Raging Justice

To the untrained eye, a lot of old school beat 'em ups look and play the same. But as a long-time fan of the genre, I can't help but see both the subtle and blatantly obvious differences between brawlers made by Capcom, Sega, Technos and even Konami. These are the companies most modern developers mimic when making a new beat 'em up, so I was a little surprised when the new game Raging Justice took a completely different path that reminded me more of what Atari was doing back in the day. I'm still not sure how I feel about that.

Raging Justice is a game that is seemingly built on beat 'em up cliches. If there are things you loved about games like Final Fight and Streets of Rage, then chances are it's in Raging Justice. I'm talking about street thugs that look the same, food hidden in barrels, weapons that break after a single use, vehicles that come out of nowhere and even a game over screen that puts our heroes in mortal danger. It's basically a greatest hits collection of everything you love and not much that is new.

Even the story feels like it was lifted straight out of a thirty year old brawler. It seems that a crime syndicate has corrupted the system and a city that was already teetering on the edge has been pushed into all-out chaos. The good news is that there are three cops ready to step in and clean up the streets. This includes a 42 year old veteran of the force, a badass woman with killer conviction record, and a 15 year old kid who is sick and tired of the gang violence. It's up to them to save the day by kicking, punching and ... well, mostly kicking and punching.

I mock the cliches, but the truth is that all this is right up my alley. This type of old school brawler is like comfort food to me, and I'm normally ready to eat it all up without question. But there was something about Raging Justice that just felt a little ... off. It reminded me a lot of what Atari was doing in the 1990s with games like Pit-Fighter and Guardians of the Hood. The character sprites aren't digitized like those old games, but the jerky animation and stiff gameplay reminded me a lot of those Atari games in all the worst ways.

The combat basically boils down to punching and kicking, with a couple air moves and a special spinning attack that will take away a little bit of your health. You'll also be able to dash in four directions and use the various weapons lying around to take out the bad guys. Perhaps the most interesting wrinkle is that our three hero cops will be able to arrest stunned enemies for a health boost. Unfortunately, that's about all there is to the gameplay. There aren't many moves and it feels a bit limited, even when compared to a lot of the brawlers of the 1990s.

I think that's ultimately what frustrated me about Raging Justice. On one hand, it does a good job of adhering to the beat 'em up checklist, giving gamers pretty much exactly what they expect every step of the way. But that's also the problem. There was never a point where this game found its own identity, and that started to get to me as I went from one familiar location to the next. There are no surprises to be found here, because every stage, weapon, enemy and boss feels like it was pulled straight out of a better brawler.

Click For the Full Picture Archive

Of course, this isn't the first beat 'em up to mix shallow fighting with predictable levels. The truth is, I would probably be more willing to overlook a lot of the problems if only the gameplay was better. It's more than just clunky controls and stiff animation, because it often feels everything on the gamepad is too sensitive. I found myself constantly rushing the enemies and side-stepping by mistake, almost as if every press of the analog stick and D-pad was registering twice. This is even worse in the menus, where you'll cycle through the options without even touching the controller. This is a problem that persisted with three different DualShock 4 controllers, and I was never able to recreate the issue outside of the game. Hopefully this gets addressed with a patch.

Despite having a lot of problems with Raging Justice, there is one thing that I really like. Every level has a set of optional challenges to complete, which includes everything from confiscating a certain amount of cash, arrested a number of thugs or hitting multiple bad guys with a bat. What's nice is that each difficult has its own challenges and you don't have to complete them all in one try. Best of all, there's a stage select that opens up, so it's easy to jump right into a level and complete the challenges. This is a great idea, and more brawlers need to adopt this going forward.

If what you're looking for is a fun little beat 'em up that doesn't stray too far away from the genre's cliches, then you'll probably get a few hours of enjoyment out of Raging Justice. Between the different levels, difficulties and challenges, there's enough content to keep fans engaged. But by sticking so closely to the brawler road map, the developers have forgotten to give their game its own identity. Couple that with the stiff animation, clunky controls and shallow combat and you have a game that looks the part, but falls short of the target. Raging Justice is a big disappointment.