Yain Sidae: Pretty—and pretty basic—PC street fighting

A flurry of live-action clips kick off side scrolling beat ’em up Yain Sidae, an enthusiastic reminder that this PC game is based on the popular ’02~’03 Korean TV show of the same name. Once that’s out of the way I’m more or less ready to hit the streets and bop everyone I meet as either the impeccably waistcoat’ed Kim Du-han or the significantly less smartly dressed Sirasoni, by myself or with a friend. It’s a great start, perfectly capturing the awe and energy of the arcade games it’s drawing inspiration from. The pixel art used to render the brawls I end up in is nothing short of incredible. Huge sprites displayed at a crisp 640×480 strut, kick, and slash their way through busy streets and, uh, busy streets at night. Yeah. This is another one of those uncommon old games that looks amazing from a distance, but struggles to survive any close-up scrutiny. Stages are flat and featureless strips of land with me on the left and everything else on the right. I kept hoping there’d be a…