Best Games - Armored Warriors / Powered Gear - Strategic Variant Armor Equipment
Capcom may not have invented the beat ‘em up genre, but you could probably argue that they perfected it.
From around 1985 until the late 90s, you could walk into any arcade and be reasonably sure that there would be a wall of beat ‘em up machines. Until Street Fighter 2 and the rise of versus fighting games, the beat ‘em up was king. It’s not hard to understand why either. They were fun, easy to figure out, and they all let you take on the challenge with a friend. They also ate quarters at a pretty reliable rate. That made them a hit with players and arcade operators.
I’m fairly certain that the heads of game dev studios would have loved it if they could churn out a game where you march a character from the left to the right punching and kicking other characters the entire way. Once you have the template it would be easy to just make tons of these games, right?
Of course not. Game development isn’t like that. Never has been, never will be. There is always some new problem. Some technical or artistic challenge. And frankly, that’s why people make games in the first place. Not because they are an easy way to make money, but because they are a difficult artistic challenge.
In 1989 Capcom created the game Final Fight. It was as close to a perfect beat ‘em up as existed at the time. It was fast, fun, varied (by the standards of the time), and vibrant. They could probably have made another Final Fight game every year for the next decade and they still would have made tons of cash. Never innovating. Never advancing. Never trying anything new.
Of course, Capcom employed game developers, so you know that was never an option. In fact, there wouldn’t even be a Final Fight 2 until four years later, and it came out on a console and not in arcades, where the genre flourished. Capcom wasn’t about playing it safe with sequels.
This has all been lead up. Setting the stage.
In 1993 Capcom introduced a brand new arcade system, the CP System II. It would go on to become one of the most successful arcade systems of all time, outliving its successor, the CPSIII, by years. When they launched the board, Capcom did what any game developer would do, they put it to the test.
In 1994, they launched Armored Warriors, a mecha centered beat ‘em up. Armored Warriors remains one of the most dynamic and innovative games of the move left to right punching things genre. It is a true showcase of what this new arcade system could do. Large, vivid, sprites. Fast action. In game storytelling with pop outs of talking heads. The star of the show, though, is the modular mech system.
Every player selectable mech comes with a stock array of short and long range combat tools and movement options. Some of them move faster or hit harder or jump higher. But just because that is the default, that doesn’t mean you have to play that way.
Each mech has three interchangeable components. One Arm, a movement base, and a long range weapon. Swapping any of these out with parts stolen from shattered enemies will change how your mech moves and plays. You can switch from walking to hovering, opt for a drill arm over a laser, pick up a machine gun or a missile rack. It all means that the way you start playing a stage won’t be the way you end it.
There are even enhancement module team up moves where you can combine with the other players to execute a devastating attack.
As far as beat ‘em up games go, Armored Warriors is spectacularly deep. For every button press and joystick movement, there are a huge variety of potential effects. The game is tough. You will need to use all those tools, or spend a lot of quarters.
About a year later, Capcom took a lot of the sprites, and the build your own mech mechanics and created Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness, a spin off versus fighting game. I will probably get to writing about Cyberbots one day, since it also deservers to be on this list, but for now, I’ll wrap up talking about Armored Warriors.
Capcom took a popular, but flagging, genre and added all sorts of complexity to it. The result is one of the Best Games