Side-scrolling beat ’em ups have mostly been relegated to things of the past and modern day novelties. They were at their height most notably in the arcades in the late 80′ and early 90s. Most people know that the original Street Fighter II was intended to be one such game that later became Final Fight, one of the most acclaimed and recognizable beat ’em ups of all time. This genre was popular because of how simple it was to put together, especially for up and coming studios and developers, but one that was hard to keep players invested in without the need for quarters and its simplicity. Jitsu Squad tries to breathe new life into the aging genre, but just how well does it pull it off?

I’m not going to save the answer for the end as Jitsu Squad not only manages to be a great beat ’em up, but it also manages to push the genre forward when other recent brawler titles are simply trying to play off of the simplistic nostalgia of the past. On the surface Jitsu Squad looks like a basic 4 player co-op beat ‘em up, but it features a lot of improvements and genre enhancements under the hood. The game looks like a Final Fight style brawler but with the gameplay speed of much more recent fighting games and action of a Devil May Cry. Each of the four main characters aren’t simply the same characters with different skins or a different singular special move, but each feels like it’s own fighter class/type.

The action, and the real fun, comes from the Devil May Cry-inspired combat (the game suggests you can pull off 500 hit combo strings!). You have a lot of moves at your disposal and can effortlessly launch enemies into the air for some serious combos that lead to massive damage. While the buttons work much like a standard brawler, how you press the attack button makes slight changes to aid in combat. Adjusting your timing will lead to different attacks that really helps open up combat, but what helps the most is just how darn smooth the game plays. Jitsu Squad might just be the smoothest playing beat ’em up that I’ve ever played. And because of the silky smoother gameplay the added parry button works amazingly well.

In a standard brawler you attack enemies or get attacked. There isn’t much other than that for most titles. You might stunlock enemies or they may stunlock you until animations end. It sometimes feels pretty random for good reason as the games were created to take quarters. In Jitsu Squad the added parry button gives you so much more versatility than you would expect. It sort of makes the whole combat experience feel like a game of Smash Bros. than a Final Fight. This means the replay value is really high as you can play the game in different ways, especially as each squad member feels totally different. Add in the ability to swap out characters in tag team mode and you can play Jitsu Squad all sorts of ways, and two players can even swap out as well making for a chaotic fun time.

Lastly, we need to talk about all the added extras that you can use while playing. You can pickup special weapons from chests that serve as your secondary attack that can also be powered up with collectibles. There are also a lot of crossover assist characters that work like supers that you can pull off to deal with the huge groups of enemies that will flood the screen in comedic ways. And there’s nothing quite like seeing hoards of cartoony enemies being sliced up to bloody bits. Get yourself a group of friends and you’ll definitely have a good time, especially if you all loved those old-school brawlers.

Now, with all the good out of the way, we need to talk about the bad, or at least what I don’t feel works quite as well. The story itself is a bit silly and the humor tends to be more miss than hit. Still, this genre is all about the gameplay and not BAFTA award winning writing, so, in that regard, Jitsu Squad has very little going against it. One things of note is that the chaotic nature of a lot of the action might also not be everyone’s cup of tea, especially as you can easily lose track of your characters.

Jitsu Squad is a fantastic beat ’em up and Tanuki Creative Studio shows that you can create a beat ’em up without sticking to tired and basic mechanics like many of its contemporaries that rely on nostalgia instead of trying to push the genre forward in interesting ways. The $20 digital asking price is more than reasonable and great value, especially for game night with friends. Do yourself a favor and pick Jitsu Squad up on any platform. We reviewed it on the Xbox Series S|X and is was a great experience, so much so that I’d consider it picking up the game in physical later down the line as it’s only $10 more for a disc/cartridge on PS4/5 and Nintendo Switch.

Final Score:

* A review code was provided by the publisher *

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J. Luis

J. Luis is the current Editor-In-Chief here at GAMbIT. With a background in investigative journalism his work encompasses the pop-culture spectrum here, but he also works in the political spectrum for other organizations.

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