Top 10 Lists: The Top 10 Most Plausible Beat 'em Up Ports To The Xbox Live Arcade

The classic game section of Xbox Live Arcade is most bittersweet to me. There are over two dozen titles from the days of old to be downloaded, some of which have never had a proper console port or release. The problem is that, while that array of titles is quite nice.. it is merely a drop in the bucket of how many amazing retro titles, especially that of the beat 'em up genre, rot in a digital wasteland.. yearning to be enjoyed once more by the masses. Now, this list isn't that of the best brawlers I'd like to see on the Arcade (classics like Aliens vs. Predator, The Simpsons, and the two Dungeons & Dragons games will probably never see the light of any re-release due to liscensing expenses) but the most plausible. Onto the hopeful contenders..

While Konami has been nice enough to allow the porting of TMNT 1989 and a remake of Turtles in Time, the vast majority of their catalogue remains in digital limbo. I picked Violent Storm as it is one of their better-looking non-licensed beat 'em ups, although I would take anything from Crime Fighters to Metamorphic Force if they managed to port them. Featuring large sprites, an original soundtrack with vocals (a rarity in those days.. it may even have been to first brawler or game period to do so), and homages to classic movies like Akira.. Violent Storm would have no problem getting a new fanbase if re-released on the XBLA/PSN/whatever. Chance of a port: Slightly Possible.

Bad Dudes aside, The Ninja Warriors just may be the most 80s beat 'em up ever released. You've got cybernetic ninjas, South American dictatorship-installing coup de'tats, and a stream of cannon fodder that looks straight out of Ahnuld's camp classic "Commando". The Ninja Warriors has a cult fanbase that remains visible to this day, partly because of the game's catchy theme song "Daddy Mulk" composed by Taito's in-house band (which has actually had concerts using the aforementioned track). Although the game got a semi-sequel/remake for the SNES - the IP has remained in a digital coma for roughly 15 years. Since Taito has been auctioning off or self-publishing some of their games for the Xbox 360 Arcade already, I think the chance of The Ninja Warriors getting its due isn't too unlikely. Chance of a port: Slightly Possible.

You would think that giant mechs smashing apart one another would have generated enough buzz for Capcom to go port-crazy with this arcade-only robotic beat 'em up. It is indeed one of the few non-licensed Capcom brawlers (I think Battle Circuit is the only other one) to never see re-release on a console, or even a compilation disc like Avengers (their worst beat 'em up) eventually got. Sporting some innvovative features (like swapping out weapons with defeated mechs and merging all three players together for a super-mech), a good storyline and nice graphics/music - I think Capcom would make a profit if they gave this wonder another chance to prove itself on the retro-battlefield. It all comes down Capcom porting Final Fight, as it's success could mean the green-lighting of all their other classic brawlers. Chance of a port: Somewhat Possible.

I admit it, I messed up on leaving Namco out of my most important beat 'em up dev list - but it was 3 A.M. when I composed it and titles like Wonder Momo, Urban Reign, and Splatterhouse just weren't registering with my mind at the time. Fact of the matter is that Splatterhouse was indeed an important game in both the brawler and horror genres - both in the infant stages back in those days - and the game has kept a following since then. The announcement of a Splatterhouse remake has gone from an aura of glee to a repugnant cloud of bitterness as the footage we have seen looks less like the classic games and more like a Devil May Cry/Ninja Gaiden clone with a hockey mask tossed in. The game has also been shoved into a number of developers' hands as several of them seemed unable to produce the desired product. I'm hoping a silver lining will come of this cloud with the inclusion of the arcade version (not the censored TG-16 adaptation) on the disc, or even better - on the XBLA. I wouldn't put it past Namco if they cancelled the entire remake project and simply gave us the classic games as arcade installments. Chance of a port: Somewhat Possible.

Golden Axe: TRoDA has been a sort of missing child on a milk carton, to me. An arcade-exclusive title, TRoDA featured the best graphics in the franchise and some of the most interesting characters. For whatever reasons, Sega decided not to port this beautiful hack 'n slash product to the Saturn or Dreamcast, so it is kept alive only by a small community of MAME users and an even smaller niche of people who own the arcade board. Sega was kind enough to let us re-live Golden Axe Warrior and the never-released-in-the-USA Golden Axe III on their compilation discs.. so perhaps they'll toss me a bone put the final game in the series where it belongs.. on the XBLA. Chance of a port: Somewhat Possible.

After the King of Pop passed recently, his longtime fans came out of the woodwork along with people who hadn't really paid him attention... driving up his album sales tremendously and causing some insane Youtube traffic for his music videos. Now, I know that a lot of his associates and even some of his family want to capitalize on his legacy.. and aside from cameos in Ready 2 Rumble and Space Channel 5... his only real videogame outing was this surreal arcade isometric beat 'em up (and the drab Genesis adaptation we won't speak of). So, a re-release of this game.. which a lot of people never got to play.. could earn some serious dough for all parties involved. Chance of a port: Somewhat Possible.

Word on the street (i.e. The Internet) is that a small German studio is remaking the cheesiest 80's beat 'em up in existence. Bad Dudes spawned a catch-phrase as big as "All your base are belong to us" in some circles, and the game wasn't a bad updating of the Kung-Fu Master style of brawling. I'm not sure how I feel about a remake of this game, it could be classy (as classy as meatheads punching ninjas can be) or it could be a stain on the game's legacy much like a few recent remakes/re-imaginings I know of. I'd settle for a port of the arcade original, and maybe that's what will happen if this German studio can't find satisfaction for their own version of the game. A recent announcement of the game getting added to a Data East compilation disc for the Wii also sweetens the pot. Chance of a port: Somewhat Possible.. but more likely a remake.

One of the biggest names in modern brawlers is the Ninja Gaiden franchise. Now, to be honest, the only game in the entire series (including the NES platformers) I am really fond of was the original arcade game. It was one of the earliest beat 'em ups to begin the transition from the 1st generation scrolling-fighters to what I call the "golden age" (i.e. Final Fight-style clones). I know it was included on Ninja Gaiden: Black for the Xbox 1.. but some of us don't own that console anymore, don't have the money or memory to download it off the 360's Marketplace, or simple don't want to play Ninja Gaiden: Black to unlock it. Plus, it is a two-player game that could benefit from XBLA's online co-op. I can see this being one of the more likely ports out of all of these games. Chance of a port: Somewhat High.

A cult classic that never got the love it deserved due to Sega sputtering toward death on the Saturn, a new hope for Guardian Heroes is on the horizon. After playing the remake/sequel on the GBA, I assumed the series had been put to rest.. but a few months ago Treasure and Sega came to an agreement to point the Genesis cousin to this game, Gunstar Heroes, to the XBLA. Now, Sega hasn't put any Saturn games so far onto compilation discs recently, much less the XBLA, but they're running out of A-list Genesis ports and since it's less risky to re-use an old IP instead of creating a new one.. I can see a possible port of Guardian Heroes to the XBLA in a year or two. Chance of a port: Somewhat High.

I'm sure you're just as flabbergasted as I am that Capcom's #1 beat 'em up flagship has yet to be ported to the XBLA. So many games owe this lengendary brawler their existence, and it still plays quite well some 20 years after its initial release in the *real* arcade. I've been trying to get Capcom's attention (via their forum rep) and see what the deal is.. but I've managed nothing but getting the usual run-around response. Still, this is the most likely of all these beat 'em ups to see re-release on the Arcade - and I'm willing to bet that, eventually, Capcom will service its fans or sniff out the $$$ of such an investment and give us what we want. Chance of a Port: Moderately High.

There you have it - the 10 most likely beat 'em ups out of the ocean of neglected titles from the 80s and 90s that could eventually find home on the XBLA (or even the PSN store). I'm sure that we'll see a few of these pop up over the next couple of years although they honestly all deserve to be there with another few dozen brawlers from my youth. Cross your fingers for luck, or better yet - bother the owners of these intellectual properties until they can see that they are sitting on a virtual goldmine.

List by xenodolf (10/14/2009)