Beat ’em ups from the 16-bit era are generally put into two categories. First off you have the popular choices. These include Final Fight, Streets of Rage, and the various Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle titles. Most who grew up in this era played at least one of these titles, and chances are they still have fond memories of them. Next up are the games that nobody ever talks about anymore. The genre was just coming into its own in this time, and many developers tried their hand at it. Sometimes were quickly forgotten because of uninspired box art (Rival Turf anyone?), because they weren’t fun and others because the developers failed to advertise them properly. This leads me to a Taito release called Growl. This is one that I had never heard of before, and it’s environmental themes made it really stand out to me. This is definitely unusual for not only the genre, but a video game in general. It was originally released in arcades but was then ported to the Sega Genesis. I decided to give it a try and discovered it to be a hidden gem.
Growl takes place at the beginning of the 20th century. You play as one of four forest rangers (Gen, Burn, Kahn, and Jack who all look like Crocodile Dundee wannabes) as you set out to put an end to a huge group of evil poachers. The setting isn’t really explained, but based on the animals you encounter (Lions and Elephants mostly) I’m guessing it’s based in Africa. While you’re given a choice of character to play as none have any sort of backstory and their only differences are in attack, jump, and life stats. Either way, after selecting one you’re set off to brawl against a variety of poachers in mostly outdoor environments. The game is a fairly traditional by genre standards; the action is displayed from a skewed side view and you can move in all eight directions. Arrows guide you in the direction you need to go, but you can only progress after defeating all enemies on the screen. You can punch, kick and jump by default and must use a series of these strikes to defeat your opponents. Your character has a life bar of his own that depletes as you take damage, and when it runs out you must use a credit to continue. One of my first complaints about this game is that the enemies tend to require a lot of hits before they go down for good.
That’s an annoying drawback for sure, but there are so many context sensitive attacks that it somehow makes up for it. In Growl enemies will occasionally be on the ground at which point you can throw them from side to side or even kneel down to punch them in the face repeatedly. I was never able to figure out how to trigger these different effects, but they’re really cool. Additionally this game has the biggest arsenal of weapons I’ve ever seen in a beat ’em up title. Littered throughout each stage are a myriad of boxes and barrels which, when broken, reveal these accessories. You have your standard throwing knife and melee weapons such as swords and whips, but you can also pick up firearms as well which is unusual for this type of game. These include a single shot pistol, semi automatic hunting rifle, and even a rocket launcher that destroys most standard enemies in a single blast. Ammunition is displayed on the bottom of the screen by your life bar, and though there is no way to replenish this any spent guns can still be used for melee attacks. The arsenal is vast, and these weapons help to keep the action fresh throughout each stage. You can even pick up boulders and barrels and toss them at foes which is also very cool and fairly unique.
Unfortunately the basic level designs in Growl are a little basic. The nature based environments are okay, but they tend to blend together in a less than meaningful way. The only one that really stood out to me was the area where you’re righting enemies atop a train. Fortunately certain stages do have some cool features such as animals you free that come to your aid. These include falcons that fly around and peck at enemies causing damage, an elephant that charges across the screen destroying all enemies in its path, and more. This does a pretty decent job of expressing the themes of this game. On a rather odd note the game tries so hard to express politically correct viewpoints on animal welfare and poaching, but it fails in other commentary. Other developers such as Capcom avoided allowing players to beat up women in the Final Fight franchise, but on a rather odd note Taito didn’t care very much. One of the common enemies you’ll encounter here are business women decked out in full dress suits that you can knock around just like any other opponent. I’m not one to find this an outrage, but it definitely seems odd considering how far out on a limb this game goes to be politically correct in other aspects. It’s certainly unusual.
Growl definitely looks like an early Sega Genesis title. The first thing I noticed is just how small the character models are; they feel tiny in a time when most other developers were pushing for huge sprites. It’s not an issue in my opinion because they’re surprisingly detailed, but the main protagonists all look too similar for my tastes. The backgrounds are a bit bland to be honest. It seems to me that developer Taito re-used the same titles as often as they could and therefore most of them kind of blend together. There’s rarely any slowdown though, and that is a major plus. The game’s best feature graphically is the fact that it often displays up to ten different enemies on screen at once. This is impressive, but unfortunately I did notice that in these situations the artificial intelligence on the characters is significantly toned down. These enemies tend to get stuck on even the slightest obstacle which makes Growl easier than it might otherwise be, but this is hardly a major issue. The soundtrack is actually pretty good here. The composers avoided the typical screeching effects and ‘robot fart’ samples that the Genesis is well known. The music is a series of fun and bouncy chip tune songs that fit the action well, and I rather like the soundtrack here.
I’m at the last paragraph of this review and I haven’t even gotten to Growl’s biggest problem yet. Unfortunately the developers made this a single player only experience. Normally this would be the kiss of death for a beat ’em up, but somehow Growl’s unique features manage to keep this one afloat. The unusual theme, along with the fantastic arsenal of weapons and fun gameplay save this one. Unfortunately it has been long forgotten, but I would definitely rate this one above the original Streets of Rage.
