PixlBit

    You are one of the four members of the Ranger Corps. Poachers are killing animals to the point of extinction. What will you do? Punch and kick and give them a taste of your rocket launcher of course - SHBROOM! And get some help from your animal friends too!

                          

    Growl is a 1990 belt-scrolling brawler arcade game by Taito. I played it on the Taito Legends 2 collection for PS2. You start by choosing from four Rangers, each with different strengths and weaknesses (you can also play 4 player co-op). Then you kick and punch everything in sight, or do both at once to execute a special move, and If you move up on the joystick at the same time as a special move, you jump farther than normal. You can break objects or throw them and pick up melee, throwing or ranged weapons (firearms). You can even use your firearms as melee weapons in close quarters. If you free an animal, they will help you in battle. There’s a Lion, Eagle, a herd of deer, and an Elephant (they show a gorilla at the end too, but he’s not in the main game). There are seven stages, one of which is an annoying platform challenge, plus a bonus stage where you score points by releasing animals from cages as fast as you can. At the end you fight the evil boss of the poachers who has some strange metal claws.

                       

                       Notice there are body parts flyin’ in all directions in the arcade version.

                                 They were removed for the Taito Legends 2 port.

                       

                    This guy is killer with a whip. Isn’t it cool they give you the rocket launcher

                                                         right at the beginning?

      The art is mostly brown with colorfully dressed enemies and the detail is not too sharp. Most of the enemies are dressed in Arabian (or is it Indian) clothes. I’m not sure where this might place the location of the game, but it’s probably Africa since there are animals like elephants, and lions (there's a rhino on the arcade flyer too and gorillas in the final scene of the game).

                               

      The music is catchy by Yack, which is the name given to Norihiro Furukawa and Yasuhisa Watanabe of Taito's house band Zuntata. The opening drum beats in the game are pretty cool (see the demo roll above). There’s some voice work that’s hilariously amateurish, “Drop dead you scum!” or “What do you jerks think you are doing?” They remind me of the B fantasy flick The Sword and the Sorcerer.

                      

     You can play this game on PS2, Xbox, or PC via Taito Legends 2 or get the Sega Genesis version. The Genesis version has some differences like being only single player and has other design changes like you can use your special attack at any time at the cost of health and there are health pickups in the form of apples in crates.

                                     

                                           The Growl advert for Sega Genesis

     The first time I played this, I beat it handily, but this time it seemed harder. Probably I was playing it after a long run of arcade games and was just tired. I mean, it's a hard game. However, It was very satisfying to free all the animals and watch them dance in the final screen. Where'd those Gorilla's come from?