Upon encountering The Punisher at an arcade or two during the mid-90s, I was already aware of how quickly beat-em-ups drain precious quarters. With the exhausted, out of favor genre no longer attracting crowds like Konami's X-Men and The Simpsons years prior, I quickly moved on, along with just about everyone else. After becoming nearly extinct around the new millennium's rise of the polygon, 2D beat-em-ups have experienced a huge renaissance in recent years, evolving the genre from a shallow, often blatantly unfair quarter muncher to a deeper, more nuanced experience that respects and engages the player. Finally trying The Punisher, a generous bonus within the already packed Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it can still hang with the new generation of beat-em-ups.
Offering a much needed reform to the genre, enemies are numerous and packed in a smaller playfield, making the experience feel more intense and threatening than the genre's typical depictions of meandering opponents. Every moment of action presents plenty of options. A steady, trickling supply of grenades can be dropped from midair when surrounded. You may grab an individual, leap in the air and throw them across the screen, or smash them downwards with an Izuna Drop, both techniques damaging nearby enemies. Rolls allow for evasive 8-way movement which can be cancelled into an attack, handy for escaping an encirclement, or keeping pressure on a boss hiding behind his underlings. Draining some life, the Final Fight style desperation attacks are the easiest to execute while panicked.
One of the more violent beat-em-ups, there are even shoot out segments where Frank Castle and Nick Fury draw their guns in response to armed enemies. A wide variety of weapons are constantly up for grabs, including Arthur's lance from Ghouls N Ghosts. If parents weren't upset by this game's violence during the height of videogame scrutiny in 1993, a level featuring poppy fields would certainly inject some alarm.
Running on an upgraded CPS board, the technically impressive visuals are muted by uninspired industrial settings and wilderness. Bosses are fairly unimpressive, except for the the massive Kingpin himself. The soundtrack is above average overall, but is often a bit too somber in tone for a genre that no matter how serious the plot, tends to look as ridiculous as professional wrestling. The main standouts include the unusual instrumentation of 'Crime Hunter' and heavy atmosphere of 'Seaside Trap.' The real gem is the ending theme, which perfectly encapsulates the essence of mid-90s Capcom sound.
On a superficial level, The Punisher lacks the charismatic enemies, visually pleasing stages and energizing soundtracks of more well-known 90s beat-em-ups. What it does do is play better than most of them, offering players an engaging bag of tricks from which to shrewdly utilize amongst the chaos. No longer confined to a sub-par Genesis port or fleeting memories of 90s arcades, all you have to worry about is which weapon you're choosing next, not if your next quarter is your last...
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