“The charm of most beat ’em ups is being able to play them for a long time on a single coin, if you’re skilled enough. The player characters themselves don’t get stronger, but it feels like you do as the player.” – Rensuke Oshikiri
Data East did do a good job of including plenty of references to their own properties into Bad Dudes though, in a way that wasn’t really done up until this point, creating their own sort of Data East culture.
It’s safe to say that none of the many titles in the genre to follow couldn’t have existed without this one.
Though Spartan X began as an arcade game, time seems to have remembered the Famicom version a little bit better.