Continuing my Saturn Kick, let’s talk Sega Saturn. And what better game to talk about than the three dirtiest, filthiest, nastiest dwarves you EVER did see? Now, I’m not usually one for Beat Em Ups. I find them kinda dull. But this is, without a doubt, my favorite Beat Em Up ever made. And that’s because it’s fucking batshit crazy.

title screen

Made by Appaloosa and Segasoft in 1997 for both the Sega Saturn and Windows PCs, Three Dirty Dwarves might seem a little more normal than Appaloosa’s other games at first glance. If their name isn’t familiar, you MIGHT know them better as Novotrade! Yes, the devs of Ecco the Dolphin worked on this! They also worked on the Saturn classic Mr. Bones, which I HAVE to talk about someday. But yes, compared to a game about a time traveling dolphin with alien super powers fighting xenomorphs, and a game about a skeletal blues musician fighting a vampire and his army of the dead, a game about some Dwarves seems more… normal.

Then you hear the story. Here’s the story.

intro cutscene

This story is told to you through absolutely AMAZING cutscenes that I can only describe as “Hungarian Ralph Bakshi”. So, the US has a secret military development branch called Association of Secret Services (Yes. ASS), later renamed to Weapons Systems Technology or WST, which develops cutting edge military technology. They have a project to make vat-grown super soldier kids who are super geniuses, and can lead the military as genius generals. These kids, having only known guards and scientists all their life, don’t really like this, and want to escape. So they come up with a plan.

This plan involves Dungeons and Dragons. Yes.

Using D&D and probability, they will lead some heroes from another universe, specifically the D&D universe, to our’s to bust them out. It’s not REALLY D&D, it’s not branded, but it’s a tabletop RPG, and even today D&D is THE fantasy RPG, let alone back then, so it’s the same vibe. These heroes are their avatars in the D&D campaign, three Dwarves named Greg, Taconic, and Corthag. Yes, this takes place in New York, so one of the kids named his dwarf after the Taconic Parkway, but also one of the kid’s name is Greg. Which means he’s a self insert, which is the most D&D thing ever.

Greg

These characters are goofy and fun in their own ways. I like Greg’s Blaseball-ass vibe, but Corthag is the best, cause he’s a half-orc half-dwarf, and that’s sick. Also he’s dumber than a bag of rocks, and that’s great too. Anyway, so these three use a magical portal in their fantasy world to open a door into the Bronx. They also leave the door open, so lots of other things break through too. The Dwarves land in a sports equipment store, and suit up. Greg gets a baseball bat, Taconic gets bowling balls and pins… and Corthag gets a shotgun. WHO GAVE CORTHAG A GUN?!

level 1

So, here’s how the game works. About half the game is a beat em up. You control one Dwarf like the others follow behind, and you can swap between them. Think Donkey Kong Country. Each Dwarf has different attacks, but they all follow the same pattern. A is your basic melee which does one damage, B is your ranged attack that does two damage, C is jump, then you have your special attacks.

Each special attack uses up one or more skulls, which you can pick up and are stored in the top left of the screen. Each time you get hit, a dwarf will be knocked unconscious until they’re smacked by one of the other dwarves, and you’ll lose a skull. There’s no “health”, unless you’re playing the hardest difficulty, in which skulls ARE your health. Don’t recommend it. Anyway, you can spend these to do attacks. X is a one skull attack, Y is a 2 skull, Z is DWARF MORPH where your dwarves spend three whole skulls to morph into a horrifying monstrosity that does a super, and then you have Brawl. Brawl is overpowered. If you press R or L you swap dwarves, but if you mash R and L over and over your Dwarves will get pissy at each other for being shoved, and get into a brawl that does damage every single frame. It MELTS certain enemies and is absolutely amazing.

brawl

Each Dwarf has their own attacks, which are useful in certain situations. For example, Greg’s ranged attack is slow, but he can attack with multiple attacks in quick succession if he gets an attack off. Corthag’s shotgun is immediate, but then he has to stand there to reload. Their specials are also all unique, their 1 skull specials usually being some 2 damage quick melee attack, but their 2 specials being wild, like Greg’s is him spinning wildly, and it’s like a mini Brawl, hitting every frame.

To get through the game, you’ll need to utilize all your dwarves to their fullest potential!! My main issue with beat em ups is that they’re so samey and boring. You mash A to punch until the enemy falls over, then you wait for them to get up, rinse repeat. Nah. Depending on each enemy’s attack patterns, you’ll need to utilize different dwarves, in different ways, to get through. It mixes things up so much. Especially with certain levels, but we’ll get to that.

SKINJA

Speaking of enemies, you got some WILD ones. Here’s the Skinja. He has taken a Vow of Nudity. You can tell what kinda energy and humor this game has just with that enemy right there, but we also have things like an endless horde of Orcs in baggy pants and backwards caps, an Orc who eats too many onions, a weird kid on a cooked chicken, and an orc COVERED in dogs.

get swole!

I really love the vibe this game brings. It’s so grungy and gross in a fun way. Like, grossout humor of the 90s? Don’t like it. Didn’t age well, not a fan. This game’s weird irreverent “don’t give a fuck” attitude mixed with grungy gross dwarves who are just as likely to punch each other as they are the enemy? Fuck yeah, that’s fun as hell.

https://youtu.be/nNe_zMf6MDk

Also the music? Oh my GOD the music. Here, listen to this song. I’m disappointed this game got left behind, but I’m ESPECIALLY DISAPPOINTED NO ONE EVER GETS A CHANCE TO HEAR THIS MUSIC. Also it has the words “kick some shit” in the song, which is fucking hilarious, because they say Shit on a Sega console. I could have EASILY gotten this game as a kid!

Also I gotta give it up for the art. The Saturn EXCELS at 2D art, and one of these days I’ll talk about Astal, the most gorgeous 2D art game of the era. But this shows off its power quite well. It’s a shame they kept trying to force the Saturn to do 3D, it really kicked ass as a 2D machine.

BLASEBALL! GO GARAGES!

So I said half the game is beat em up. What’s the other half? Whatever the fuck the devs wanted. Mr. Bones had this energy to it too, the game is ostensibly a 2D platformer, but it has a lot of weird mini-game style levels to it. Except in Mr. Bones, they kinda suck. Here, they’re weirdly fun? You got the boss fight levels where you’re dealing with weird shit like a sentient gym with feet, but those are still played with the normal controls. Nah, you get levels like one where you’re riding on a wreckin’ ball, breaking down a building a dragon is hiding in. Or the minecart level all games have to have.

Or, my favorite, the Baseball level. In this one you’re up against the New Orc Yankees, and you need to hit the ball at orcs on the field so you can sneak your Dwarves across the bases without getting pummeled by Orcs. It’s kinda jank. It doesn’t work right. But it’s super fun. Shout outs to Blaseball btw, which is basically what this is. Go Garages!

I could go on with the weird level designs, but I don’t really want to spoil the game, cause it’s worth playing for sure. Whether it’s the wild cutscenes, weird designs, or fun gameplay, this is without a doubt my favorite beat em up I’ve ever played (not the best. But I’d rather play this than Alien VS Predator any day), and it’s sad it’s been left behind on the Saturn. Ecco the Dolphin is still talked about today, and ported to things, but Three Dirty Dwarves is left behind.

Be sure to give it a chance. Or at least watch my GDQ speedrun of it. I did do that.