Developer: Taito Publisher: Taito Released: 1991 Genre: Brawler
I like a good beat ’em up. Yes, the genre became over saturated like shooters in the 90s but I will always make time for a good one. Because there were so many it meant you had to do something different to stand out. Growl was unique in that it focuses on animal poaching for its theme and that it would crowd the screen with enemies. But that alone does not make a good game and as a whole Growl falls short. The Sega Genesis port is especially poor in all aspects and not worth a second look.
Growl is incredibly deceptive in its marketing. The cover art would have you believe you will be raiding tombs and smacking Nazis with a whip like Indiana Jones. Only part of that is true. As one of four mercenaries you will travel around Africa beating up animal poachers with your fists and a variety of weapons. Each character has differing stats but they make almost no difference in reality. This is not Sunset Riders. Basically your choice boils down to what color shirt you want to wear and if you like a hat and sunglasses.
As a brawler Growl is lacking in its basic gameplay. Forget about different throws and such. In Growl you only have your basic punch combo, a jump kick, and the special attack button. When an enemy is on the ground you can perform one of three moves for extra damage but that is the extent of it. Even the most basic of beat em ups give you more than this. What also hurts the gameplay is the slower attack speed. There is noticeable lag when attacking which means in most cases you will trade blows with almost every enemy. The body slam attack at the end of your combo is strong but not worth the damage you will receive at every turn.
Growl seems like it was designed around weapons and the Genesis version especially echoes this. At every turn you will find some kind of weapon, either in a crate or dropped by enemies. With skill weapons can be used indefinitely. If you drop one you have almost ten seconds to pick it up. They are also completely broken. The whip in particular is too strong; not only does it kill enemies in a few hits and has insane range it also hits enemies in back of you with each swing. Rocks appear every few steps and swords practically rain down from heaven. Bottom line if you don’t have a weapon something is very wrong.
Even with that in mind Growl is an incredibly tedious game. Growl is unique in the genre in that it regularly floods the screen with as many as twelve enemies at once. It is an impressive feat to be sure. But just because you can does not mean you should. The brain dead AI poses little threat. Once you get over the initial surprise of seeing so many enemies simultaneously you realize just how repetitive every encounter is. That extends to the enemy variety as well. By the end of the first level you will have seen almost every bad guy in the game. Fighting the same four enemies for the length of this adventure becomes boring in short order. The only thing that keeps it (slightly) interesting are the set pieces and the ridiculous finale that comes out of left field. But not enough to play the game.
Unlike most beat em ups Growl is easier than you would expect. You only have a single life and limited credits. In spite of that you can take a ridiculous amount of punishment before death. You can get knocked around five or six times before a single block of health changes color. The game drops screen clearing rocket launchers and grenades regularly, almost as if the designers knew how monotonous the game can get. With the removal of the ill-advised platforming in the final level Growl is easier than its arcade counterpart. Most will probably not have any trouble clearing the game with the default three credits, let alone if they raise it to seven. The question is if you should bother.
In Closing
Growl is an incredibly disappointing arcade port and not a good game. To be fair the arcade game suffers from many of the same issues in its gameplay. The system was certainly capable of a better port than this. Ugly visuals and repetitive gameplay mean you should seek your beat em up thrills elsewhere. Not even a coop mode could have saved this.
