DESPERATELY needs a way to communicate it effectively to gamers with Virtua Fighter. You should not have to watch an anime adaptation or buy a CG portrait CD or listen to sound novels or whatever Sega thought was acceptable to get the story for a game like that.
ReplyDeleteThe Konquest Mode in MK Deception, for instance, gave it a solid try. All of Virtua Quest? Shaolin: Lord of Fist? Abalaburn? Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom? Those games are all NOT a great example of an RPG OR a fighting game, but they tried to blend 'em together, so they deserve some credit. Ehrgeiz also had an "RPG" mode but the combat inexplicably DOESN'T utilize the fighting mechanics from the main game! I have no idea what Dream Factory was thinking with that one, lol.
I've never played Ubi Soft's Xbox 360 Naruto games either. Those might be a good example of this kind of thing, actually. Gonna have to buy a modded 360 sometime, I guess ;)
But yeah, like a couple years ago, I saw a video on Beat Down and was shocked to see that it featured 1 vs 1 fighting game style combat in it. I recalled it being just, like, I dunno... a free-roaming brawler. Like Midway's and VIS' (supposedly; never played it personally) awful NARC reboot or something. When I found out the Drakengard/NieR developers did Beat Down, I also got intrigued, because their PS2 generation output was pretty fascinating - I mean, TECHNICALLY, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone in Complex is a really sharp PS2 game, right? It doesn't play great, but whatever. Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2 plays alright and looks pretty slick for the hardware too (it looks really nice in HD via emulators too), and features a Versus Mode that's more traditionally fighting game-ish. But I couldn't really think of a proper fighting game from Cavia before, so I'm glad they got to make one with Beat Down. It may have issues and the theme is PAINFULLY of the time (not the worst though; I cannot stand crap like, say, Marc Ecko's Getting Up), but it really is an interesting. One of these days - maybe with Street Fighter 6, even! - someone will "crack" the fighting RPG properly, but until then, games like Beat Down are great historical curios to look back on and see people trying to do it.
Nice job shining the light on it
wow, what a comment! i agree that fighting games have some incredibly interersting lore, and i think it's a massive shame that so much supplemental material exists, but never got translated into english. there's a rival schools mook that goes into details like the urban myths that spread at each school, what's on the lunch menus at each school and all kinds of other stuff!
ReplyDeleteon the subject of fighting rpgs, there's a couple more that i've been meaning to cover here for a long time, i should really get around to that.
street fighter 6 looks really cool, too. i'm glad to see it, as street fighter alpha 3 was a big obsession for me when i was 12, so it'll be nice to return to that series. i really hope the character creation gives you a lot of save slots and it isn't just for the rpg mode. i also hope you can dress up the canon characters with the same amount of freedom as you get in soul calibur vi.