This is one of the very first beat em up from Konami and you can also say is one of the first punches thrown in launching the beat em up genre which went strong in the 90's, though also one of the firsts for the Konami company as the company was highly popular for tons of games for the beat em up genre.
Nothing much to say for the plot as you must liberate the city from crime as well as save many girls that the crime lord has kidnaped for one reason or another. That's the plot in a nutshell, pretty cliche but really this game we're here for the action.
I really like the design of the stages which have that nit and gritty urban environment, one environment I like is the subway with all the graffiti in the interiors. It really gives the game sort of an unfriendly environment where you feel danger from all sides and straight ahead of you.
The characters are good designs from the good guys that are decent looking a generic design, but it's the bad guys that stand out the most. From some green mow hawk punks, steroid non shirted red pants thugs, and a domenatrix woman armed with a whip whom only shows up in the later stages.
You have a decent set of moves like the basic punch, kick, jump kick but also a few other moves when positioned and used at the right time, one which is a throw.
I really like the designs of the bosses and their capabilities, one that is memorable is the second level boss who is designed to look like Jason from the "Friday the 13th" movie series, though his hockey mask is black and he's armed with a battle axe.
You also have a decent set of weapons to choose from, like a butterfly knife, really like seeing the effect of you just opening the knife. The other is a bat which is effective as usual. But my favorite is the handgun, which I thought was cool for once actually having firearms in a beat em up game which was rare for the time. Though with that you still need to be careful and conserve ammo for all the odds that stack up against you. I really love using the gun because it helps reduce the odds and help make the fight end quicker.
Of course, the highlight of the game is the music and sound, this game has some memorable tracks that are favorites for me the first and second stage music, just really pump you up for action ready to give any criminally your way the beat down.
I really like the sounds in the game just hearing those punches and kicks which are just music to my ears as it really feels like the punches and kicks you deliver do damage.
Another of course is the function where your able to kick an enemy while their down. This I thought was cool because it means you don't have to wait for your enemies to get up just so you can take them out but also helps to reduce the odds.
However, this game does have a few phantom punches that miss the mark, one is the fact that at times the odds in the game add up too much, there are sometimes just so many enemies that practically fill up the screen, which makes the difficult of the battle cheap.
Another problem is that it's really repetitive, most of the stages you go through kind of blend together from the constant recurring enemies, the boss battles that are actually easy when you employ the same tactic to take them down, to stages that are the same as the previous one but just dressed differently.
Despite these things, it's still good beat em up, it's one of those on the B list but still fun all the same and worth a walk down the street.
Rating: 3 stars.