Side-scrolling beat-em-ups are the last resort for fighting-game inept people like me. While most people would scoff at the thought of banging an attack button over and over like an amphetamine-crazed monkey just to fend off repetitive palette-swapped thugs, it can really serve as a great stress reliever. I remember the days when Nekketsu Kouha: Kunio-Kun, Double Dragon and Final Fight were the best things to ever come out of the genre, but it eventually grew stagnant and pretty much died with the advent of 3D.
Marvelous Entertainment's Ikki Tousen: Xross Impact (pronounced "Cross Impact") is a more recent side-scrolling beat-em-up I truly liked. Emerging from the shadow of a couple of lackluster games that came before it (Shining Dragon for the PS2 and Eloquent Fist for the PSP), the game features several new mechanics that correct the flaws of the aforementioned predecessors while keeping the things that actually worked intact.
