Bad Dudes was one of Data east’s early arcade hits, and was good, if a little bland. For the follow-up however, the developer decided to kick things up a notch and go all out, which led to the spiritual sequel Two Crude,. This is an Interesting one to talk about, as while it has several things in common with Bad Dudes, it is also has a lot of differences as well.
From the very start of the game, one thing is very clear and that is that Two Crude is a very colorful game. Visually. Two Crude is a feast or the eyes and is much more involving and welcome than Bad Dudes was, What is more significant though, is that the game is more involved, such as with more movement options and more ways to attack the enemies. You can now pick up more objects to throw or wield them, and you can even pick up and throw enemies like a weapon. There is a downside here however, and it is that the enemies have more ways to attack as well. These enemy attacks can take a lot out of your character and some require moving the analogue stick back and forth in other to escape.
Two Crude feels very much like a more complete version of Bad Dudes. To elaborate, Bad Dudes was a decent beat em up but there was very little variety to it and it lacked a certain charm of character, a flaw that Two Crude has corrected. The Dudes were fairly generic characters with nothing really notable about them. In fact, I would gather most people can not describe the characters in any way besides the shirt the characters wore. When it comes to the Crudes however, we have an actual personality, a unique character design and dialogue that reflects their personalities that. This just feels like the game that Bad Dudes had the potential to be but wasn’t.
Two Crude is a fun beat em up and full of personality. It is a game with its own identity and surpasses its spiritual predecessor, even if it has some of the same faults such as bland sound effects and artificial difficulty. The enemies have a much more creative feel to them and the levels are much better overall. The game received a good port to the Sega Genesis/MegaDrive, renamed Two Crude Dudes, to tie in further to the predecessor Bad Dudes, and managed to retain the charm of the arcade original much better than Bade Dudes for the NES did for its arcade original.
I recommend tracking this one down, as it is an excellent game and one that deserves to be played more. Whether it is the Genesis/Mega Drive port, or the recent re release of the arcade game on the Nintendo Switch, this is a game worth your time.
In addition, I would like to add that there is an active Sega retrogaming Facebook community group you can join at https://www.facebook.com/groups/segaretrogamers/
For more, visit Retro Gamers Hub (www.retrogamershub.com) for their extensive collection of retrogaming interest groups to choose from.