Rushing Beat

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Rushing Beat was a Beat'Em Up trilogy made by Jaleco. It was released for the Super NES in the early 1990s. One of the more memorable features of the game was an "angry mode", where you became invincible and did more damage. While the series itself has decent games, the overseas versions of the series suffered from questionable localizations.

The series consisted of:

  • Rushing Beat (Released outside Japan as Rival Turf), 1992
  • Rushing Beat Ran (Released outside Japan as Brawl Brothers), 1993
  • Rushing Beat Syura (Released outside Japan as The Peace Keepers), 1994
Tropes used in Rushing Beat include:
  • Absurdly Spacious Sewer: It becomes The Maze in level 1 of Brawl Brothers.
    • You also fight in a sewer as one of the routes in The Peace Keepers.
  • Action Girl: Wendy Milan in Rushing Beat Ran and Elfin in Rushing Beat Syura.
  • All There in the Manual: The US versions of these games have this, save for The Peace Keepers, and even then, they're different from the original Japanese games.
  • Badasses in Distress: In Rushing Beat Ran, you choose two characters at the start. The other three get kidnapped and must be rescued.
  • Bootstrapped Theme: The first stage's theme from the first game has appeared in all of the games.
  • Breath Weapon: Kintark/Big Al, the final boss of the first game has this in the form of a Hadoken. Also Bild has a fire breathing move in Rushing Beat Ran.
  • Color-Coded Multiplayer:
    • Rival Turf has Player 1 in red and Player 2 in blue, allowing both players to use the same character if they wanted to (officially, both Norton/Flak and Bild/Nelson wear red).
    • Brawl Brothers will allow both players to choose the same character, but only in versus mode. The five main characters each have his/her third color palette for his/her AI-controlled variant.
    • The Peace Keepers does the same with Brawl Brothers, except up to four players, still only in versus mode. Also, using the shoulder buttons at the versus mode character select screen will change the color palette of which character you're deciding on.
  • Competitive Balance:
  • Contemptible Cover: The American covers for all three games.
  • Damsel in Distress: Rick Norton's sister, Maria, who's kidnapped in the first game. If Wendy wasn't one of the characters you picked in Rushing Beat Ran, you'll need to rescue her in one of the levels. Maria's also kidnapped in Rushing Beat Syura, and Rick can be found on one of the routes.
  • Difficulty by Region: The Japanese versions of the games are easier than the American ones. Here's proof:
    • Rival Turf had no difficulty settings unlike the Japanese version, and you could adjust the number of lives and difficulty, too.
    • Brawl Brothers had the sewer become a maze you had to navigate, whereas in the Japanese version you just fought straight through to the boss. Also, in Stage 3, when you board an elevator, you had to choose a certain floor to continue on in the overseas version, while the Japanese version just took you to the next floor.
    • The Peace Keepers had 12 continues as opposed to the Japanese version's 30.
  • Elevator Action Sequence: Subverted in Rival Turf's third stage, where the boss encounters you in a Rooftop Confrontation.
    • Played straight in the second game, though.
  • Expy: Rick Norton is Cody, Douglas Bild is Haggar, the enemy types correspond to those from Final Fight, one enemy does the Hurricane Kick, one of the bosses is Vega, the final boss shoots out Hadoukens from his mouth, one of the characters from the later games fights like Guy, and on and on.
  • Flash of Pain: Player characters in The Peace Keepers blink red while in Angry Mode.
  • Groin Attack: Unfortunately missing in the overseas versions of the games.
  • Hit Flash: Subverted in Brawl Brothers.
  • In terms of desperation attacks:
    • Rival Turf averted this so executing desperation attacks requires 5 points from your body count, which is located above your life meter and increases by one for every enemy defeated.
    • The desperation attacks in Brawl Brothers all pose as "offensive special" ones from the Streets of Rage series, meaning that they will drain a small amount of your health when performed, whether it hits or misses.
    • The Peace Keepers utilize the traditional "defensive special" moves, so whenever these hit an enemy, a small portion of life will be sacrificed.
  • Life Meter
  • Limit Break: Angry Mode, which makes you invincible and more powerful after you take enough damage from enemies. The other Limit Break appears to be the character-specific "Termination Skill" in The Peace Keepers, which destroys all on-screen enemies. However, Norton's Termination Skill gives him an instant Angry Mode while Orbot doesn't have a Termination Skill at all.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Rushing Beat's final boss, Kintark, is Rick and Maria's father.
  • Magic Skirt: Wendy.
  • Meaningful Name: The original name, Rushing Beat refers to to a rushing attack and the two characters are cops working a "beat".
  • Multiple Endings: The Peace Keepers has them depending on the paths you took and how many scientists you saved.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: A muscleman named Arnold, a crazed demon-looking fellow named Rick James, and on and on.
  • Race Lift: Douglas Bild becomes a black guy instead of a white one in the overseas versions of the series. In The Peace Keepers, it's Kythring.
  • Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Rick gets this as a special move in the sequels.
  • Secret AI Moves: AI-controlled Wendy in Rushing Beat Ran could jump onto the ring ropes in the background.
  • Significant Anagram: The gang in the first two games is known as Joecal.[1]
  • Totally Radical: The manual of the first game was obviously written by the same guy who localized Totally Rad.
  • Turns Red: The final boss in Rushing Beat/Rival Turf turns red a few times throughout the battle if you damaged him enough. He becomes more powerful and invincible too, so it's his version of angry mode.
  • Unfortunate Names: Rick Norton and Douglas Bild were renamed Jack Flak and Oozie Nelson in Rival Turf.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: Especially when in Angry Mode, where throws are more over the top and more powerful than ever.
  1. ↑ It's an anagram of the company who produced these games, Jaleco.
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