ARC
Undercover Cops
DEV
Irem
REL
Jul '92
ALSO
About

Undercover Cops is Irem's attempt at a Final Fight-style brawler. It features simple yet challenging gameplay, bizarre enemy design, phenomenal audiovisual presentation, and a one-of-a-kind personality. It introduced the concept of ultimate attacks, which are basically death-blows on steroids. It also has a unique "Finess Trick" system that rewards using advanced techniques.

Marquee
Story

A.D. 2043

Everyone, the peace of our town is at its worst condition ever. I have a suggestion for improving it. It is to have City Sweepers clean up the villains!

O.K., mayor. Let's do it!!

ENTER THE CITY SWEEPER!

Trivia

Undercover Cops is basically an alternate version of Final Fight. Zan is Guy, Rosa is Cody, and Matt is Haggar. Dr. Crayton, like Belger, is a short, cheating bad guy who has an easy first form followed by a hard second. And both games are about a city overrun by crime that has to be cleaned up by three vigilantes.

The US port of Undercover Cops is one of the worst cases of executive meddling in any brawler, perhaps even worse than Streets of Rage III. They renamed the characters and changed their backstories, removed about half the attacks, took out or changed several pieces of background art, and removed the voice samples from the music. There existed an Alpha version at some point that didn't have these issues, and there's even an Alpha Renewal kit that restored the normal version to its former glory, although both of these are ridiculously rare.

Undercover Cops has a board game RPG (similar to Sugoro Quest) spin-off on the Game Boy called Undercover Cops Hakaishin Garumaa. It's barely playable if you don't speak Japanese although the characters are the only thing that makes it an "Undercover Cops" game.

One of the items in this game is R-Type. R-Type is Irem's most successful franchise by far. It's a hard-as-nails space shooter with an H.R. Giger art style.

Release Info
Developer
Irem
Publisher
Irem
Released
Jul '92
Also on
Series
$series
Game
Players
2
Structure
Linear
Difficulty
Medium
Gang size
Huge (7)
Variety
Finess Trick
Playtime
0:50
Combat
Buttons
Attack, Jump
Combos
Static
Grabs
Contact
Dashing
Yes
Enemy H. Bars
Boss Only
Item Pickup
Button
Item Stay
Forever (except Torch)
Weapons
Hold
Death-blow
Health
Friendly Fire
Yes
Char Switch
On Death
Ground Hit
No
Revive
Invincibility
Restore
Assessment Day
Style
Art Style
Realistic
Sprites
Huge
Setting
Post-apocalyptic
Focus
Hand-to-hand
Music
Party Techno
Tone
Humorous
Numbers
Fighters
3
Stages
5
Enemies
11
Bosses
6
Weapons
8
Lives
2
Continues
1
Extend
Finess Trick
Arcade
Monitors
1 Raster CRT
Class
JAMMA
Sound
Amplified Stereo
Resolution
320 x 240
Credits
Creator
Meeher
Designer
Akio
Susumu
Kozo
Nob
Programmer
Teroling
Danger Nao
Sound
Hiya!
Char Voice
Nukegara
Muttershi
Fuku Chan
Kiki
Publicity
S. Sakomizu
Slamson Sez
Combat
Enemy
Grafix
Sound
Flava

Undercover Cops is the best Final Fight knock-off ever made. It features huge movesets, plenty of enemy variety, unrivaled pixel art, and a phenomenal hip hop soundtrack. It's bursting at the seams with action, art, and personality. My only complaint is that several later enemies like the mole men are gimmicky.

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