Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy

About Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy

Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy (1994) is SNK's cartoonish two-lane beat 'em up in which galactic bounty hunters chase the Klapton space pirates across four elemental planets.

Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy in Depth

Roddy and Cathy, the galaxy's top bounty hunters, are sent to stop the Klaptons, a colony of galactic pirates plundering the cosmos. Four high-ranking Klaptons, Sly, Misty, Mr. Bigman and Dr. Burn, have seized four elemental planets, Forest, Ice, Wind and Fire, with big rewards on their heads. The hunters destroy their war machines, but each commander escapes, so in the Last Hunt aboard Captain Klapton's mothership Roddy and Cathy must beat all four again before taking on the captain. The order in which the planets are tackled changes their layouts: picking Ice before Forest, for example, alters the start of the Forest world.

Inspired by Double Dragon, The Combatribes, Joe & Mac and Spinmaster, it has players fight through areas collecting items and defeating a boss at the end of each stage, with Roddy for player one and Cathy for player two. Special moves are performed with joystick motions and the attack button, as in Street Fighter and The King of Fighters, and, as in Fatal Fury, the field is split into a background and foreground lane that players can jump between to attack enemies or avoid traps; the lanes are not always level and one may be blocked off. Its cartoonish graphics and robotic vehicles, much like the Slugs, have led it to be called a precursor to Metal Slug.

Making Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy

SNK developed and published it for the Neo Geo arcade and home platforms in 1994 with a team of former Irem employees, and it was also released on Neo Geo CD. RePlay listed it as North America's sixteenth most popular arcade game, and Famitsu scored it 24 out of 40. Electronic Gaming Monthly's four reviewers averaged seven out of ten, criticising its low difficulty and short length given the price of Neo Geo cartridges, but all enjoyed its many techniques, outstanding graphics, bizarre bosses, orchestral music and lane-switching. It was later included in SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 in 2008, released on the Wii Virtual Console and re-released in Hamster's ACA Neo Geo series.