I 1cc'd Rushing Beat Ran.
I don't know how casual fans of the genre are entertained by this game or series...
As far as RBR goes, this version doesn't have the labyrinth non-sense from Brawl Brothers, but it's still a messy mixed bag of cool ideas and poor programing (which may be unintentional or is an intentional way to ramp up the difficulty).
You have 6 characters. You have only three safe tools in the game. All of the safe tools belong to one character. Punching comboing enemies beyond the first stage will get you killed. Relying on grapples will get you killed. Running attacks will more often than not get you killed.
Douglass Bild is the only useable character in the game because his jump attack has a huge hitbox and is almost always safe. The hitbox on this attack can be exploited because of plane switching jumps and diagonal plane switching jumps. Directly lining yourself up with a character is dangerous so you can diagonally hop plans with jump attacks safely.
So once you have an enemy down, the factor of "ground control" comes into place. Enemies can be hit when they're down, with a unique pursuit attack (useless), a punch combo (useless) or a regrab (unsafe). Bild can take advantage of the ground with his running kick and a flame breath attack. Both moves are fairly safe and do absurd damage.
So, out of the 4 stages in the game two of them are filled with stupid gimmicks that make this style of play a huge chore to undertake (roof tops where you have two inches of space to fight on, land mines, electric floors). The health ups are poorly distributed and there are no extends.
The boss fights are dumb because your punch combo will go right through them. Straight on jump attacks will go right through them. Plane hop diagonal jump attacks go through them too unless you're Bild. If you try to grab them you'll get grabbed first. If you successfully land a grab there is a high chance the grab will be reversed beyond a stage 2 boss fight.
So the game revolves around hurding a crew of three enemies to one side, knocking them down with a jump attack, and Yakuza kicking them or yoga flaming them when they're down. There is no other way.
One helpful gimmick in this game is the ikari mode. When you take enough damage you'll flash red and you'll be invincible for maybe 45 seconds. This is very helpful in safely moving your sprite to the appropriate side of the screen, as well as for boss fights. Ikari mode grabs are great in these fights. Two ikari ddts + yoga flame does maybe 35% damage. When you're not in ikari against the bosses, you need to land diagonal plane hop attacks and cross your fingers that they'll connect.
Don't get me started on the aesthetics either. I can appreciate honky tonk art style in a lot of games, but it doesn't do it for me here.
