FIGHTING IN THE STREET

Streets of Rage are some of the best beat ‘em up games ever made. A mixture of late 80s/early 90s techno and aesthetic and solid gameplay paved the way for two sequels and then… nothing. At one point Core Design pitched SEGA a fourth Streets of Rage title that was declined by SEGA, who said they had their own plans. Core went on to release Fighting Force and SEGA seemingly let an IP go dormant. Even when SEGA started releasing collections of their old games to consoles the complete Streets of Rage series was not included at first (a problem that was alleviated shortly after however). To say I am happy that Streets of Rage 4 exists is an understatement.

Handled by DotEmu and Lizardcube, who breathed new life into my favorite game ever (Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap) it is nothing short of beautiful what they did with Streets of Rage. Hand drawn animation on all the characters reflect in the water and glow of the neon lights in the background. It is astonishing at times how much love and care was put into this game. I think I was more shocked when the unlockable retro characters in all their 16 bit glory also had the same treatment. They also don’t play like their modern counterparts. There were people who were dismissive about the style of this game, saying it looked like Flash animation; they are both wrong, as it looks nothing like flash animation, and foolish because this is one of the best looking games I’ve ever seen. It makes me want to see Lizardcube tackle Comix Zone (and I don’t enjoy that game at all).

PLATFORMS: PC, PS4, XB1, SWITCH
MSRP: $24.99
PRICE I’D PAY: $24.99

The gameplay is a slightly odd balance between feeling like the old Streets of Rage titles and yet feeling modern. I found myself rarely using Axel or Blaze because they felt stiff and sluggish, but in actuality they feel a lot like they do in previous Streets of Rage games, which is a good thing. New characters like Cherry and Floyd can then play differently and feel like worthy additions. I ended up playing Cherry and her father Adam a lot, because they were fast moving characters and I like getting in close and then backing away, and without a co-op partner this was my preferred strategy. I think including the character stats in the character select would have been better than relegating it to the extras menu however.

Attacks are all single button presses mixed with directional inputs. Special attacks use health, which can be regained as long as the player gets enough hits in without their combo breaking. Star attacks are large area clearing attacks that require collectables to use. It’s very basic, yet not until I finished the game on easy difficulty did I really understand the balance of using special attacks as well as basic attacks. Enemies all have their own patterns, and trying to juggle multiple enemy types became satisfying, and each new enemy introduced felt like a challenge to the strategy I had developed previously. I hate the enemies who hold their weapons straight in front of themselves to attack though; I never got used to their attacks and they would break a lot of my combos. Bastards.

The story isn’t really important. Mob bosses take over and the player has to punch enough thugs to build a figurative tower of bodies to reach the mob bosses and deliver justice. It is just enough to give reason for the characters to move through different parts of the city. I think the levels and the background characters did a lot more to tell a story than the actual story but that goes back to the amount of detail this game has.

Speaking of detail, the game allows players to change the design of pickups for health,which I’m sure has accessibility benefits as well, but it was neat to see.

Outside of the story there is Mission Select, which allows players to replay levels they have unlocked to get better scores, which accumulate to unlock the bonus characters. Scores are put into a pool per console, so save file 1 doesn’t have to also unlock characters that save file 2 has unlocked. In Battle Mode two players face off against one another, making this basically a fighting game if one so chooses. Boss Rush is self explanatory. Arcade is a single life mode where players are challenged to complete the entire story mode with one life. There is multiplayer (both online and local, as well as shared local on Steam) for all applicable modes as well as leader boards.

I think, however, most important to me above all else is music. The part of the original Streets of Rage games I love the most is the music. Yuzo Koshiro’s scores for the original games (excluding the IDM inspired soundtrack for Streets of Rage 3) were phenomenal. Even the header of this review is a reference to the song from the first level of the original game. I am glad to say that Streets of Rage 4 is just as good as the original games, blending modern EDM with old school techno and dance music and a bit of hip-hop. Plenty of recognizable Japanese composers are attached to the score: Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima return alongside Harumi Fujita (Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Mega Man 3), Yoko Shimomura (Final Fight, Street Fighter II), and Keiji Yamagishi (Ninja Gaiden, Tecmo Bowl). A few Western composers contributed as well: Das Mörtal, Groundislava, XL Middleton, Olivier Deriviere (Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, GreedFall), and Scattle (Hotline Miami, Furi). Despite all those names however, the devs included songs from the original games as a Retro Soundtrack option, which goes so far as to include tracks from the Game Gear versions. I am extremely happy the soundtrack is just as important to the developers as it is to me the player.

I think DotEmu and Lizardcube knocked it out of the park yet again. Clearly there was importance on being truthful to the series while adding in new elements to make the game feel fresh and exciting. I can’t believe just over 26 years Streets of Rage has returned as good as it has. With the unlockables I just want to keep getting better at the game; everything is done in such a way that I never felt like I wanted to stop playing. Satisfying doesn’t seem strong enough of a word. I am thoroughly impressed by everything this game has to offer and I hope we see more SEGA classics tackles by DotEmu and Lizardcube.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Good
  • Fighting feels good
  • Graphics are stunning
  • The soundtrack is fantastic
  • Tons of throwbacks to classic Streets of Rage
  • Plenty of characters
  • Battle mode and Boss Rush are neat additions
  • Cherry is awesome
Bad
  • Wish character stats were listed in character select
9.5
Excellent
Written by
Anthony is the resident Canadian. He enjoys his chicken wings hot and drinks way too much Coca-Cola. His first game experience was on his father's Master System and he is a loyal SEGA fanboy at heart.