Games of the Abstract: B. Rap Boys (1992)

Developer: Kaneko Co., Ltd.

Publisher: Kaneko Co., Ltd.

One to Three Players

Arcade

 

In 1989, Kaneko released a scrolling beat em up called DJ Boy, which tackled North American culture and hip hop. A company whose eccentricities come to me through the likes of their longest lasting franchise being Gal Panic, a Qix clone originally an erotic game for the arcade, Kaneko Co, Ltd. released titles in other genres for the arcade and for the home consoles, and DJ Boy would get a Sega Mega Drive/Genesis  conversion. B. Rap Boys, following up as a sequel, definitely feels of the time, a cheesy Japanese tap on rap in a scrolling beat-em-up where, stuck to one character depending which of the three player controls you take, three guys wish to become the best of the streets whilst rocking the best M.C. Hammer pants you could possess. The fact my character looked closer to being at a disco, yet in a game of the early nineties, did add an unintentional humour, but to the credit of Kaneko, this has its tongue in its cheek.

There are some caveats, and among these is a sense of repetition this suffers from, an issue with the beat-em-up genre which I have thankfully seen the best (or most memorable) avoid but this one struggles with. A two button combat system, it puts the game in the position that it does recycle enemies and feels like it needed a few more moments of spectacle within itself. The other issue comes with the awareness that the original Japanese version of DJ Boy has a deeply problematic female boss character named Big Mama, who looks like an African American minstrel stereotype who was changed for the Western releases, so Kaneko whilst not as severely here dropped the ball in a way that does have to be warned about. B. Rap Boys suffers from an enemy design or two, with its exaggerated and mostly squat cast, that skirt this same issue. Some are the enemies are harmlessly ridiculous in a  good way, such as buff flannel wearing brothers of Bob Ross, the American painter and TV host, but you also have black characters who do skirt uncomfortable stereotypes. One unfortunate example, an enemy who floats around on balloons in the air, is drawn in an uncomfortable design and throws exploding watermelons at players; everything in another design would be harmless, but the characters’ design does look grotesque, and the use of watermelons in minstrel stereotyping in North American culture does not help either, really egregious for a modern player.

It is a shame as, beyond this, this ridiculous world of party rap aesthetic is a really good aesthetic especially with the vibrancy of the game’s sprite art, all in its bizarre mishmash of hip hop with pro wrestling, strange choices like the Ross brothers and squat character designs like a toy line from the era. B. Rap Boys beyond its issues is a solid fighter too. You do feel it has to recycle sequences more than others I have played, but the fun is still to be had. It feels random, as we will get to the lions, but for a game about rap supremacy in fist fights, you fight personal fighting robots and the big bad, the final boss, is a pro wrestler within a wrestling ring, which belongs to stream of consciousness quirkiness. Yes, we got Def Jam Vendetta (2003) and Def Jam: Fight for NY (2004), a set of rap based pro wrestling and grappling games, but with the money left abandoned on the table to envision Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg in their own personal mech robots in an action game that never happened, this does belong to the Japanese arcade game type of pop culture delirium.

The cartoonish look it has, over the top as many levels begin with scrolling starts, where by bicycle or skateboard (depending on your character) you get to bash people with them, and that the enemies can even ride, does bring something cool to the table. There are cool touches throughout like this, of how bar counters and fences, in the middle or side of sections, can be slide/climbed over to the other side mid-fight, which is a distinct touch to the game in bringing environment to the genre, which you do not see a lot. Yes, you fight lions, specifically a female lion tamer, drawn more realistically as a statuesque beautiful blonde, and two big cats all together in a circus, which is an abrupt and memorable boss encounter for any of this genre, especially as the lions also are bosses as she is, making it a challenge. There is also the bull, not an enemy, but an abrupt hazard in a couple of sections who appears and charges through to the other side of the screen, including the scrolling bicycle/skateboard sections, taking even enemies let alone players out in its way, which is a fittingly strange and yet also memorable touch adding to the chaos.

The other great touch is the music. The game, as a Japanese property about hip hop which is cheesy and at times problematic, does deserve praise for progressiveness and a great score, for they brought on music from a band called 3 Stories High, from their only album Famous Last Words (1991). Consisting of three American members (DOC, D.O.G, and Peter Gun) and one Japanese member (DJ Koji), sadly their career did not include anything else¹, but in mind that my knowledge of rap music is very limited, it suits the tone perfectly. In its own way too, even in mind to the legitimately acclaimed and sometimes serious rap music from the USA from the period, it adds some seriousness despite its more light tone. It befits a game like this with the energy it sways with, a solid groove through the brawls onscreen, adding atmosphere to the cartoonish violence even when the robots come in. These are the touches which won me over, even if this qualifies as a b-tier member of this genre. Unfortunately, this was also another game which never got a home port and never has been released as a retro release.

Kaneko in general, beyond Gal Panic games, feel like a Japanese developer/publisher who, even if they released games in the West, feels of their own world. It is one with some questionable choices, such as a game called The Berlin Wall (1991), which looks likely to be as subtle with its take on the Soviet Iron Curtain as you could get, i.e. not in the slightest, whilst the Rap Boy games making questionable choices in depicting black characters is the one real concern for anyone wishing to play these games, as much as even releasing them in the modern day without warning. They did make tie in games for the official mascot for Frito-Lay's Cheetos brand snack, such as Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool (1992), the licensed food mascot game truly of the nineties and very unlikely to break through to the Western consciousness as Capcom did with their games. B. Rap Boys, whilst ignoring that the North Americans gave us American Ninja films, even has Japanese and Western versions, with more kabuki dancers and ninjas in the Japanese release as enemies, showing there was an eye to the West with a game like this. In 2004, Kaneko joined many Japanese companies in the changes to the video game industry with filing bankruptcy, before a civil lawsuit fully finished them off in 2006², a company which had a long legacy in the eighties arcade era, working with Taito too, and through multiple consoles into the nineties, with a lot of puzzle and mahjong games eventually but a lot of strange curiosities from their Japanese and American branches. These are not just those already talked of, but also Mortal Kombat rip offs with their own weirdness (Blood Warrior (1994)), a sequel to a sprite based game not with digitized real actors and a Kappa costume for added weirdness, to Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill (1993), an unreleased SNES platformer where Socks, the cat owned by then-president Bill Clinton, fights as bosses Richard Nixon and a zombified Ronald Regan being controlled by his wife Nancy Regan. For obvious reasons, Kaneko is ripe to be covered, whilst B. Rap Boys for its flaws is also a solid beat-em-up worthy to play, showing the skills of the staff at the company in terms of well made games too.  

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1) Hardcore Gaming 101's B. Rap Boys reviews, posted by Benjamin Alexander on August 28th 2018.

2) Page on Kaneko from Segaretro.com.