Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers Review – Goofy Story, Fantastic Combat

Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers Review

When I started collecting retro video games, the first console I really went nuts with was the Super Nintendo. I love beat ‘em ups from this era, and I’m pretty sure I played all of them. Rushing Beat was a series of Jaleco-developed 2D belt scrollers for the beloved 16-bit system. In North America, they were all released with different titles that made them seem unrelated. Rushing Beat was titled Rival Turf, Rushing Beat Ran was called Brawl Brothers, and Rushing Beat Shura was called The Peace Keepers. They were C-tier beat ‘em ups in terms of popularity, but not in terms of quality. I was shocked to hear that a fourth game in the series was releasing in 2026 as Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers!

Detectives Rick Norton and Douglas Bild return from the first two Rushing Beat games. Their names were changed to Jack Flak and Oozie Nelson in Rival Turf, and Hack and Slash in Brawl Brothers. They weren’t in The Peace Keepers. But they get their original names in Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers. The game’s main mode is its story mode. It has tons of cutscenes and predetermined characters for certain sections. There is a free play option, though, where players can go through the levels using any characters they like, without the cutscenes. These modes are great choices for players who like their games story heavy, and players who want to just get to the action.

The Original Japanese Story Continued

Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers directly continues the story of the Japanese games. Story mode begins with a recap of the first two titles’ plots. Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers’ story is about Norton, Bild, and friends trying to stop a virus called Zeekus from turning people into powerful fighter clone zombies. It’s totally ridiculous. While the plot is nothing special, the narrative is full of goofy humor that I absolutely loved. One of Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers’ greatest strengths is its fun, wacky tone. I loved story mode way more than I thought I was going to. I also really appreciated all the callbacks and continuations from the stories of the series’ past games.

Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers is a 2.5D side-scrolling beat ‘em up. Players are always moving left to right through levels, but they can move around on environments’ 3D plane. Characters move with the d-pad, and double-tap to dash. X is jump, and circle is melee attack. Pressing circle repeatedly or holding it down after the first press performs a melee combo. Down and circle during a combo launches an enemy. Back and circle quickly does a back attack. Triangle performs a guard, but also does character-specific special moves when combined with a direction. A perfect guard allows for a special attack counter.

2.5D Beat ’em Up

Walking close to an enemy grabs them. From a grab, the player can strike a few times or press a direction and circle to throw. Triangle does a special grapple attack. Several of the characters are pro wrestlers and have really fun grappling moves. Characters can enter an anger mode where they deal more damage. Pressing R2 does a special Beat Rush attack that ends anger mode.

Characters can grab and use weapons with the circle. Triangle throws a weapon, and X puts it down. Food can be picked up with circle and used for healing by pressing L2. A feature I really loved is that players have a five slot item inventory, so they can save items and use them strategically. L1 switches between inventory items. Weapons and food can be bought between levels. Food can also be combined into better combo meals, in order to save inventory space.

Combat Excels

Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers’ combat system is fantastic. It’s easily the top reason I would recommend the game to any fan of the beat ‘em up genre. The combat is unique, and sets the game apart from modern classics like Streets of Rage 4 and Shredder’s Revenge. Each of the six playable characters also feel very unique from one another, even though the controls are the same. Each character has visible stats for attack, defense, speed, and jump on the selection screen. It’s also pretty easy to figure out how they control based on their character designs. Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers uses great character archetypes without being bland. Players will have an idea of how their character will play if they want a martial artist, pro wrestler, or ninja.

Unfortunately, Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers’ options are sparse. There are four difficulty modes: easy, normal, hard, and Shura. The options menu has button mapping, volume settings, as well as text and UI size options. Players also have the ability to turn tutorials on/ off, and screen shake on/ off. But that’s it. Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers is really lacking in modern features. A second player can join in for couch co-op at any time, but there’s no online co-op or versus mode. Free play can be used for high scores, but the post-story mode content is very lacking.

Instruction Manual

In an homage to old school video games, Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers has a 37-page digital instruction manual. Half of the manual is about how to play the game, and the other half is story and character profiles. The character profiles include art, and character-specific movesets. I really appreciated this manual. Its inclusion wasn’t necessary at all, but it shows the love that the devs have for older eras of video games.

Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers’ graphics have a filter that tries to emulate the colorful anime stylings of games like Persona 5. But it doesn’t really mask the environments and animations, which give the game a visual appearance of a low budget PS3-era PSN game. The UI looks fantastic though, because it also takes cues from Persona. The music is a good blend of genres that sounds like something an early 90s arcade game would have. There aren’t any incredible tracks, but the score creates a nostalgic vibe I really appreciated.

A Goofy, Good Time

I really enjoyed Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers. The core beat ‘em up combat is fantastic, and the goofy story gives the game a unique flavor. I never thought we would see another game in the series, and the devs obviously have great love for the source material. Unfortunately, Rushing Beat X: Return of Brawl Brothers is lacking in features, which puts it behind all the modern genre greats. But I easily recommend the game to anyone who’s a fan of beat ‘em ups, or in the mood for something nostalgic.

***PS5 code provided by the publisher***