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It’s a good season for beat ’em up fans. This week saw the release of WayForward’s radical brawler-cum-RPGRiver City Girls.There’s an exciting looking return to theStreets of Rageon the horizon, and evenBattletoadsis getting a look-in before the year is out. But for those who fancy taking a look into the genre’s past, retro publisher Hamster has you covered with this week’s Arcade Archive release:Vigilanteby Irem, available to download now on PS4 and Nintendo Switch.
Arriving in arcades back in 1988, before being ported to a host of home computers,Vigilanteis legendary beat ’em up which served as a pseudo-successor to 1984’sKung-Fu Master.Set in downtown New York (which was, at the time, the go-to “dangerous city” used in all fiction)Vigilantesees players in the role of a martial arts expert, forced to brave the mean streets on a mission to rescue his kidnapped sweetheart, Madonna.
LikeKung-Fu Masterbefore it, the player slowly dawdles across a singular 2D plane, taking on anendlesshorde of punks and thugs, racing in from both directions. Armed with a sweet high kick, a terrible jump-kick, and a few other Bruce Lee-esque maneuvers, the player brawls their way through five locations, taking down dime-store punks and much tougher boss characters. The mission concludes at the local construction yard, where our hero makes his last stand against the gang leader “Giant Devil”.
While undeniably a classic release (the hilarious, nonsensical background signs are almost worth the price of admission alone)Vigilanteis held back – then and now – by sluggish controls and somewhat frustrating difficulty. Regardless,Vigilanteis undeniably a classic arcade, and one which I have particularly strong memories of. It’s worth a look for brawler completionists, but is a bit of an ask at eight dollars.
Vigilanteis available to download now on PS4 in Japan and Nintendo Switch worldwide.
