I wanted to like Beat Down so much. There's a lot of cool ideas in this game, but ultimately it is more fun to think about those ideas than it is to actually play the game. But I still respect the attempt to do something interesting with the beat em' up genre.

One of the big features of the game is being able recruit two like-minded criminals to follow you around and help beat up people, but in practice they aren't very useful. Especially if you have to actually play as them, since their movesets are relatively limited. As friendly AI, they mostly serve as just a distraction, so you will only be targeted by some of the enemies in a brawl, which is pretty lame.

I also feel a similar way about having to change clothes or accessories whenever your "cover" is starting to blow, to avoid being jumped by the Mob or the cops. After doing it often enough it just feels like they're just trying to artificially pad out the gameplay. In some of the areas, it's just not possible to move around without being noticed by the enemies. I think if they have a more deliberate way to avoid detection by the cops and the Mob in the gameplay, like being able to "blend in" like in the older Assassin's Creed games, something like this would have worked much better. It wouldn't be a surefire way to avoid confict anyways, since a lot of the missions require combat.

There's some other complaints I have, like the loading screens being too prevalent for a game like this, or the utterly lacking characterization of the main character(s), but there are still some aspects to appreciate here. The structure of the game is very classic JRPG-esque; having small interconnected areas to explore, being encouraged to talk with all the NPCs you see (except the two types I mentioned before), having items like potions spread around the world to find, being able to level up and upgrade your base attributes, and so on. The combination between these two genres is quite fun to see, and because of that I would still recommend people to check this out, mostly just to see it action.

Liked the combat, even though couldn't understand how it works and how to do the combos properly, the graphics are nice, I noticed that when you're on the "open world" the NPCs tend to look very ugly, but when in a fight, they get a very good glowup. Liked the detections systems and the possibility of changing clothes, the boss fights are challenging but nothing tooooo hard. I enjoyed the OST, the music's that play on certain parts of the town are really nice, especially in the "The Hole" area and in the "Hospital Zone" and "Hotel Zone" areas. Really can't say that I liked the ending, thought it was a little bit... meh, yk? Like, really wasn't surprised or emotional at all when I saw that certain characters died and shit. Overall, nice game

Beat Down è il primo titolo che ho portato a termine nella mia vita: ricordo ancora quel giorno stampato nonostante fossi un pargolo che a mala pena sapeva leggere, la soddisfazione fu immensa, l'8 e mezzo che ho lasciato non indica la qualità del prodotto che si presenta come un picchiaduro free roaming che mischia scontri 1 vs 1 a sezioni beat em up, quanto piuttosto al legame affettivo che ho col gioco stesso. Questo titolo simboleggia la mia infanzia: mi innamorai dei personaggi e della città, vedevo i boss come delle icone della mia mente e l'ho adorato alla follia. Ho provato pure a rigiocarlo negli ultimi anni ma non avevo la pazienza a sufficienza tuttavia non posso non glorificare un titolo che, seppur dozzinale a tratti e quasi un b game, ha avuto un impatto così forte sulla mia persona.

I’ve heard The Insert Credit boys, Thorhighheels and more talk about the joys of cavia’s jank, but this is my first exposure. Beat Down oozes a misplaced gritty style reminiscent of over the top Hong Kong gangster flicks but set in a SoCal type location that looks like a NY type location.

The meat and potatoes here are punches and cusses. Every character, both male and female, spouts tough guy fucks and shits.

The punching is jank. You have 5 different punchers to choose from when starting a new game. Your chosen puncher then punches their way through quests across this small interconnected world of hubs that is Las Sombras.

Campy japanese gang warfare mixed with gritty over the type street warfare violence. Good stuff.

The actual 1v1 combat is clunky and took me a while to get used to. Certain opponents felt cheap. They wouldnt act at all while i was blocking, but would atart their attack combos the instant i released the button such that their moves would connect before i had a chance to connect with mine.

This is a first impression, and i doubt i will finish it. But there is fun to be had here.

Basically a prototype of Street Fighter 6's World Tour mode except the fighting is super stiff and the camera sucks. The character customization is pretty fun, but it costs what feels like a lot of money to purchase clothes and jewelry so even if you just wanted to hop in and make a goofy character you would be grinding for about as long as it would take to beat the whole game. It's also full of that sweet, sweet mid aughts edgy cringe. The kind of game that would only have been fun if you picked it up at the rental store for a weekend where you had nothing else to do.

This game is straight up E D G E. I always laugh at the way Japanese developers think about the American market, and every aspect of it enforces that idea. The art style, the character designs, down to every single line of dialogue written.

The reason decided to replay it is that I had fond memories of it as a kid with a PS2, but sadly the sparks go out once you're older. Some parts of the game is ridiculous for anyone who isn't a pre/teenager living in the early 2000s.

But mechanically the game is interesting, while it lacks the depth of other fighters it is considerable that every character in the blacklist (The roster of controllable characters) Has a fighting style with its respective move list.

This nit and grit can be re-treated today in a fashionable manner, this game did have potential but is too bare-bones to consider a playthrough.