15 Best Beat 'em Ups for Handhelds

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Beat 'em ups are made for handhelds. A stage takes a few minutes, the controls are simple, and the action is pure satisfaction. Walk right, hit things, grab the roast chicken out of a barrel, repeat. Many of the best brawlers also support co-op, so a Bluetooth controller and a friend turn your handheld into a shared couch classic.

We frame all of this around games you already own and want to preserve.

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The Genre Kings

Streets of Rage 2 (Genesis) — The gold standard. Perfect pacing, a legendary soundtrack, and combat that still feels great. If you play one brawler, make it this.

Streets of Rage 4 (modern) — A modern sequel that honors the classics while adding depth. Gorgeous hand-drawn art and excellent co-op.

Final Fight (arcade, SNES) — The brawler that set the template. The arcade version is the one to play, and it holds up.

Streets of Rage (Genesis) — The original is still a great time, with a fantastic soundtrack and tight design.

Golden Axe (Genesis, arcade) — Fantasy brawling with magic and mountable beasts. A classic for short sessions.

Arcade Greats

The Simpsons Arcade Game (arcade) — A beloved licensed brawler with four-player chaos. Pure fun. Great with friends.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (arcade, SNES) — One of the best licensed brawlers ever made. Fast, funny, and endlessly replayable.

X-Men (arcade) — The famous six-player cabinet brawler. A blast in co-op, with huge sprites and personality.

Captain Commando (arcade) — A Capcom classic with a wild cast. Solid combat and a great pace.

Alien vs. Predator (arcade) — One of the deepest 2D brawlers Capcom ever made. Excellent combat and atmosphere.

Deep Cuts and Variety

Guardian Heroes (Saturn) — A genre-bending brawler RPG from Treasure with branching paths and combos. A cult classic worth seeking out.

Dragon's Crown (PS3, Vita) — A gorgeous side-scrolling brawler with RPG depth. Excellent solo and co-op. Needs a more capable handheld.

Battle Circuit (arcade) — A colorful, fast Capcom brawler with light RPG elements. Underrated and fun.

Knights of the Round (arcade) — A Capcom brawler with leveling and blocking. A bit deeper than most of its era.

Sengoku 3 (Neo Geo) — One of the best brawlers on the Neo Geo, with fluid combat and great speed. A standout.

Getting Arcade Brawlers Running Right

Most of the games above are arcade titles, and arcade emulation has a few quirks worth knowing.

Use FBNeo for brawlers. RetroArch's FinalBurn Neo core is the best fit for Capcom and Konami brawlers. It is lighter than full MAME, runs on any budget handheld, and its romsets are well documented. Our RetroArch setup guide covers adding the core.
Match your romset to your core. Arcade games are picky about versions. If a game refuses to boot, the usual cause is a romset built for a different emulator version, not a broken file.
Free play beats credit feeding. Most arcade brawlers were tuned to eat quarters. Flip the dip switch settings to free play or max credits in the core options and the difficulty becomes what the designers actually built.
Add a scanline shader. These games lived on arcade monitors. A light CRT shader softens the chunky sprites beautifully. See our RetroArch shaders guide for presets by device.

Playing Co-op on a Handheld

Co-op is the soul of the genre, and a handheld does it better than you might expect. Pair one or two Bluetooth controllers, plug the handheld into a TV over HDMI, and you have a couch arcade. Devices with HDMI out and Bluetooth cover this out of the box. RetroArch handles the controller mapping per player in Settings, then Input. The one catch is latency. Cheap no-name pads add noticeable lag, so stick to 8BitDo or console controllers for fighting-tier timing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best beat 'em up to start with?

Streets of Rage 2. It is the most polished brawler of the 16-bit era, it runs perfectly on any handheld, and the difficulty curve is fair. Its soundtrack alone is worth the session.

Can budget handhelds run arcade beat 'em ups?

Yes. Almost every classic brawler is a 2D sprite game from the late 80s and 90s. A $55 Anbernic runs them all at full speed through FBNeo. The exceptions are 3D-era brawlers and Dragon's Crown, which need Android hardware.

Do beat 'em ups work well solo?

Absolutely. The genre was designed so a single quarter-holder could clear the game. Co-op adds chaos and laughs, but the core loop of walking right and hitting things is complete on its own.