Streets of Rage 4

When it comes to belt-scroll beat 'em ups in Japan, perhaps Technos Japan's (now Arc System Works') Kunio-kun and Capcom's Final Fight are mentioned by most gamers there and even used to compare later games in the genre. Outside of Japan, especially in USA, Technos Japan/Arc System Works' Double Dragon (especially its console ports and console exclusives) and especially Sega's Streets of Rage (2) are mentioned the most and are often used to compare other beat 'em ups even ones with names like SNK's Burning Fight and Tatsumi's Big Fight that were actually meant to cash-in on Capcom's Final Fight. I'm not sure if Kunio-kun, Double Dragon and Final Fight are mentioned as much as Streets of Rage in USA. Me: Ever heard of Double Dragon? Random Guy: No. Me: Final Fight? Random Guy: No. Me: Streets of Rage? Random Guy: Oh yeah! I used to play that game some time ago!

The first beat em up I played was Altered Beast and then Streets of Rage 2. :u But yeah, double dragon was pretty popular when I was growing up too.

In 1984, Takashi Nishiyama who created Street Fighter 1 and the Neo-Geo platform for others he created Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown and The King of Fighters created for Irem two games: Moon Patrol and this that's probably the earliest beat 'em up... http://youtu.be/leQxjIQM-gA ...which inspired other single-plane field-based beat 'em ups from Shinobi, Bad Dudes VS. DragonNinja, The Ninja Warriors arcade and SNES games, Altered Beast, Iga Ninden Gaou, Kaze Kiri and combining it with Street Fighter II, Mad Stalker: Full Metal Force. Spartan X/Kung-Fu Master even got 2 sequels: Vigilante arcade and the FC/NES game Spartan X2.