Crime Fighters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Crime Fighters is a 1989 Beat'Em Up made by Konami, released around the same year as their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game. Up to four players (or two, depending on machine settings) try to rescue a huge group of girls kidnapped by a crime lord. This game was known for its very risque sense of humor, one of the main reasons why this game never got ported to home systems.

It has a sequel named Crime Fighters, known as Vendetta in non Japanese territories. Violent Storm is mistakenly labeled as the third game in the series despite being completely different from the two.

Tropes used in Crime Fighters include:
  • Angry Guard Dog: Appears in the late levels.
  • Boss Rush: After beating the game for the first time, you fight all of the bosses at once again in a Bonus Level of Hell along with a few enemies.
  • Captain Ersatz: Some of the bosses. In particular, the second stage boss is reminiscent of Jason Vorhees, the fourth stage boss is based on Leatherface, and the 5th stage boss is based on Freddy Kruger.
  • Color-Coded Multiplayer:
    • Player 1
    • Player 2
    • Player 3
    • Player 4
      • In the 2-Player version:
    • Player 1
    • Player 2
  • Difficulty by Region: An odd example. The Japanese and European versions of the game were two-players, and they have lives and a life bar. The American four-player version removed the lives and gave you Hit Points (100 per coin) for every token you inserted in, and worse, it drained your life by 1 point about every 10 seconds. The Japanese version also has a back kick button that was removed in the American version.
  • Dominatrix: Starting in Stage 4, female mooks dressed like this start to show up.
  • Do Not Drop Your Weapon: Played straight with the enemies, but you lose any weapons you pick up as soon as you're hit.
  • Everything Is Trying to Kill You
  • Excuse Plot: Beautiful women are being kidnapped by a dangerous criminal organization. It's up to you and your buddies to defeat the bad guys and save the women.
  • Fat Bastard: The unnamed Final Boss is called a "Fat Toad" in the opening cutscene, and he sure is.
  • Glass Cannon: The final boss has a Tommy gun, that does a lot of damage and makes it hard for you to even punch him, but manage it even once, and he's out.
  • Grey and Black Morality: The protagonists fight pretty dirty here.
  • Groin Attack: Can be done to you or the enemies.
  • Kick Them While They Are Down: Can literally be done to enemies once you knock them down.
  • Hitbox Dissonance: You'll have a hard time trying to hit enemies in this game. The bosses are even worse, as they'll most likely hit you before you hit them.
  • Macho Camp: These enemies are only found in the Japanese versions of the game. There's also dog enemies that try to hump you. They would return in the Japanese version of Vendetta.
  • Nintendo Hard: But easier with two or more players.
  • Palette Swap: All four player characters.
  • Ratchet Scrolling