As late as March 1995, the Varie Corporation came up with a port of Irem's 1992 arcade Beat'em'up for the Super Famicom. According to Wikipedia an American localization was planned but canceled and the SNES game had already received a review in Nintendo Power #58 (interesting, because that's supposedly the March 1994 issue). Having had a chance to play the Super Famicom version, here's my follow up to the arcade review.
While there can never be enough Brawlers on the system, with the Sony Playstation on the horizon and even the Nintendo 64 at least eagerly awaited, a game like Undercover Cops probably wasn't expected to retain enough players during a time games like the Donkey Kong Country series and Killer Instinct were providing some late surprises what the system was capable of.
Other than in Japan, where a mild success of the arcade release was carried on via the Gameboy game Undercover Cops: Hakaishin Garumaa and a Manga published in Gamest Comics, the American audience, if even aware, might have forgotten about the title anyway until the port would have been released.
Luckily, if you wanted to play the import, the necessary menus are in English. Only the rudimentary story is written in Japanese and though I try to actually read those narrations if I can, it's neither crucial to the typical Beat'em'up, nor was the plot very convincing at the arcades, so I can assure you it's not much you're missing out on.
A difference would be the weird Gameboy board game style adaption from 1993, that I couldn't make much sense of, because there you pick one of the three known characters to play on a map with a mix of slot machines, supposedly taken from the Assessment Day segments in Undercover Cops, and turn-based fights. Plenty Japanese text might actually explain what that is about, but due to the language barrier I'm not able to judge.
The question is, would you want to play the more accessible Super Famicom game? That's probably depending on the availability of the arcade original and your general interest. Though limited to one player, that doesn't mean Undercover Cops is any easier than the arcade version as a single contender.
Having read Easy Mode will end after stage 3 asking you to switch to Normal, I've of course picked that difficulty. Having played the Undercover Cops arcade quite recently made me confident enough to try and I can say the Varie port for the Super Famicom stays quite true to the original within its limitations. The screen is smaller at a lower resolution, but it even managed to keep backgrounds and details like the crows, whilst minor censorship like missing blood spray doesn't really affect gameplay.
The enemies don't seem to fight precisely the same, but they either were an even larger pain in the ass like that bat wielding dude or at least as annoying as in the original. And that's my actual issue with Undercover Cops in the first place. I wasn't all that convinced by the arcade machine anyway, but that was capitalist enough to let me pass with enough credits as backup.
I'd be totally with you that having a limited amount of continues (here adjustable to up to five lives and five continues) will enhance a game to the requirement of skill. Knowing the original wasn't much rewarding with the design or even story development, but instead punishes any success by being even more infuriating, my motivation wasn't high enough to not abandon the Super Famicom version after failing at the third boss.
Batman Returns for instance kept me hooked on a rather maddening Super Nintendo game, but Undercover Cops lacks a more unique theme by today's standards. It was too clearly designed with cashing in at arcades in mind, so it's not really supporting an elaborated learning curve and the excellence of execution super hard Irem games like the R-Type series provide just don't translates as well to the Brawling genre.
As an Irem, Super Famicom or Beat'em'up completionist, you might still want Undercover Cops in your collection, but I highly doubt you'll be enjoying it, should you not be a genre dedicated masochist.
While there can never be enough Brawlers on the system, with the Sony Playstation on the horizon and even the Nintendo 64 at least eagerly awaited, a game like Undercover Cops probably wasn't expected to retain enough players during a time games like the Donkey Kong Country series and Killer Instinct were providing some late surprises what the system was capable of.
Other than in Japan, where a mild success of the arcade release was carried on via the Gameboy game Undercover Cops: Hakaishin Garumaa and a Manga published in Gamest Comics, the American audience, if even aware, might have forgotten about the title anyway until the port would have been released.
Luckily, if you wanted to play the import, the necessary menus are in English. Only the rudimentary story is written in Japanese and though I try to actually read those narrations if I can, it's neither crucial to the typical Beat'em'up, nor was the plot very convincing at the arcades, so I can assure you it's not much you're missing out on.
A difference would be the weird Gameboy board game style adaption from 1993, that I couldn't make much sense of, because there you pick one of the three known characters to play on a map with a mix of slot machines, supposedly taken from the Assessment Day segments in Undercover Cops, and turn-based fights. Plenty Japanese text might actually explain what that is about, but due to the language barrier I'm not able to judge.
The question is, would you want to play the more accessible Super Famicom game? That's probably depending on the availability of the arcade original and your general interest. Though limited to one player, that doesn't mean Undercover Cops is any easier than the arcade version as a single contender.
Having read Easy Mode will end after stage 3 asking you to switch to Normal, I've of course picked that difficulty. Having played the Undercover Cops arcade quite recently made me confident enough to try and I can say the Varie port for the Super Famicom stays quite true to the original within its limitations. The screen is smaller at a lower resolution, but it even managed to keep backgrounds and details like the crows, whilst minor censorship like missing blood spray doesn't really affect gameplay.
The enemies don't seem to fight precisely the same, but they either were an even larger pain in the ass like that bat wielding dude or at least as annoying as in the original. And that's my actual issue with Undercover Cops in the first place. I wasn't all that convinced by the arcade machine anyway, but that was capitalist enough to let me pass with enough credits as backup.
I'd be totally with you that having a limited amount of continues (here adjustable to up to five lives and five continues) will enhance a game to the requirement of skill. Knowing the original wasn't much rewarding with the design or even story development, but instead punishes any success by being even more infuriating, my motivation wasn't high enough to not abandon the Super Famicom version after failing at the third boss.
Batman Returns for instance kept me hooked on a rather maddening Super Nintendo game, but Undercover Cops lacks a more unique theme by today's standards. It was too clearly designed with cashing in at arcades in mind, so it's not really supporting an elaborated learning curve and the excellence of execution super hard Irem games like the R-Type series provide just don't translates as well to the Brawling genre.
As an Irem, Super Famicom or Beat'em'up completionist, you might still want Undercover Cops in your collection, but I highly doubt you'll be enjoying it, should you not be a genre dedicated masochist.