There’s a tradition in side-scrolling beat ‘em-up games, and it’s a little strange, but at some point in the genre’s history, random items of food found on the floor, or kicked out of boxes, bins, and barrels can give you an energy boost!
Where did it start?
For that information I had to play a LOT of games, but I think at this point it’s safe to say that it didn’t start with beat ‘em-ups. I won’t ruin the surprise though, so let’s start with some we know.
Who has what?
Streets of Rage (1991)
Why start with SoR? Dunno. What did it have?
- Apple Refills - health a little
- Beef Refills - health fully
And the sequels?
"Look an apple"
SoR 2 and 3
- Apple Refills - health a little
- Roast Chicken - Refills health fully
Final Fight (1989)
- Barbeque - Refills entire strength meter
- Pizza - Refills half your strength meter
- Hamburger Refills half your strength meter
- Curry - Refills half your strength meter
- Banana - Refills 1/4 your strength meter
- Apple - Refills 1/4 your strength meter
- Grapes Refills 1/4 your strength meter
- Soda - Refills 1/9 your strength meter
- Vitamins - Refills 1/9 your strength meter
- Gum - Refills 1/9 your strength meter
Final Fight 2 shook it up a bit
- Barbecue - Vitality recovers 100%
- Tempura - Vitality recovers 50%
- Dim Sum - Vitality recovers 50%
- Lobster - Vitality recovers 50%
- Loaf of Bread - Vitality recovers 25%
- Donut - Vitality recovers 25%
- Spinach - Vitality recovers 25%
- Soft Drink - Vitality recovers 11%
- Milk - Vitality recovers 11%
- Coffee - Vitality recovers 11%
- Chocolate - Bar Vitality recovers 11%
Wow that’s a lot right - I think some of these are just for the sake of variety.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989)
- Pizza (But you could have guessed that right?)
Double Dragon (1987)
Well, none of the Double Dragon games had health power-ups at all.
Renegade (1986)
- Hamburger
Given that Double Dragon was a spiritual successor to Renegade it’s odd that it didn’t have any food power-ups
Before Renegade there was really only Kung-Fu Master in the genre and it didn’t have any. So let’s reveal where we think food power-ups came from...
So which was first then?
It’s Pac-Man!
What will Eight Dragons do.
So far we’ve opted for burgers not least because we like them, but also because… have you seen how many calories are in an XL Bacon-Double cheeseburger from BK!? That’s energy right there! I guess it's also a nod to Renegade but perhaps we should have more?
Extend mode have a dot-munching maze game under our belts, not entirely unlike Pac-Man (It’s eight player naturally), perhaps the cake based power-ups from Crazy Otto will be a nice homage to the origin of the food based power-up.
Eight Dragons can be purchased from Steam here:
Store.steampowered.com
