Taito's Animal-Saving Beat 'Em Up 'Growl' Is This Week's Arcade Archives Game

I remember discovering this one for the first time in MAME back in the day. It's a good one!

Is this the one that the AVGN describes as playing as Hulk Hogan and Indiana Jones and that has the hillbilly voice saying "Hey, come on!" when you insert a credit?

I'm so getting this one.

I've enjoyed playing this one on Taito's Egret II Mini (it has the Japanese title of Runark there, though). It's wild with explosions and is known as a brawler that makes heavy use of weapons.

It seems like nearly everything on the Egret has been ported to Switch via Arcade Achives at this point. The one big exception is Rastan Saga.

Never heard of it, but this is right up my alley lol. Gotta love those insane plots in arcades of yesteryear.

I shall be picking this up!

That guy... is lifting up a truck.

Okay, Taito. I'm in.

I have this on my legends ultimate arcade. Its a fun 2 player game for sure if you love beat em ups 👍

@HammerGalladeBro was literally just thinking of "Hey, Come on!"

I have this on Taito Legends 2 on the PS2. It's fun, more beat 'em ups should have rocket launchers as pick ups.

@Teksetter

Yeah, other than Elevator Action Returns and Bubble Symphony/Memories, I'm kind of regretting the purchase.

The bosses in the game are rather ridiculous and doesn't even fit the early 20th century settings, which makes it great. The final boss is a complete surprise.

I miss back when games were just kooky. I could not imagine say Sony trying to make a modern version of this. Would have 40 hours of cutscenes a bunch of QTEs and a cliff hanger ending.

$8 is a heck of deal compared to what the Genesis port will cost you these days!

@HammerGalladeBro I have not heard of the Namco vertical shmup Fighter & Attacker but even after watching a streamer play it, probably the only thing I am going to remember is a lady saying "Get down, everyone!" as the credit sound. She knew the jams seemed to be about the best thing about the game!
(especially given the game seemed pretty bog standard, to my memory of the actual gameplay, for 1992. Namco was definitely a company known for flexing in the arcades.)

Hamster already announced next week's game is Baraduke II.

This game has one of the funniest covers ever.

I really wish these Arcade Archives were a bit cheaper. In Australia they're over $10 each which pushes them way out of impulse buy territory. If they were $5 I would have bought about 40 of them by now. It's these kinds of kooky games which end up not making the cut: I know that I could get about 1 hour of fun out of them, which is worth the gamble at a few bucks apiece but hard to justify at $10.50

Played this years ago I think on one of the Taito 'Legends' collections. Was pretty good if I recall. I like these archives releases, you get some unusual titles.

I'd really like to see Chase H.Q. and Data East's Midnight Resistance at some point

Those poachers brought a whip to a rocket launcher fight.

Looking forward to this. I always wanted to play this game.

One of my fave games as a kid!!!!

"Hey, come on! Hey, come on! Hey, come on!"

See peta this is how you make a good game!

Whenever I see these old 'beat-em-ups' get re-released they just keep reminding me how badly I want the Aliens and Aliens vs Predator arcade 'beat-em-ups' from the early 90's to get the same re-release. Sadly, I'm very confident that they will join the long list of forever being locked behind rights issues for eternity Whoever wins, we lose.

Are my eyes wrong, or does this look to be the original, uncensored version rather than the toned down one used in the PS2 collection?

@SpringDivorce
I definitely feel you there! The Egret was an expensive purchase, especially if you went all-in like me and got the full kit with arcade stick and trackball/paddle controller + games. I could’ve gotten a PS5 for about the same money! So the lack of exclusivity makes it harder to justify the $$.

Still, I like my Egret and can’t say I regret buying, even if Hamster were to port every game on it to the eShops. It’s a cool piece of hardware with a decent variety of classic games, and Arkanoid needs to be played with a paddle controller. 😁

@N64-ROX I feel the same (in the USA). The prices are premium for a 30-40 year old digital title. Bulk collections are way better deals. They should have “Frequent buyer” discounts. Or a guarantee that the digital titles will carry over to the next consoles (and beyond).

#WeWantSinistar

...okay, maybe that's not 100% accurate.

#IWantSinistar!

Has anyone played both the arcade and Mega Drive / Genesis versions? I am wondering which one you prefer?

I agree with you. But you should know that Arcade Archives and Neo Geo games on Switch go on sale for half price, about twice a year I want to say. But only about 10 of them are actually offered on sale at once, so you really have to jump on them!

I get eshop cards from family for my birthday and Christmas, and I treat myself to a splurge of Arcade Archives and Neo Geo games that have been on my wishlist for a looong time. It's much easier to justify the purchases when it wasn't your money!

Had it on the Genesis! Good little beat ‘em up!

I hope this isn't censored like the Taito Legends port of Growl or the Arcade Archives port of Vendetta.

@WhiteTrashGuy the arcade version is a lot better. The Megadrive redid the graphics and removed the final platform level(think Double Dragon Nes platform sections). Also you attack really slowly on the Megadrive and you lose health when doing the spin kick. And all the speech is gone and there’s a lot less enemies on the screen. I got to this caterpillar that bursts out of this guys back and it took so long to die I just turned the game off

@Shadow_Dancer
Okay, cool. Thank you so much for the detailed response. I will definitely be picking up this port ASAP.