The Combatribes is a scrolling fighting game, similar in style to Double Dragon or Renegade. It was developed and published by Technos Japan in 1990. In arcades the cabinet had three joysticks for simultaneous multiplayer action.

You play as three vigilantes, fighting against five different street gangs in a futuristic New York City. You must punch, kick and throw your way through a succession of thugs, before reaching the boss of each gang at the end. Beat him and it’s onto the next gang.

In total there are six stages. The final stage is a boss rush against all the previous gang bosses, plus a final boss fight against a mysterious female cyborg.

If you keep putting “coins” into the game, pressing the player start button during gameplay will re-fill your energy meter. Which is an unusual, but nice, feature.

The game does have some idiosyncrasies though. Like, for example, the fact that you have to clear all the minions after you’ve defeated a tough boss (the end of stage three was a ballache in that regard).

All the characters in the game are cartoony, but well-drawn, and the animations are excellent, giving weight to your attacks. The Combatribes is a very playable game and three players could easily zip through it in under an hour. And have a really good time in the process.

A Super Nintendo version of The Combatribes was also released, but suffered from censorship issues. If you want to play the more violent, uncut version of The Combatribes, there’s only really the arcade version to choose from.

More: The Combatribes on Wikipedia