Title: Rival Turf! (NA) Rushing Beat (JP)
Release Date: March 27th, 1992 (JP) April 23rd, 1992 (NA)
Developer: Jaleco
Publisher: Jaleco
But back in the early 90's, we have Rival Turf!, which is the first game in the Rushing Beat trilogy for the Super Nintendo (the next two games being Brawl Brothers and The Peace Keepers). This was a series of beat-em-ups which focused on gangs duking it out in the "mean streets." The game is a weird vestigial twin of Final Fight: much of the game shares the same DNA, but is lesser and best kept hidden. This can be seen in the story: the main young punk protagonist Cody Jack Flak's girlfriend is stolen by the Mad Gear Street Kings gang and their leader Belger Big Al. Jack asks for help from his police captain friend "Oozie" Nelson (who dresses like M.Bison...weird) and they hit the mean streets of Metro City Los Angeles (?!?) Yeah somehow that is weirder than Metro City. This story then spans six epic levels, with the first three taking place in Los Angeles, and the last three in a non-specified South American country (though if you look at the map it zooms in on it looks like the border between Suriname and the North part of Brazil). Already the game is purloining whatever it can take from other popular franchises from the time.
Gameplay
The game is a 2D sidescrolling beat-em-up. Your characters start on one side of the level and have to make their way to the other side of the stage, beating up waves of thugs and hoodlums before facing off with a boss to beat the level. Along the way, your protagonists can pick up weapons and health to increase their longevity. Pretty standard stuff overall.
So again, the ghost of Final Fight seems to loom over the design of this game. You have a Cody like main guy who is average in strength but makes up for it in speed, and you have a Haggar like grappler who is slower but makes up for it with heavier striking ability. I will say it seems you have more moves available than in Final Fight. You have several different types of throws depending on how you grab the enemy, a functional dash attack, a couple of different basic combos, and your move-sets get expanded when you go into "Anger" mode. "Anger" mode is one big gameplay innovation unique, so far, to Rival Turf!; after taking a certain amount of damage, your character will start flashing and become invincible. A meter will start to drain in place of your lifebar, and you have the duration of this time to do as much damage to the enemy as possible. I mainly played as Oozie, and "Anger" mode turned his grappling moves into expanded wrestling finishers (in one case he slams an enemy on the ground, tosses them in the air, and then slams them again Zangief style). This invincibility makes the game a lot easier, and if you want more of a challenge you can toggle the function offin the menu.
Another thing Final Fight does not have is 2 player. Rival Turf! does though, which does make this a much more enjoyable game. I did two playthroughs of this game, one solo and one with a buddy, and the buddy run, even though I did it second, was still a blast.
A comparison of Thugs
All the enemies are also very similar to those you have in Final Fight. Here are the Rival Turf enemies vs. the Final Fight sprites. You have a standard thug, known as Bullet...
a tall skinny thug named Reggie...
a fat guy named Louie...
a large muscle man named Arnold...
and a large martial artist named Dingo...
Now there are a few more enemy types that Rival Turf! has, so I guess there is some novelty...
...until we compare them to Streets of Rage!
Levels
There are six levels in this game. They are the L.A. Streets, the L.A. Stadium, the L.A. Skyscraper, the Jungle, the Docks, and the Hideout. Many a beat-em-up live or die by their set pieces and locales. Rival Turf! definitely skates by the middle with this. The levels aren't too long, which is good, but they are kind of boring. They do segment the levels in order to give them some variety (i.e. the Stadium goes from the actual stadium, to the locker room, to a parking garage), but you definitely feel like they could have done more with these. They really are not intricately designed, there is not much detail to the backgrounds, and there really is not that much in a way of character to these levels. You really just beat up dudes. There's no standout Streets of Rage 2 style fun-houses or TMNT:IV style sewer surfing. There are no bonus levels or car bashing. It is just six relatively similar levels with the last one containing a boss rush. This game can be a slog.
Bosses
I will say one thing I do love in this game are the bosses. They are really quite bizarre. First up you have Genie...who dresses like a genie.
Then you have an 80's breakdancer.
Then you have Vega from Street Fighter in a palette swap.
Then you have "The Captain."
Then you have a luchador.
And finally Big Al, who is just a big man in a gi who screams fireballs at you (kind of like Nappa from DBZ) and completely rips the Psycho Crusher from M.Bison.
Weirdly, though, the bosses are actually super easy. None of them are really cheap, and you can stun lock most of them with grapples. It is only when you have to juggle adds as well as the boss that you might lose a life or two.
Music
The music is okay. Nothing standout. No earworms. It is really just okay.
North American Marketing
I have to include this because it is hilarious. Nothing says dangerous gangs then two teenagers mugging for the camera in 90s "street" garb. This was obviously planned by several ad execs in their middle age in an appeal to those "crazy kids."
Final Verdict
This is weird. I had fun playing it, but I think that is because I have a soft spot for beat-em-ups. There are some standout weird parts and the designs are fun in a goofy way, but when you really look at it and see how much they cribbed directly from Final Fight, it is really appalling. Any good idea this game had they took from somewhere else. Hopefully the next two games in this trilogy fare much better than this. All in all, the game is a serviceable beat-em-up which is very easy to complete. I beat this game on my first go round.
For collectors out there, this game is pretty common and not too expensive to pick up (I got my copy for about $15 with shipping).
Still no update on a new format, I am just having fun with the distraction that this is providing! So here we have another beat-em-up. Will this be the new Final Fight? Probably not (Jaleco is never a promising developer).
Background
Weirdly enough, this game was developed purely for the SNES/Super Famicom; it is not a port of an arcade beat-em-up. This makes it actually rather unique for a beat-em-up from this period. The game was developed and published by Jaleco. We have seen Jaleco pop up three times before now (Big Run: 4X4, Super Bases Loaded, and Earth Defense Force), and if you need a reminder of who these fiends were, they were actually a pretty prolific developer during the 80's, 90's, and early 2000's (they capped out with the PS2). Jaleco stands for the "Japanese Leisure Company" and they were a group known for schlocking ports, sports games, licensed games, and other trivium that made up the filler rather than the thriller of the 16bit generation. Their console games were usually, at best, serviceable, though Jaleco would enjoy greater success in the arcades. In the early 2010's Jaleco's parent company went bankrupt, and their new buyer, Encom, decided to focus on real estate as the entertainment market was deemed too competitive. This company, too, went under.
But back in the early 90's, we have Rival Turf!, which is the first game in the Rushing Beat trilogy for the Super Nintendo (the next two games being Brawl Brothers and The Peace Keepers). This was a series of beat-em-ups which focused on gangs duking it out in the "mean streets." The game is a weird vestigial twin of Final Fight: much of the game shares the same DNA, but is lesser and best kept hidden. This can be seen in the story: the main young punk protagonist Gameplay
The game is a 2D sidescrolling beat-em-up. Your characters start on one side of the level and have to make their way to the other side of the stage, beating up waves of thugs and hoodlums before facing off with a boss to beat the level. Along the way, your protagonists can pick up weapons and health to increase their longevity. Pretty standard stuff overall.
So again, the ghost of Final Fight seems to loom over the design of this game. You have a Cody like main guy who is average in strength but makes up for it in speed, and you have a Haggar like grappler who is slower but makes up for it with heavier striking ability. I will say it seems you have more moves available than in Final Fight. You have several different types of throws depending on how you grab the enemy, a functional dash attack, a couple of different basic combos, and your move-sets get expanded when you go into "Anger" mode. "Anger" mode is one big gameplay innovation unique, so far, to Rival Turf!; after taking a certain amount of damage, your character will start flashing and become invincible. A meter will start to drain in place of your lifebar, and you have the duration of this time to do as much damage to the enemy as possible. I mainly played as Oozie, and "Anger" mode turned his grappling moves into expanded wrestling finishers (in one case he slams an enemy on the ground, tosses them in the air, and then slams them again Zangief style). This invincibility makes the game a lot easier, and if you want more of a challenge you can toggle the function offin the menu.
Another thing Final Fight does not have is 2 player. Rival Turf! does though, which does make this a much more enjoyable game. I did two playthroughs of this game, one solo and one with a buddy, and the buddy run, even though I did it second, was still a blast.
A comparison of Thugs
All the enemies are also very similar to those you have in Final Fight. Here are the Rival Turf enemies vs. the Final Fight sprites. You have a standard thug, known as Bullet...
a tall skinny thug named Reggie...
a fat guy named Louie...
a large muscle man named Arnold...
and a large martial artist named Dingo...
Now there are a few more enemy types that Rival Turf! has, so I guess there is some novelty...
...until we compare them to Streets of Rage!
To be fair, most beat-em-ups from this time drew from the same well when it came to enemy archetypes. Streets of Rage has many of the same stock characters too, but both of those games give their enemies so much more personality. Rival Turf! seems content with more of a knock-off quality in their design. I mean, no spike shoulder pads on your biker? C'mon.
Levels
There are six levels in this game. They are the L.A. Streets, the L.A. Stadium, the L.A. Skyscraper, the Jungle, the Docks, and the Hideout. Many a beat-em-up live or die by their set pieces and locales. Rival Turf! definitely skates by the middle with this. The levels aren't too long, which is good, but they are kind of boring. They do segment the levels in order to give them some variety (i.e. the Stadium goes from the actual stadium, to the locker room, to a parking garage), but you definitely feel like they could have done more with these. They really are not intricately designed, there is not much detail to the backgrounds, and there really is not that much in a way of character to these levels. You really just beat up dudes. There's no standout Streets of Rage 2 style fun-houses or TMNT:IV style sewer surfing. There are no bonus levels or car bashing. It is just six relatively similar levels with the last one containing a boss rush. This game can be a slog.Bosses
I will say one thing I do love in this game are the bosses. They are really quite bizarre. First up you have Genie...who dresses like a genie.
Then you have an 80's breakdancer.
Then you have Vega from Street Fighter in a palette swap.
Then you have "The Captain."
Then you have a luchador.
And finally Big Al, who is just a big man in a gi who screams fireballs at you (kind of like Nappa from DBZ) and completely rips the Psycho Crusher from M.Bison.
I also love Big Al in the ending. He looks like Jim Belushi. Also he dies in a very indeterminate way? I think you both drop him off the building, but it really isn't clear by the ending. He just kind of sinks off the screen slowly after threatening to come back and get you.
Weirdly, though, the bosses are actually super easy. None of them are really cheap, and you can stun lock most of them with grapples. It is only when you have to juggle adds as well as the boss that you might lose a life or two.
Music
The music is okay. Nothing standout. No earworms. It is really just okay.
North American Marketing
I have to include this because it is hilarious. Nothing says dangerous gangs then two teenagers mugging for the camera in 90s "street" garb. This was obviously planned by several ad execs in their middle age in an appeal to those "crazy kids."
Final Verdict
This is weird. I had fun playing it, but I think that is because I have a soft spot for beat-em-ups. There are some standout weird parts and the designs are fun in a goofy way, but when you really look at it and see how much they cribbed directly from Final Fight, it is really appalling. Any good idea this game had they took from somewhere else. Hopefully the next two games in this trilogy fare much better than this. All in all, the game is a serviceable beat-em-up which is very easy to complete. I beat this game on my first go round.
For collectors out there, this game is pretty common and not too expensive to pick up (I got my copy for about $15 with shipping).
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