New(ish) to Beat em Ups - where to start?

[Spacedeck]

Alright, so as a kid I only really played the SoR series, with 2 being my favourite.  With the release of SoR4, it's got me back into playing these games, but I've never actually played anything other than SoR.  Where do you guys recommend me starting and on which games?

Just name the game or series and the system it plays best on and I'll take a look.

I'd like to go back and play all the goodies I missed out on playing but also if you have any suggestion for new / up to date games, that'd be cool too.

[TrekMD]

The King of Fighters series on Neo Geo is a good one.  I just got the Neo Geo Mini International and it has 10 different versions of that game.  Here is one version of the game...

https://youtu.be/35kE2f4BEa0

[Ryuhi]

Just a quick go through here all of these are for megadrive/Genesis:

Power rangers the movie video game
Captain America and the avengers
Both X men games
Battletoads
Comic zone
Battle axe.
TMNT hyperstone heist.

[Shadowrunner]

Final Fight is a really good one. It's my favourite for sure. MAME would be the best place to play it but there have been console versions. I have it on the PS3 where it's called Final Fight Double Impact but I'm not sure if it's on other modern consoles.

Other arcade games if you do have access to MAME, The Punisher, Mutation Nation, and the Sengoku games are all really good.

[Spacedeck]

Final Fight is a really good one. It's my favourite for sure. MAME would be the best place to play it but there have been console versions. I have it on the PS3 where it's called Final Fight Double Impact but I'm not sure if it's on other modern consoles.

Other arcade games if you do have access to MAME, The Punisher, Mutation Nation, and the Sengoku games are all really good.

Can you explain MAME? I understand that MAME is like an arcade machine but what's the difference between say playing Streets of Rage on MAME and playing it on one of the systems it was released for like MegaDrive? Does one perform better than the other or have some advantage?

[TrekMD]

MAME let's you play the arcade version of the game at home if you can find the ROM file.  I think it also emulates a ton of systems if you want to but many people use it for arcade games.

[Shadowrunner]

What Trek said

Also generally speaking, most home ports of arcade games in the 16 bit days were watered down compared to the original game.

Just remembered there's a really good collection of these types of games called Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle that's available for all current consoles. I think it's even on sale on PS4 right now. Great way to try some of them out and these would all be the original arcade games too.