The 10 greatest arcade beat 'em up games that loved eating your quarters

The era of arcade beat 'em ups was one that defined friendships, rivalries, and the feeling of watching your last coin circle the drain as a final boss mopped the floor with you. These games never needed realism, or microtransactions, or even ray tracing — they just needed two buttons, a joystick, and a whole lot of quarters.

11 Honorable Mention- Tekken 3's Force Mode

Yes, I know that it isn't technically an honest-to-goodness beat 'em up, and it isn't from the same era as the others on the list. However, Tekken 3's Force Mode is so deeply ingrained in my childhood brain that I can't help but give it an honorable mention on this list. Whipping through four levels, kicking and slashing through hordes of Tekken Force goons to reach either Heihachi or Jin at the end are memories I'm not forgetting till the very end.

I first played this mode at a local arcade, because the version I had on my PC that ran it through CVGS just didn't have the mode. You can bet I was blown away at seeing my favorite (read: only) PC game at the time from a brand-new perspective. Plus, it might be really short, but the Force Mode is a proper beat 'em up brawler that was as fun as any of the other entries on this list.

10 Double Dragon II: The Revenge is in the arcade hall of fame

The game's arcade version almost as good as the NES port

Double Dragon II is a beat 'em up from a simpler time. For me, it's from when the whole extended family got together for a week of vacationing, and the kids fought for 15 minutes each on the famiclone. It was an absolutely unforgettable memory when we realized that instead of just trying to get ahead in Prince of Persia, two players could play Double Dragon II together! That meant thirty whole minutes on the game, ushering us into a new era of longer play sessions. Personal reminiscing aside, Double Dragon II improved on everything the first game did, and it rightfully earns its place in the arcade beat 'em up hall of fame.

Not only did the sequel refine the game's signature close-quarters combat, it also introduced directional attacks. Despite the NES' 8-bit limitations, we grew to love the game's attention-to-detail and splendid visual presentation, and it made us keep coming back for more. There's still nothing quite like hitting a spinning kick in the air and watching the enemy go flying across to your partner, only for them to pick him up and start a conversation between the enemy's head and their knee. The arcade version of the game was just a slightly less enhanced version, but just as much fun.

9 Battletoads Arcade or Super Battletoads

An honest-to-goodness beat 'em up without any fluff

A straight-up, balls-to-the-wall beat 'em up that you can play with two more players? Sign me right up. There are plenty of Battletoads games that you could put on here, and I love just how varied they were — you could play them as racing games or platformers, too, but Battletoads Arcade, or Super Battletoads was nothing but sweet and pure beat 'em up action. It's actually part of Rare Replay if you've got an Xbox Series One or higher, and you'll be surprised by just how much more violent this one was compared to its other versions.

Super Battletoads was also incredibly hard to finish, and I have no shame in admitting that I never got around to finishing it, especially after my brother quit playing it over the weekends. It strips away the platforming sections or anything else that you could consider fluff, and just gives players a left-to-right beat 'em up, plenty of attacks (including but not limited to Richard-punching).

8 X-Men Arcade was insanely gorgeous

A thoroughly enjoyable beat 'em up that stuck you with five other superheroes

Undoubtedly one of the most iconic arcade games of all time, Konami's X-Men allowed six players to get together and try to beat it. The rules were simple — beat up all the enemies, and if you picked Wolverine, you were taking the easy way out. One thing that set this game apart was the ability to dog on prone enemies — kick a man when he's down? Yes please.

Each X-Man had a special ability, and if you were anything like me, you overused the heck out of Cyclops and Nightcrawler's abilities, too. The visuals, for the time, were downright fantastic, and each of the six levels presented a unique experience, with the difficulty ramping up as you went further in the game. Mystique pretending to be Dr. Xavier is still one of the most iconic moments from the game, and if you haven't already, do yourself a favor and play the arcade version immediately.

7 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles blew everyone away with its presentation

One of the greatest quarter-stealing games ever

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, when it came out in 1989, was hands down the best-looking arcade game at the time. This was a time when the best-looking game most people had was Super Mario Bros. 2 on the NES, and then TMNT came to arcades, and you couldn't stop wondering how they made it look and sound so gorgeous. Everything this game did was right — the theme and intro music were perfect and mimicked the cartoon series, and the gameplay required great coordination between four players, where each of them had to know their job and have a team-first approach.

Sure, Konami had plenty of brawlers and beat 'em ups doing the rounds back then, but TMNT set itself head and shoulders above the rest with its vibrant visuals, fantastic boss battles, and unparalleled visual presentation. The NES version came out a year later, and is the one I've played. It doesn't quite match the quality of the arcade version, but it's still a fantastic reminder of how fun the game is to play, even 36 years later.

6 Final Fight was the Dark Souls of arcade brawlers

A metal pipe, a piece of chicken, and Suplex City

Capcom had originally planned on making a Street Fighter beat 'em up and call it Street Fighter 1989. Instead, they renamed the game and gave the world Final Fight, releasing it to arcades before porting it over to the Super Nintendo. Not only does Final Fight inarguably have the best soundtrack among all the games listed here, but it's also one of the most punishing, if not the most. In fact, it often felt unfair since you could almost never react to some enemy attacks, or how many times you were hit-stunned.

The sequels may have forsaken the arcade platform and gone directly to the SNES, but Final Fight remains one of the most iconic arcade games of all time, thanks to its stellar environments, unforgettable characters, and brilliant music.

5 The Simpsons arcade game was a licensed game done right

"Get in, we're going to save Maggie!"

Two years after giving the world TMNT, Konami brought The Simpsons game to arcades. While it was pretty identical to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game in gameplay and feel, The Simpsons managed to stand apart in history. You could play as anyone from the whole Simpson family to save Maggie while beating up random thugs, all while your ears filled up with sounds of "Bart's Down!" and "D'oh!".

The visuals of The Simpsons arcade game nailed the cartoon's tone — the humor was constant, and the colors were vibrant. It's wild how a licensed game — one of the most dangerous terms in gaming — ended up being one of the most fun and fluid beat 'em ups ever made.

4 Cadillacs and Dinosaurs' arcade game succeeded while the show didn't

This game had no business going as hard as it did

As I booted up Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, the one thing I definitely didn't expect was one of the most adrenaline-pumping, surprisingly well-made arcade beat 'em ups of its time. I may not have been alive when Cadillacs and Dinosaurs came to arcades in 1993, but every older arcade-goer I've spoken to has sworn by it like it was a sacred text. And honestly? They're not wrong at all.

This game had a weirdly perfect mix of environmental destruction, dino chaos, and some Mad Max energy sprinkled in. All the characters looked traditionally jacked-up and attractive, and you had guns, combos, and boss fights that you never wanted to end. It all just worked — neither the pacing nor the variety ever let up, and for a game based on an obscure TV show, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs really went full throttle.

3 Alien vs. Predator was high-octane brawling

Comparing this one to its SNES port is night-and-day

Long before cinematic universes and crossover events, Capcom dropped Alien vs. Predator into arcades in 1994, and it was... perfection. A four-character sci-fi smackdown where predators and humans teamed up to fight aliens, this was not your average quarter-muncher.

I only happened to discover Alien vs. Predator years later, retroactively, and it still blew me away. The visuals were razor-sharp, the sound effects were chunky, and before I knew it, playing the SNES version got me through a four-hour flight in the blink of an eye. Even though the SNES version is clearly inferior, there's still a rhythm to the chaos in this game — you could toss xenomorphs like ragdolls, call in energy weapons like you were playing Contra, or just go gung-ho as Major Dutch and show the aliens what's what. Alien vs. Predator is definitely one of the most high-octane arcade brawlers ever made.

2 Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara is unforgettable

It married traditional RPG elements with 2D brawling... and succeeded

During the golden age of arcade games, Capcom thought about how they could evolve beat 'em ups, and decided to add spells, inventory, and "all that D&D nerd stuff" into the game. Somehow, it worked. Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara came to arcades in 1996, and it featured branching paths, multiple endings, and so much gear that it could almost pass off as a proper RPG instead of an arcade brawler.

With all of these traditional RPG elements in a 2D arcade game, Shadow over Mystara cemented itself as one of the most unforgettable arcade games of all time. You could play as a mage, dwarf, cleric, thief, or fighter, and each player type came with its own move sets, combos, and quirks. Even today, emulating the arcade version feels like playing one of the smoothest brawlers ever.