Armored Warriors

Imagine a battlefield where colossal war robots rise from the ashes of a city and where every blow flings enemies across the whole screen. That is Armored Warriors, one of the most ambitious beat 'em ups Capcom ever built on its CPS-2 arcade hardware. Instead of muscular street brawlers, here you control piloted combat mechs and the whole game breathes a robust mechanical energy you rarely meet in the genre.

The greatest asset is the parts-swapping system. From defeated enemies and from bosses you can seize their limbs, weapons and chassis and thus assemble your own robot in real time right in the middle of battle. One moment you fight as a walking tank, the next you put on wheels and turn into a fast gunnery platform. This mutability gives the game a depth that static beat 'em ups lack, and it rewards players for experimenting with the arsenal.

The game was created in the mid-nineties, at a time when Capcom dominated the arcades thanks to the CPS-2 boards and series like Street Fighter II or Final Fight. Armored Warriors belongs to the mecha universe that the company followed up with the later title Cyberbots, which moved the same robots into the one-on-one fighting genre. The visual style with its detailed animated machines and explosion pyrotechnics shows how far the two-dimensional pixel art of the time could go.

Culturally Armored Warriors captures Japanese pop culture's fascination with giant robots, rooted in the anime tradition, and transfers it into brisk cooperative action for up to three players at once. Crushing enemy legions together, sharing captured parts and coordinated salvoes are among the best that arcade beat 'em ups of the era offered.

Thanks to CPS-2 emulation the game today comes alive in full glory, with sharp graphics and instant control response. It is a title that perhaps never reached the fame of Final Fight, but among connoisseurs of the genre it has a firm and well-deserved place.

Why play it: If you want a beat 'em up with an extra idea, where you assemble your own robot from captured parts during the fight, Armored Warriors is a unique experience.