As I have shared in many of my game reviews from the Mega Cat Studios Collection 1 on the Evercade, several of them imitate popular releases on other systems. Here we have our second sports title on the cart, and like the prior one, was developed for the NES. It’s a boxing title, and of course, many of us will fondly remember Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! in relation to that sport. This one stands out with its B-movie monster theme, and is called Creepy Brawlers.
Gameplay
As conveyed through the image on the title screen and story sequences before and after each match, you’re trapped inside a horror movie. To escape, you have to punch your way out through a series of boxing matches against monsters. The game is played from a behind-the-player perspective with buttons B and A used to perform left or right punches. Pressing those, while also holding up on the D-pad allows you to do uppercuts to their heads as well. When it comes to defense, you can dodge to the left or right by tapping those directions on the D-pad. If you’re successful, your gloves will often flash. Pressing a punch button at that point causes you to retaliate with a strong counter attack. Finally, holding down allows you to block. Doing so reduces the amount of damage you take by 50%. A lot of these moves are also discussed in the game’s optional tutorial, which is helpful.
After starting the game, there are a couple of modes to choose from. The main one is the Championship Mode where you can choose from one of four series of fights to battle through. Only the first one is unlocked at the beginning, though. Scrolling through the list of challengers, the game appears to be extensive, with about a dozen fights in the first series of bouts just by itself! I also appreciated that there was a Training Mode available which allowed me to practice matches against the monsters I’ve already reached in the main part of the game. As was typical of Mega Cat Studios titles, there were also achievements I could unlock.
Turning back to the main part of the game, I said earlier that one aspect that helped Creepy Brawlers stand out was its movie monster theme. Instead of funny-looking boxing stereotypes, you face off against B-movie monster stereotypes. Some early examples include a murderous bride who wants to cut you up, a devil, and a wolfman. Before facing each, there’s a short story sequence that sets up the fight. These also continue between rounds as well. I liked these because they provided a little extra motivation and background for what was about to happen.
Each of my adversaries had a series of attacks that he or she tended to do. As expected, they were also poor at blocking certain types of punches, which I discovered as I fought against them. Some of these could be uppercuts. Others would be susceptible to punches to the stomach. For the first few seconds of the round, enemies tended to be like little punching bags. Standard punches took down some of their life, but not much. Then they’d began their predetermined series of attacks in a predictable manner. These were fun to figure out for a time, but after a while, I felt like a loser playing this game.
Based on how little damage I’d do, I must say that the main character is a weakling! The only way I could take off significant chunks of life was by dodging an attack, and responding with a counter hit. When they landed correctly, they were satisfying and impressive to use. Unfortunately, there were certain moments in the fights where my foe would be invulnerability against everything, and I wouldn’t know when that was until I’d try to hit them!
This frankly stunk up a storm like a rotting corpse. It made the game feel like I was just following Simon Says, and I could only win if the game let me. Additionally, when I knocked down my enemy’s life bar enough, their attack sequences changed as they tried to retaliate against my onslaught. This was fine, and to be expected. But one example of this was the devil, who in the last 30 seconds of a match would usually hop backward a few steps, turn invisible in a puff of smoke, shoot 3 slow red fireballs at me, become visible again, charge at me, and finally bend over for like a second in preparation for bashing me with a big blow.
After I’d dodge all that for 6+ seconds, my gloves would flash telling me to counter attack. Occasionally I’d do so, knowing that most of the time it would be completely worthless because the game said so. Hopefully I’d be able to get a few hits in after my failed attack, but before long he would just hop back again. Rinse and repeat until the timer would run out.
Graphics
Despite many of my counter hits being worthless, at least the graphics were good. They’re one of the best things about the game, with the sprites being large and expressive. The backgrounds also featured a good amount of detail in the top third of the screen. Admittedly, the main fighting area usually only had a single shade of color, not unlike what was found in Log Jammers at times (Review). Sadly, Creepy Brawlers had a worse problem with this than in that prior title. Here, the majority of the background was one color in every area. At least it was balanced out by the details found near the top area of the stage and the large sprites. The latter of which were much larger, expressive, and diverse than what was in Log Jammers.
Sadly, I was also disappointed by one key part of the graphics. That being the amount of animation for the characters. All the enemy characters were choppy to a large extent. This was especially noticeable while fighting the bride. She’d put up her knives to stab me, and just stand there for what felt like a second before completing the strike. Most of my adversaries had attacks like that where their animation would be frozen for about half a second before finishing the blow. These instances were not very compelling to me, and reinforced the notion of a Simon Says gaming experience.
Still, the game’s sprite sizes were impressive, along with the diversity of foes I faced.
Music and Sound Effects
One common issue I’ve had with many of the titles on the Mega Cat Studios Collection 1 cartridge has been their weak sound effects. That’s the case here, too. Not that the sounds of the counter hits are poor, far from it! The problem is that most of the other attacks have little impact to them. Now, this may also be related to the small amount of damage I did with normal attacks, like I said earlier. But it didn’t help that the sound effects weren’t that great either.
For the music, I liked it a good deal. They contributed to the game in various ways, and with the graphics, were the best parts about it. I especially enjoyed the fight with the bride from an audio standpoint. It featured music that reminded me of a corrupted version of a wedding song, complete with what sounded like 8-bit pipe organs. Others weren’t as memorable to me, but I enjoyed aspects of the ones I heard.
Final Thoughts
Reflecting on Creepy Brawlers as a whole, the biggest issue I had with it was related to how its fights were designed and repeated invincibility frames that my adversaries were given on a regular basis. It only allowed me to hit them in certain ways at specific times, and that got old quick! Compounding the problem were the drawn-out attack sequences that ran down the clock near the end of rounds. If I wasn’t able to do three knockouts against a foe in one round, I’d see a short mid-fight story sequence, and then we’d start over like the previous round did absolutely nothing. This was frustrating and aggravating. Especially since I was never able to progress to the next fight based on a decision of the referee. It didn’t matter that I beat the snot out of that devil a lot more than he did to me. The fact that I hadn’t knocked him out three times was enough to end my run through the Championship Mode that time. Yeah, I am a little bitter!
Because I considered the gameplay to be broken in these aspects, I wanted to give the game a Negative rating. However, I decided against that. The reason being that games are more than just their gameplay. While I recognize that part of a title as more important than anything else, other aspects have merit as well.
I was truly impressed by this game’s sprite size, particularly with the wolfman. Moreover, the music was fun to listen to while I played, and the controls were effective. At least in their responsiveness to my inputs and the actions I could perform with my boxer.
Due to those positive elements, I’m giving Creepy Brawlers a Mixed rating.
Review Overview
Summary: I debated rating this game lower, but its graphics and music were pretty good. Plus the control was effective, so it wouldn’t feel right doing that. Unfortunately, the gameplay felt like a chore after spending a few hours with it.
Title: Creepy Brawlers (Publisher Page, with a demo also available there)
Genre: Sports
Year Released: 2017
Developer: Mega Cat Studios (Link to website)
Available On: NES, Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, and Evercade through the Mega Cat Studios Collection 1.
Price Paid: $2.52 or $25.18 for the collection on Evercade.
Remember, we can have different opinions about the games we play. If you like something more (or less) than I do, both of our perspectives are valid. Please see my Review Rating Scale to know more of how I rate games.
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