But in the end, I've deleted it and requested a refund. Got 2 hours through and spent half an hour against the boss with the crop duster thing chasing after you? It really needs to be listed as 'multiplayer only' because it is NO FUN solo. That boss especially felt impossible, just constantly getting hit across the screen into an instant-death part of the environment was infuriating - he even hits you mid-combo.

They give you the option to add a bot companion if you like, but overall it's so annoyingly cheap trying to connect on different 'lanes' as you move up and down. You try to hit, miss because you're just out of range or they're a few pixels up or down, they retaliate, you fly across the screen. Rinse, repeat.

WAY too many characters on screen at once, no block button so you're just at the mercy of opponent combos, nowhere near enough moves considering how repetitive it is overall - I really wanted to like this as I hoover up Devolver's stuff, but I honestly think there's a good reason this genre died out: It's just no fun!

This game in particular isn't great, but applying that to the entire genre is quite a leap. Even old games like Streets of Rage, Final Fight, River City Ransom, and many others are still fun and a lot more fun than this.

The genre is gone because it evolved into more popular fighting and character action games. It's still fun, though, I fire up Streets of Rage 2 from time to time.

@mike: Yeah. I haven't played MRB but the quick look made it look both boring and difficult, which is a bad combination. A lot of the best of the old games in the genre hold up decently well today, and while beat 'em ups always could get monotonous there's also a charm to their repetitive nature that lets you get into a certain kind of groove.

The genre didn't really die out because it sucked, it died out because it didn't transition well to 3D, at least not at first, though you can see a lot of its elements in something like the Arkham games' combat or the Musou games or other games in those veins.

OP's issue with MRB appears to be that it's infuriatingly cheap in its difficulty, which is not something I would say about Streets of Rage or whatever (though they were originally quarter munchers so they do have some of that element.)

I played Mother Russia Bleeds for a couple hours, really wanting to like it also, but ultimately quit the game in disappointment. The game's got tons of elementary problems that all add up to seriously gut the enjoyability of the game.

A few of my complaints: the writing is simply bad and there's way too much of it; there are too many vertical lanes in most maps and/or the vertical window for hits to connect is too narrow; you can't change vertical lanes while jumping; boss attack patterns are too one-dimensional and frustrating; projectile weapons (guns) are employed too frivolously for how much they break the rules of a brawler; the game is buggy and it soft locked on me during a boss fight (which was the breaking point at which I put the game down for good). The game doesn't even show you the silly names of the goons you're beating up!

I think brawlers can still be perfectly fun simple games, but they have to be well made. In fact, them being so simple means the quality of their fundamentals has to carry even more weight than in other modern popular games that can rely on complex gameplay loops (e.g. progression systems, random loot, crafting, etc.) to keep the player running on the treadmill. And it's not at all trivial to nail those fundamentals, as MRB demonstrates. MRB's stylish exterior masks a half baked interior.

Weird! I played it alone and had no problem whatsoever with your complaints! I actually loved the game!

i feel the beat em up genre is one that just doesnt hold up today, as fond as i am of some of them. i think it needs to be tied to the whole feeding quarters in and arcade environment to achieve its mystique.

seems any way you shake it up just complicates it and it isnt really representative of the genre anymore, or becomes somethimg more akin to a platinum game or something, and gets away from whatever it is these games have (or that i thought it had). it doesnt seem like a problem theyll find a solution to.

Lol you were supposed to hit her with the baseball bat knocking her into the thresher or w/e it is.

Streets of Rage, often considered the premier series in the genre (or at least Streets of Rage 2 is often cited as the best game in the genre) was never an arcade game, developed for the Genesis originally. Meanwhile conversions of some other classics, like Turtles in Time are better remembered than their arcade counterparts, with many people upset that the Re-shelled version of the game was based on the arcade and not the SNES port (though apparently the game was generally kind of poopy, so maybe that didn't matter.)

I don't think that the arcade is a necessary element of the mystique of these games. I also think that newer versions can work. People liked that Scott Pilgrim game they put out in 2010, for example. I have played some Double Dragon through Arcade Archives this year and it's still fun, if dated. I want to play that River City Ransom homage game whenever it comes out, and I would like there to be more experiences in the genre. I don't think we can look at a single game with flaws and say that a whole genre doesn't work anymore. How many bad Sonic games did they make before releasing Generations? They just need to find out how to make the games work in a modern context, and MRB didn't succeed in that, apparently.

@bigsocrates: anytime i come back to these games they just feel empty and simple to me, when i remember them being so fun. so i guess it's personal opinion or i've gotten older and moved on. or i'm just objectively wrong! wouldn't be the first time apparently...

never played streets of rage or the scott pilgrim game, so maybe i'll rectify that if i feel motivated to.