If there’s any genre beloved by retro gaming fans, it’s beat-em-ups. It’s always fun going around and beating up bad guys on a 2D/3D hybrid plane with fists, skills, and strength. The category has recently resurged with hits like Streets Of Rage 4, River City Girls, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. So that brings us to today’s game, Last Beat Enhanced. 

Developed by 7 Raven Studios, the game is a 2D pixelated throwback to the beginning days of side-scrolling beat-em-ups. And while the love of the genre and its conventions is clear from the beginning, it quickly gets dragged down by some baffling design decisions.

It’s a beat-em-up. No more, no less.

Last Beat Enhanced knows what it is. It’s a side-scrolling beat-em-up with multiple characters and a move set that players will pick up on quickly. It doesn’t try to aim any higher or do anything too wild. And that’s ok! 

If you want to stick to conventions, you make sure you’re good at them. The game has fun level designs, characters that feel different playstyle-wise, and a solid array of power moves to utilize at your disposal. The core gameplay mechanics are what kept me playing even with the massive gripe I have against one element of the game.

Get ready to grind. And not in a good way.

Time to get to Last Beat Enhanced‘s critical issue. It’s a grind. And not in a good way. At each level, you get one life to get through to the end. Lose all health, back to the beginning of the stage. Oh, and you lose all money you’ve collected too.

Now, why does this matter? Well, that money is necessary for power-ups like double damage, more health, and other abilities. These become critical to have if you want to beat the later stages. The abilities are not cheap either. 

You usually get about 1000 a level in the beginning if you get every money collectible. The double damage power-up is $15,000. So let’s do some math. You play the first couple of levels without dying around 12-15 times to get the double damage, which is needed to beat the later stages. Are you starting to see the issue here?

The grinding throughout Last Beat Enhanced is BRUTAL at the beginning. So much so that it felt like a chore to boot up the game, knowing I had to keep playing the same levels to get that damage or life extension abilities.  

Now, I know some might say, “Well that makes the game hard. I like that! I don’t need those power-ups!” But I’m telling you: don’t try to pick this game to push that argument. It’s not rewarding to trudge onward and get your butt handed to you. It feels like a chore to fight that difficulty curve. And it feels like it was deliberately done to squeeze some extra hours out of a short game.

Final Thoughts

Last Beat Enhanced has its heart in the right place. It knows what makes a beat-em-up fun and hits all the notes to achieve that goal. But the grind to get the power-ups to survive is too much for a game this small in scope. It doesn’t feel like a natural progression. It feels like a cheap way to elongate the playtime of the game. 

You can do far worse in this genre. Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn still exists. But it’s a shame some simple fixes and design choices could have helped Last Beat Enhanced feel a little more above the pack.

Last Beat Enhanced is available now for Xbox Series S/X, Xbox One, PlayStation 4/5, and Nintendo Switch.