POW the arcade game review: well this brawler is ok at a decent price but Final Fight and Ninja Turtle it is not.

The video of the hub was created by me using a capture device playing the SNK arcade game POW on my PS3. All pictures are screen shots captured from the video and photoshop to add text and some effects.

Greetings everybody my name is Tommy and welcome to my channel. Now a few months ago I reviewed a game called Athena I got it on a PSN sale that at a bunch of discounted SNK games. I paid like 50 cents for it and thought that was too expensive. I got another game that I also had on the NES but never played the arcade version, this time I actually enjoyed the NES version. It’s not like the best game ever made but it was a solid game non the less. So let’s sit down and take a look at the arcade version of POW and someday I might actually get around to reviewing that NES version.

You’re a solider that has been kidnap by enemy soldiers and taken to their base to be torture and killed. Fortunately the enemy soldiers have the same IQ has been dip and forgot to do a body search to realize you hid a grenade in your pocket and you blow up your cell door and start your escape. Are you going to try to sneak out has quietly has possible and not engage with the guards. Nah you make Rambo look a sissy, so you’re going to beat the crap out of every guard on the base with your bear hand.

Yeah it’s a standard brawler all you really do is just beat up enemies and keep on moving. An occasional congratulations you beat the stage message appears and you go on to the next stage to do that. The game ends with finding a radio to contact home after you finish beating the crap out of Nick Fury.

Yeah it’s a standard brawler and it’s a decent one but not great. And yeah back in the day the NES ports were usually better than the arcade. Since they couldn’t do a one on one transition of the game they would often times end up doing something different and improving the NES version. In the NES version you could go into these huts beat up a solider or two for a power up item. Here it’s just a standard left to right brawler has you beat the crap out of everything and move on. The only real power up is the gun which lets you shoot people for a few moments before dropping it. Also there are no real boss fights in the game, something the NES version had for example on the NES version you had to pick up grenades and throw them at the helicopter in order to complete the first stage. Without the bosses it’s just one similar looking enemy wave after another and it does get old.

The controls aren’t bad, there not has smooth has say Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the arcade game but they get the job done ok. If there is one complaint about the game next to the monotony of just beating up soldiers, is you die a lot. This game is a quarter muncher so expect to die every 2 to 3 seconds it seems like, the good news is the PSN version gives you unlimited continues, and each time you die you start right from the same place so beating the game takes no time at all. That said I don’t know if I’ll ever play this arcade game to much after this time because it’s a bit on the boring side.

For the arcade of its day the looks are pretty decent the sprites are large and they are well detail and the environments are nice enough to look at. While nothing eye popping or innovative the graphics get the job done.

The music is actually pretty decent and the sound track to me is very nostalgia inducing from when I was a kid.

While it does offer no thrills it is a bit cheaper at a 3 dollar or so price tag while most other games would go around 5 to 10 dollar game. This cheap price does make me give it a more hesitant recommendation, it’s far from being perfect but if you are looking for a brawler you could probably do worst then this one.