Highlights
- Classic brawlers like Final Fight and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time didn't have RPG elements because they were made for arcades.
- Castle Crashers, River City Girls 2, and Full Metal Furies are modern brawlers with RPG elements and offer enjoyable gameplay experiences alone or with friends.
- Yakuza 0 is the most elaborate brawler in the modern age, offering an open-world experience set in Japan and following the story of ex-Yakuza member Kazuma Kiryu.
Some of the best brawlers of all time were from companies like Capcom and Konami. On Capcom’s side, they had games like Final Fight and Dungeons and Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara. Konami had a lot of licensed games like The Simpsons Arcade Game and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time.
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None of those games included RPG elements because they were made for arcades. It didn’t make sense for characters to level up in a game that could basically be finished in an hour. Most modern brawlers do have RPG elements though, and these are some of the best.
6 Castle Crashers
Highest Metacritic Score: 85
Castle Crashers
Castle Crashers is one of the earliest indie games that exploded on Xbox Live during the Xbox 360 era. Players could choose between four knights who all had an elemental power. The Green Knight, for example, could blast poisonous plumes. Players could unlock other characters and weapons along the way as well.
Fighting enemies would level characters up and then players could pump skill points into various stats like magic or defense. It’s a fun brawler alone or with four other friends in terms of the gameplay loop. However, the true star of this indie game was the humor from ugly princesses to deer who couldn’t handle their bowels.
5 River City Girls 2
Highest Metacritic Score: 81
River City Girls 2
- Platform(s)
- PC , PS5 , Switch , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S
- Released
- November 30, 2022
- Developer(s)
- WayForward Technologies
- Genre(s)
- Beat 'Em Up
River City Ransom is basically where brawlers evolved beyond just punching enemies. Players could level up stats by eating food at shops as they explored a small but open sandbox city on the NES. The franchise went dormant after many attempts to revitalize it, but it wasn’t until 2019 via River City Girls that things took off again.
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River City Girls 2 improved things even further with a more compact story, playable characters, moves to learn, and so on. Whether alone or with friends, this poppy brawler is going to be a hilarious romp through Punch Town, USA.
4 Full Metal Furies
Highest Metacritic Score: 85
Full Metal Furies was made by the same team as Rogue Legacy: Cellar Door Games. Instead of a roguelike, Full Metal Furies is a brawler wherein players can choose between four young female warriors. Each girl has a specific class and weapon. Triss, for example, wields a shield while Erin fires a pistol and can build robots.
The level-up system is fairly traditional, although there are some unique elements to upgrading the party like crafting new gear. Players got to explore a world map and could replay levels for the grind of it all. Like most games on here, Full Metal Furies can be played alone or with three other friends in co-op.
3 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge
Highest Metacritic Score: 87
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge
- Platform(s)
- Android , iOS , PC , PS5 , PS4 , Switch , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S , Xbox One
- Released
- June 16, 2022
- Developer(s)
- Tribute Games Inc.
- Genre(s)
- Beat 'Em Up
As mentioned in the intro, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, is one of the great and most influential brawlers of all time. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge is a spiritual sequel that picks up where that classic game left off. It couldn’t be called a direct sequel though, since Konami didn’t make it and the game was instead developed by Tribute Games.
It featured RPG leveling mechanics and the four main Turtles, as is tradition. Players could also play as Master Splinter, Casey Jones, or April O’Neil and the recent DLC, Dimension Shellshock, added even more characters and modes. Even better, the game featured six-player co-op which most brawlers haven’t even attempted.
2 Scott Pilgrim Vs The World: The Game
Highest Metacritic Score: 79
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game
- Platform(s)
- PC , PS3 , PS4 , Xbox One , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S , Switch
- Released
- August 10, 2010
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft Montreal , Ubisoft Chengdu
- Genre(s)
- Beat 'Em Up
The Scott Pilgrim comic was a celebration of all things nerdy before the big nerd boom happened, welcoming the culture into popular culture. This was in 2004, and the series was finally captured on film in 2010 alongside a tie-in video game, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World: The Game. The game, like the comic, celebrated so much with Easter Eggs galore. It wasn’t just a valid cash grab though, it was a solid brawler with a lot of thought put into it.
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The original release hosted a small party of characters but DLC and re-releases added so much more. Fighting enemies earned players EXP and stats could be further increased via eating at shops around the great land of Canada. The pixel art is second to none, as is the music. For fans of the recent Netflix anime, this is a must-play. Tribute Games developed this title too, so it’s clear they know their way around brawlers.
1 Yakuza 0
Highest Metacritic Score: 90
Including the Yakuza series in here is kind of a cheat because it is the most elaborate brawler in the modern age. They are sprawling open-world city games that take place in Japan and mostly follow ex-Yakuza member, Kazuma Kiryu. Yakuza 0 is the best place to start for newcomers since it is the beginning of Kazuma’s timeline.
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Players get into random battles in the streets and can pummel foes with Kazuma’s fists or grab objects like traffic cones or bikes. While the other games are great throwbacks to the arcade-style brawlers, the Yakuza series is like the true evolution of the genre and it’s a shame that there aren’t more ambitious games or series like it.
