Thanks to Qubyte Games for the review code
Title: Beat Em Up Archives (Qubyte Classics)
System: Xbox One
Price: $9.99
Release Date: 06/15/2023
Prelude
Six months since the last Qubyte Classics title dropped, a bundle of two brawlers from Arcade Zone is here! Both are Piko mainstays that have been included on various other things such as plug and play systems & the Evercade, so how do both SNES games hold up here? Did the wrapper get any better in the six month hiatus, or are things still as laggy as before?
Presentation
Unfortunately, the answer to that question is immediate upon booting the game. While the store page has some cool new key art featuring both games’ protagonists, that’s as much bonus stuff as this compilation gets; same UI, same menu, same lack of bonus features, and same screen size/filter options. Argh. Menus are just as clunky as ever, and nothing about the scaling seems to have been addressed in any way either. I also noticed a bug when changing the scaling options, as the game briefly resumes in the background whenever I change one of these settings, but otherwise the games emulate with accurate audio and aren’t too buggy as far as I can tell.
For the games themselves, both have average presentation values, especially considering these two games came out super late in the SNES lifespan. (Iron Commando being Japan only due to that reason, in fact) Legend gives off Golden Axe vibes and the animations are average at best, with some decent magic animations, but all of your movements feel so sluggish and have windup for whatever reason, though the music is serviceable. Iron Commando ups the visuals quite a lot and feels more like a Capcom brawler, but the music took a nosedive for the worse. At least the sound effects are immensely satisfying here, especially when using weapons.
Gameplay
You know the drill. Yep, six months later and the wrapper hasn’t changed a bit. Nope, I don’t know why. Yes, i’m just as frustrated as you. Yes, there’s still no bonus features. Yes, both games still have awful input lag. Let’s get into it.
LEGEND (1994)– A brawler released by Seika in 1994, this is a decent attempt at a Golden Axe style of game. You control a warrior with a big weapon, and beat up enemies in typical belt scroller fashion, by slashing, jumping, and grabbing foes in your way. Collecting magic vials and saving them will allow you to perform a magic screen clear attack, and you can even use the shoulder buttons to block enemy attacks. Unfortunately, this game’s biggest problem comes from how slow the windup frames can be, and when the input lag is just as annoying as always, (very evident when you move around or try a jump attack) this game was immensely frustrating, especially since enemies can swarm and hit you faster than you can hit them. In local co-op I assume it would be a lot more manageable, but I have no means of testing that at this point in time. Trying several times to clear the first stage, even with save states, Legend was a lot more annoying than I’d like to admit, and eventually the clunky input lag and wrapper woes left a lot to be desired here, and for my journey to come to a swift end. I honestly preferred Water Margin over this despite that game being a lot more simple in terms of variety.
One odd thing to note here, is that loading this game or resetting it will just skip straight to the title screen, bypassing the game intro and company logos entirely. This is very peculiar, especially since waiting for a while and letting demos play will show you the intro anyhow, so I dunno why they didn’t just make the starting point said story crawl to begin with. Piko also has made a ROM of this game before that cuts out the Seika logo just fine, so I also don’t know why that wasn’t just used instead of this weird pseudo save state bypass method.
IRON COMMANDO (1995)- This is the more intriguing of the two, and the only one I had prior experience with via Evercade. You can choose between one of two characters here, and it’s up to you or a buddy to take out waves of enemies in this Capcom-style brawler. If you played anything akin to Final Fight, you’ll feel right at home here, and the enemies drop a lot of goodies, from helpful food items to lots of weapons and ammo. Honestly, while this brawler is still frustrating at points and the input lag plagues this game too, I had a lot more fun here, as the weapons added some much needed variety to make the game not as monotonous, and both characters were enjoyable to play as.
Iron Commando was enjoyable on Evercade, and if you have a buddy around and are willing to deal with swarms of enemies getting a bit too absurd at points, this game is pretty darn fun for an afternoon of co-op, or even just to mess around with and deal out mayhem with pistols and bats. Definitely the game where Arcade Zone learned their lessons from Legend and made a more enjoyable brawler, but like with Legend, the game oddly cuts to the title screen when booting it up or resetting, despite again, a PIKO ROM existing that cuts out the old publisher logo, including the version used on Evercade! Alas, the input lag really, really makes it not fun to play here compared to said Evercade alternative, but if it ever gets fixed somehow, this is definitely a must-play with a buddy.
Conclusion
Honestly, after how brilliant the Breakers Collection turned out, and with how long the gap has been since the last Qubyte Classics drop, I was a little hopeful that some sort of refinement to this wrapper would have taken place: faster menus, some bonuses, or at the very least the removal of that godawful input lag. But no, unfortunately it all returns in stride here, and some cool key art on the store page isn’t enough to really save this package.
It doesn’t help that Legend is immensely sluggish and frustrating, and Iron Commando, while a bit more fun, is still better off with a friend, and the clunky save state system does not make going through either game any better here. Considering how both of these brawlers have some interesting history behind them, it was immensely disappointing to see that yet again, little effort has been made to give anything more than games in a laggy wrapper.
I give Beat Em Up Archives (Qubyte Classics) a 4 out of 10.
