Treachery in Beatdown City

Muy buen beat m up y peleas callejeras al estilo old shool!. el modo de pelea no me gusta mucho, preefiero mas el estilo de Double Dragon.

Charming presentation with interesting mechanics.

This is the new high water mark for ending credit raps. To whomever it may concern, you've been put on notice

I picked up "Treachery in Beatdown City" after playing it at PAX West. I really enjoy the battle system and twist on the gameplay mechanics, it's definitely different than any normal kind of beat-em-up game. My one big criticism is that cloud saves aren't supported for the title (yet?) - I hope this can be added in the future so I can switch between playing it on my Steam Deck and PC.

FIGHT SOMEONE!

(I purchased this game on itch.io and received a free Steam copy.) Treachery in Beatdown City combines turn-based RPG strategy with fast-paced beat-em-up action, and it works really well. If you're at all interested in the premise of the game, it's well worth your time and money. Right out the gate this game oozes charm with its bright, retro graphics and its witty, satirical dialogue. The plot is a bit silly: President Orama is kidnapped by Terrorist Ninjas, and a group of ragtag street fighters team up to investigate what's really going on. There's nothing too serious going on here, but you will encounter characters and scenarios which touch upon the problems of modern-day America, particularly what it's like living in a big city. So while the conflicting tone may put some people off, I think it works pretty well. There's a few moments where the dialogue's a bit over-the-top, or the comedy just doesn't land, but I found myself enjoying what the game had to say despite the humor not landing. My main critique of the game as it stands is that the gameplay can get boring fast. There's not enough variation in the core gameplay loop to keep interest for very long. Despite this, the gameplay is still pretty solid. It's satisfying pulling off a big combo, or going for the risky hit just to finish your opponent off early. What doesn't work for me is that there's not a lot of enemy variation, and you're essentially doing the same thing over and over. There's four main enemy types: brawlers, dirty-fighters, grapplers, and supporters. Supporters will mostly run around and cheer until they've got nobody left to support, and then they become brawlers. That leaves you with essentially three enemy types, and while the game sort of presents this as a rock/paper/scissors system where you should grapple the brawlers, beat down the grapplers, and outsmart the dirty-fighters, I really just did the same thing to every single enemy. All you need to do is get a big combo off and then you're golden, you'll have so many hits coming at an enemy that they'll just die. On the contrary, grappling is REALLY strong but REALLY risky, I found that it was 50/50 whether or not my big grapple combo would land or not. This is what contributed to me getting a bit bored of the game after playing it for ~30 minutes. BUT, it is a lot of fun in short bursts. There's enough strategy there to keep your interest, there are some challenging fights where you need to make sure you're using the right attacks, and each character is fun to play since they have their own advantages and disadvantages. Because of that, I'd highly recommend picking this up if you're interested in a blend of turn-based RPG strategy and beat-em-up fun. It goes together like peanut butter and jelly! I feel like I should point out that as of writing this review, this game has been out for well over 2 years and there's a second episode that's yet to be released. I'm not sure when that episode will come out but I've got a feeling that it'll provide more enemy variety as well as some improvements to the core gameplay loop. The second episode will be a free update to this game, so I'm more than happy to play & review it whenever it comes out.

I had to alt tab while playing to just rush in here to praise this wonderful game, everything from the style to the commentary to the real innovative gameplay... I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love it! even if you're not a fan of retro pixel art style I urge you to give it a shot.