Games of the Abstract: Armored Warriors (1994)

 

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

One to Three Players

Arcade

 

Capcom, among its many genres of interest, have gone with the beat-em-up from post apocalypse licensed games where dinosaurs co-exist with Cadillac cars to Battle Circuit (1997), about space bounty hunters where among the playable cast you can be a pink female ostrich with a small child on their back. Among this series of imaginative and rich games in the genre, set in a future of 2281, with an intergalactic confict between Earth and Raia, is Armored Warriors, a mech based scrolling beat-em-up. With four characters to choose from, pilots of combat robots, and up to three players possible, what was known as Powered Gear - Strategic Variant Armor Equipment in Japan and Armored Warriors in the West is also an idiosyncratic take on the genre.

Piloting giant robots, this does fit into a huge trend over multiple mediums of this trope, futuristic wars fought across Earth and even outer space in robots, though in video games it is more commonplace to have them be games where there is a greater emphasis on the fuller scale of mechanized combat, be it turn based or being able to pilot the machines freely, in vehicle simulation games, whether the later is attempting to be realistic or just grander scale combat. The idea of taking giant combat robots into genres like the beat-em-up or fighting games is something distinct. For fighting games, you have the likes of tie-in games for the Gundam animated franchise or Capcom’s own Tech Romancer (1998), but a beat-em-up, which restricts the combat in areas or on stages where you clear through hordes of fellow combat machines, is definitely idiosyncratic for a type of premise which in the nineties was more emphasized in the likes of the MechWarrior franchises, starting in 1989 and having a polygonal sequel come a year after Armored Warriors in 1995.

The pilots themselves, three men and one woman, take the back seats to their machines, which are aesthetically distinct. Depicted as a grimy science fiction tale that takes place on two planets at least, warzones full of space combat, there is still a cartoonish tone, but one less Saturday morning cartoon but legitimately comparable to anime from this period within the science fiction genre about such combat machines. Aptly its director Yoshiki Okamoto was a game developer in the eighties on many Capcom’s shooters with an emphasis on machines, like the air plane combat scrolling shooter 1942 (1984), which explains the tone, where all the robots, even the enemy combatants, stand out between yours in aesthetic against elaborate war zones, a balance between having a realism in terms of the world’s logic of how these machines would work, but being exaggerated so there is a strong sense of style to the proceedings. The female pilot’s machine for example, needing to use speed to make up for low armor, is a yellow domed machine which scuttles around, compared to enemy ones which can have spider legs to literally do so to giant mechanized steam rollers. Bosses are monstrosities of metal and by the last stage, you are fighting in outer space.

This becomes more idiosyncratic as, in one of the coolest touches distinct to this genre in the beat-em-up genre, you can take parts from your fallen enemies in replacement to the requisite weapons or objects other games provide you and replace your body with these tools. Want those spider legs or the hover carrier form? Yes you can, alongside weapons like laser swords, guns and even electric claws, as alongside your special attack of limited amount, you have a melee (or acquired gun) attack and a limited ammo ranged weapon at hand whatever you acquire. It will all be needed as, with many beat-em-ups, it can consume lives (and coins in the original arcades) in how a lot of this is finding oneself thrown into hordes of enemies, in mind this was a game fully meant to be multiplayer as many in the genre, with a limited number of moves to use and having to negotiate the hazards in your way over a series of levels. Like many games in the beat-em-up genre, it becomes a series of dodging a chaotic mass of enemies, with end bosses let alone grunts a game of avoiding them and waltzing in to get your shots in when you have the chance.

It is a cool game, a really distinct and aesthetically pleasing game from a genre which, especially with what Capcom brought to the table, had so much style and creativity to what was an insanely easy genre in structure for anyone to work on. Only with exceptions, like developer Winkysoft’s criminally unknown Denjin Makai II: Guardians (1995), Capcom were the publisher/developer who brought some of the best innovation and artistic creativity to this genre. It is a shame this genre, and Capcom’s interest with their other franchises over the decades like the beat-em-up titles, waned and were affected by a) the decreased power arcades had and b) how the change to three dimensional polygonal games has not been the most reliable way for the genre to transition to it, as you could have seen more idiosyncratic takes on a very simple game genre which could keep going. Even an obscure game like this brings a distinct premise and change of pace with these lumbering machines breaking each other, which gives something inherently different with a solid game within itself you can have fun with. Armored Warriors’ style might not appeal to everyone, hardcore science fiction around machinery, but with its rich sprite designs to the sick humour of squashing human foot soldiers the size of ants for points, the game is clearly built out of love for its central premise, and in the series of beat-em-ups from Capcom, this shows just how good their work was.