This is a collection of Beat’Em Up classics. All are very retro from earlier years of gaming. Sometimes it’s nice to take a trip down memory lane (for us older gamers), or to experience what helped part of the roadmap that gave inspiration. In this collection, you will be able to play First Samurai, Second Samurai, Gourmet Warriors, Iron Commando, Legend, Water Margin, and Sword of Sodan. Yes, you counted that right! Seven total games, all with options of rewind, saving, and even some couch co-op. These can be extremely tough, based on the fact that they were maybe in an arcade at one point, wanting people to insert more quarters. I actually don’t know if that’s true, but it’s what I’d like to believe (trust me, some of these are crazy difficult).

Here’s what I liked:

Weird Variety — You may not have heard of many of these, or maybe, like me, any at all. I have been a gamer for decades and was born in the 80s. I have never heard of these titles. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t excited to try them out. I expected to go in just playing your average brawler. Punch enemies beat a boss and continue on until the end. I was very wrong. I’ll go through the games and how they were unique. First Samurai is unique because it involves collecting some evil artifacts. Once you have enough, you can go face the boss. However, it’s not always clear where the boss is, and only once you have the artifacts will he appear. The Second Samurai is similar, except you will notice a few changes. You start off fighting cavemen and apes. There are way more levels than the previous one, and the most annoying thing I’ve done in a while. This was riding a dinosaur and jumping over logs, but I won’t spoil your future hatred for gaming. Gourmet Warriors has you beating extremely weird enemies while gathering food items. At the end of each level, you pick ingredients to combine to make a meal that can heal you. It’s actually a very complicated formula for how much health you get; you can look it up online. Iron Commando was a very long game where you can use guns or melee. Sword of Sodan has you needing to choose which direction you are facing, with enemies coming from both directions. You can drink potions you find to get bonus effects. Drinking combinations of them does different things. Legend is what you would expect from this genre. Water Margin focuses on collecting gold and using random spells you find. With all these titles you will have ones you like a lot more than others. I personally liked Water Margin and Legend the best, as they were more traditional. I absolutely hated Sword of Sodan, and the Samurai games were pretty bad. Iron Commando was a bit too long and had some really annoying enemies. Gourmet Warriors was okay, but I didn’t care for the preparing meals part.

Rewinding and Cheating — Don’t like these games, but want the achievements? Just turn on the cheats! You can now beat every game however you like. Through blood, sweat, and tears, or just cheating when you’ve had enough. You can also rewind the game if you’re playing legit to make it easier. There is even co-op play on a lot of the games. Overall you get a lot of variety on how to play.

Presentation — The way the menu system is set up is great. It has a little preview of each game, and you can read the manual or change options before playing. There is even controller remapping. It even has some classic music to set the tone of older games. Each title will show you the available options. This is great for when you first start the game and don’t know what you want to do first. I just personally went in order.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

Some Stinkers — Part of the collection, I had a lot of fun playing. But not enough to really say I loved this collection as a whole. There were only two games I actually liked, but I am glad to have at least played through the ones I didn’t. Well, besides Sword of Sodan. That game is absolute garbage. Like I said before, I really enjoyed Legend and Water Margin. Iron Commando could have been half the length. It just kept on going. I have no clue how people would play that in an arcade setting, or even at home with limited lives and having to retry the levels. There are some annoying bosses. Thankfully, you can use guns to help out. But there’s a special you can use with grenades where you jump into the air off-screen and drop them. Not only can it miss enemies not too close to you, but it doesn’t even kill them on easy. I guess you win some, you lose some with these collections.

No Online — Adding online cooperative play would have really made this game that much better. I don’t live with anyone else, so I don’t have someone to play couch cooperative play. But for those who have friends and loved ones around, they can play together. Then again, I don’t know anyone else who has this game, so maybe it doesn’t matter much.

Wrap-up

This might not be a great collection of games, but it is a collection. You can’t just go buy these all on their own in the Xbox store. The menu system is great, and the options to save anywhere and rewind, while not anything new, are appreciated. Some people will love the games I hated, and hate the games I enjoyed. If you have already played some of these, then you know what to expect. But it can also be a good time for newcomers to these titles.

Score: Reader’s Choice

Beat ‘Em Up Collection (QUByte Classics) was published and developed by QUByte Interactive on Xbox One. It was released on July 17 2025, for $19.99. A copy was provided for review