Highlights
- Side-scrolling beat 'em up games were popular in the 90s and early 2000s due to their accessibility and fun co-op gameplay.
- Some beat 'em ups stood out for their difficulty, such as The King of Dragons and Brawl Brothers, which provided a challenge for players.
- Games like X-Men Mutant Apocalypse, Final Fight, Alien VS Predator, The Adventures of Batman and Robin, and Battletoads In Battlemaniacs were remembered for their intense difficulty and required skill and strategy to complete.
Side-scrolling action beat 'em up games were all the rage back in the 1990s and early 2000s, not only because of how much fun they were, especially when playing with a buddy, but also because they're one of the most accessible game genres out there. Jumping into a stage and clobbering a few thugs is easy to get the hang of, but there were still a select few beat 'em ups that didn't follow this trend and purposefully spiked up the difficulty, sometimes a little too much for their own good.
8 Hardest Multiplayer Beat Em Ups
Chaotic and challenging, these multiplayer-featuring beat 'em ups are not for beginners—nor for the faint of heart.
During the era of the SNES, beat 'em ups were arguably at their most popular, and this led to plenty of exciting games for the genre being released during this timeframe. Some would go down as history for their memorable characters and gameplay, while others were remembered for their brutal difficulty.
7 The King Of Dragons
The King of Dragons stood out from its peers due to the RPG-style progression system that was very rare for beat 'em ups at the time, but it certainly did a lot to help the game stand out and make it one of the most addictive action games for the system. While the player will gradually gain more health and attack damage the further along the story they go, the enemies will also keep up with them to ensure they never become too overpowered.
Out of the five playable characters, some are much better suited for the game's combat encounters than others, such as the Dwarf who has the ability to dodge attacks, and the Fighter who's more of an all-rounder. The game is manageable in difficulty and plenty of fun to blast through, but it's all too easy to jump in with a character only to find out that they're a little too weak to take on the many terrifying enemies and bosses that appear in the game.
6 Brawl Brothers
There are a few mechanics in Brawl Brothers that can help alleviate the intense difficulty that begins creeping in by the mid to late-game stages, one of which being the Angry Mode. When this ability is activated, the player will receive a burst of energy, allowing them to essentially one-hit anyone who stands in their way, which is admittedly extremely powerful.
6 Beat Em Up Games With Surprisingly Deep Lore
The beat em' up subgenre of games is one that seems simplistic at first, but many of these titles have a lot more lore just under the surface.
However, the game throws a ton of enemies at the player at once on every stage which makes it incredibly easy to get overwhelmed, and the lack of precision in the gameplay can lead many attacks to miss, even if they looked on target. Brawl Brothers is still a fantastic beat 'em up that was praised for its intense gameplay and stellar graphics by critics at the time, but it's definitely no walk in the park.
5 X-Men Mutant Apocalypse
In many ways, X-Men Mutant Apocalypse plays fairly similarly to Street Fighter in the sense that the player can perform combos and utilize special moves, but this isn't explained to them in any way. Because of how fast and aggressive the enemies are, performing combos is essential to beating the game since they can't be disrupted. Every character except for Gambit has some combination of special moves that will be able to be used to create a single combo, but since the inputs and animations can feel a little clunky, it's often a gamble whether they'll even land.
There's also the lack of a block button which isn't exactly rare in many beat 'em ups, but it makes a massive difference in X-Men Mutant Apocalypse because of how relentless groups of enemies are. It's also paced in a very weird way where the first five levels are much harder than the later ones, which has undoubtedly caused many people to drop it after trying it out for the first time.
4 Final Fight
It wouldn't take long for Final Fight to cement itself as one of, if not the greatest, beat 'em up series to ever exist, and while the very first game is remembered fondly by many players for its satisfying combat, it was also known for being incredibly difficult at certain points. By the time the series had reached Final Fight 3, Capcom had introduced a range of moves and combos that players could pull off which made wiping out enemy hordes very easy, but this wasn't possible in the first game where the characters feel a lot more limited in what they can do.
This was especially a problem when facing one of the six extremely difficult bosses in the game such as the katana-wielding Sodom or final boss, Belger, who has been the cause of more than a few Game Over screens. Taking on the bonus rounds is essential to making it through the story of Final Fight in one piece since the player will need to hold onto every single recovery item they can get their hands on to survive.
3 Alien VS Predator
One of the most visually impressive beat 'em ups of its era, Alien VS Predator arrived on the SNES at the exact right time to take advantage of the Alien and Predator craze that swept over popular media in the 90s. The game is fairly faithful to the source material, especially in terms of the Predator who can turn invisible and charge up their deadly energy weapons to use against the ravenous Aliens.
Every Alien & Predator Game Ranked (According To GameSpot User Score)
The Alien and Predator are two of Hollywood's most iconic monsters with two massive franchises which led to the creation of many good and bad games.
It would be easy to assume that since players will take control of the fearsome Predator they'd be in a pretty comfortable position to take on the Aliens, but it's the sheer variety of enemy archetypes that makes the game so difficult. Primate Aliens, winged Aliens, and even a dolphin Alien are just a handful of enemies players will come up against, but while they all pose their unique challenge, the final Alien Queen final boss is on a whole different level.
2 The Adventures Of Batman And Robin
The Adventures of Batman and Robin is a game that was almost completely different depending on the system it was played on, but while the Sega CD port is often seen as fairly generous, the SNES version provides one of the most challenging experiences on the entire system. The game is renowned for being so hard that many people consider completing it a true achievement since the whole game really does act as a test for the player's skill, patience, and even reflexes due to how fast-paced it can be.
Many of the boss battles will require Batman to use specific gadgets to take them down, but the game leaves it up to the player to decide which would be most appropriate rather than telling them. This can already lead to a lot of trial and error, but it's on Hard mode where things get intense. Not only will Batman only be awarded an extra life every 50,000 points, but he is only allowed up to three lives for the entire game, and considering the enemies hit much harder, it's a massive accomplishment to somehow finish it while on this setting.
1 Battletoads In Battlemaniacs
The fact that Battletoads In Battlemaniacs is often included in conversations about potentially being the best Battletoads game ever made is a testament to just how expertly crafted this classic title is. The original Battletoads game for the NES is usually considered to be one of, if not the hardest game ever made, and while Battletoads In Battlemaniacs thankfully isn't quite as challenging, developer Rare made sure to still carry over the intense difficulty that had become synonymous with the series by this point.
The complex layout of the levels means that if players haven't already memorized the safest routes, they should fully expect to lose a few lives, and considering acquiring extra lives is unnecessarily difficult, players will need to be on their A-game from start to finish. It's more or less impossible to complete the game in one full playthrough all the way through. Instead, the strategy many people recommend is playing through levels multiple times to understand the layout and the best ways to navigate the stage, and only then will players have a slight chance of making progress if they're skilled enough.