A port of Streets of Rage
Take the fight to the streets! In the grips of a vicious crime syndicate, this once peaceful city has become a center of violence and mayhem. Amidst this chaos, three young police officers are determined to tackle the problem head-on. Taking control of one of three ex-officers, use their special hand-to-hand combat abilities to take down the syndicate and save the city. In addition to its all-new 3D presentation, 3D Streets of Rage also features Local Multiplayer and a Single Hit KO mode to help you power through the city’s crime.
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Beatemup that nails atmosphere but loses me on gameplay. The player-character feels ill-equipped to deal with swarms of enemies and relentless bosses. Decent for its time, but outshined by its successors.
Brawlers, or like the kool kids like to call them, “Beat ‘em ups”, were never really my thing.
The only one I played entirely, up to this day, was Capcom’s Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, and that was a fairly poor experience since, with emulation, we can easily beat these games that were designed for coin-operated arcade machines. Ran out of continues? Just pop in another imaginary coin, cost free, and you’re good to go!
Well then, there I was at the beginning of February, expending some money on the 3DS eShop before it goes away in late March 2023, buying me some games as self-gifted birthday presents, when I decided to pick 3D Streets of Rage 2 up, since that’s a well regarded game and I just love M2’s SEGA 3D Classics series.
I’ve played some bits of these games before, but it was just at this moment that I got to truly appreciate their gameplay.
After finishing SoR2’s first level and absolutely LOVING it, I knew I had to get the first game and play it before, since I knew it is considerably clunkier than its sequel, and it would be a bit cumbersome to go back to it if I went through the second game first.
Well, and I’m glad that I did just that.
Streets of Rage is simply FUN.
It was only by playing it that I truly learnt how a beat ‘em up game is supposed to be played: carefully managing your remaining health, lives and continues, dodging incoming enemy attacks, learning how and when to grapple them and throw them against each other… and this particular games’ quirks are amazing by themselves! Back attacks, jumping over a grappled enemy and shoving their heads onto the ground, and lading on your feet if you hold up and the jump button… it’s simply FUN!
And it’s lovely how you can FEEL, just by playing it, that it was indeed an experience made for home consoles. Truly charming.
I’m not saying it’s easier than its arcade peers, since that definitely isn’t the case: Streets of Rage can be mean sometimes, and it will take you some game overs and retries in order to properly master it.
The thing is, it makes you want to get good at it. It truly does, and it’s a super rewarding feeling when you finally get through an annoying boss at the end of a stage, even if you get destroyed by the next one. You’re always pumped up to keep going on and on.
And the game’s visuals and soundtrack only help to keep you interested in playing it to the end.
Graphically speaking, it’s far from fancy; and, unlike its successor, it doesn’t come nearly as close to how an arcade game from its era looks; however, it’s super atmospheric, and the amount of detail within its stages and backgrounds, for a Genesis/Mega Drive game from 1991, is simply fantastic.
Musically speaking, it needs no introduction whatsoever. The game’s soundtrack was brilliantly composed by the legendary Yuzo Koshiro, and despite not being as catchy as the one from the second game, there definitely are some killer tunes among its techno, super energetic beats. It may be worth playing for these tunes alone, if you ask me.
I really enjoyed my time with Streets of Rage, but that didn’t turn me blind to its flaws.
The game doesn’t scroll as smoothly as it could; the three playable characters are not really that different from each other during the gameplay, which made me pick Adam without thinking twice, for his stronger hits (I’m one who tends to go with more balanced characters, but for this one it didn’t really matter. And, besides, Adam’s jump kick is much better than Axel’s); it’s really easy to get hit by enemies if you’re not constantly aware of your distance, which can be annoying for a game like this; and there are a couple of very cheap moments with artificial difficulty, like the twin girl bosses at stage 6 and the final boss, Mr. X, at the end of stage 8.
It takes only one minute of playing SoR2 to feel how SoR is a product of its time. If you’re not interested in the franchise as a whole, you may just as well skip this one for its much more polished sequels… but, well, that’s what I would say if I thought this doesn’t deserve a playthrough, which definitely isn’t the case here.
For all of that, I believe that Steets of Rage stands as a solid 3 out of 5 game. A GOOD game.
The extra half-star I’m giving it comes from this 3DS port, which I believe may just as well be the best way to play it, at least for a single-player experience.
Being able to select 7 lives by default without having to enter a button combination is amazing (c’mon, more lives = more fun! and a fair challenge as well), and just by having a savestate slot for resuming your playthrough whenever you need is a fairly good addition; but having the back attack mapped to the right shoulder button makes it, to me, the ideal way to play it, since it originally demanded you to press both the attack and jump buttons at once, which can sometimes make you jump and attack instead of getting the right input.
Besides that, I just love what M2 did for these classic titles on the 3DS. I’ve played through the entire game with the 3D effect on, a thing I rarely do (and which I think few people do as well), and I don’t regret it: the effect here is FANTASTIC, and it’s amazing to see how they achieved giving the game different layers of depth as you turn the 3D slider up.
Not only it makes the colours pop way more, but every element from the game’s foreground and background immediately turns alive; suddenly, like magic, a just OK-looking game from the early 90’s turns into a modern visual experience truly worth having, if you have the means to visualise it.
As I said, I’m not an advocate for the 3DS’ 3D functionality. It’s often more of a gimmick than anything else, and few are the games that make use of it in a meaningful way.
However, these classic games, faithfully ported by M2, really take a brilliant advantage on the 3D effect, and with this new life they got from these revamped visuals, it truly is worth it to at least give it a try.
And all of that made Streets of Rage a very special thing for me. It definitely was the doorway to a genre of games I originally didn’t gave two shits about, and to which I now have a newfound and ongoing admiration.
The only one I played entirely, up to this day, was Capcom’s Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, and that was a fairly poor experience since, with emulation, we can easily beat these games that were designed for coin-operated arcade machines. Ran out of continues? Just pop in another imaginary coin, cost free, and you’re good to go!
Well then, there I was at the beginning of February, expending some money on the 3DS eShop before it goes away in late March 2023, buying me some games as self-gifted birthday presents, when I decided to pick 3D Streets of Rage 2 up, since that’s a well regarded game and I just love M2’s SEGA 3D Classics series.
I’ve played some bits of these games before, but it was just at this moment that I got to truly appreciate their gameplay.
After finishing SoR2’s first level and absolutely LOVING it, I knew I had to get the first game and play it before, since I knew it is considerably clunkier than its sequel, and it would be a bit cumbersome to go back to it if I went through the second game first.
Well, and I’m glad that I did just that.
Streets of Rage is simply FUN.
It was only by playing it that I truly learnt how a beat ‘em up game is supposed to be played: carefully managing your remaining health, lives and continues, dodging incoming enemy attacks, learning how and when to grapple them and throw them against each other… and this particular games’ quirks are amazing by themselves! Back attacks, jumping over a grappled enemy and shoving their heads onto the ground, and lading on your feet if you hold up and the jump button… it’s simply FUN!
And it’s lovely how you can FEEL, just by playing it, that it was indeed an experience made for home consoles. Truly charming.
I’m not saying it’s easier than its arcade peers, since that definitely isn’t the case: Streets of Rage can be mean sometimes, and it will take you some game overs and retries in order to properly master it.
The thing is, it makes you want to get good at it. It truly does, and it’s a super rewarding feeling when you finally get through an annoying boss at the end of a stage, even if you get destroyed by the next one. You’re always pumped up to keep going on and on.
And the game’s visuals and soundtrack only help to keep you interested in playing it to the end.
Graphically speaking, it’s far from fancy; and, unlike its successor, it doesn’t come nearly as close to how an arcade game from its era looks; however, it’s super atmospheric, and the amount of detail within its stages and backgrounds, for a Genesis/Mega Drive game from 1991, is simply fantastic.
Musically speaking, it needs no introduction whatsoever. The game’s soundtrack was brilliantly composed by the legendary Yuzo Koshiro, and despite not being as catchy as the one from the second game, there definitely are some killer tunes among its techno, super energetic beats. It may be worth playing for these tunes alone, if you ask me.
I really enjoyed my time with Streets of Rage, but that didn’t turn me blind to its flaws.
The game doesn’t scroll as smoothly as it could; the three playable characters are not really that different from each other during the gameplay, which made me pick Adam without thinking twice, for his stronger hits (I’m one who tends to go with more balanced characters, but for this one it didn’t really matter. And, besides, Adam’s jump kick is much better than Axel’s); it’s really easy to get hit by enemies if you’re not constantly aware of your distance, which can be annoying for a game like this; and there are a couple of very cheap moments with artificial difficulty, like the twin girl bosses at stage 6 and the final boss, Mr. X, at the end of stage 8.
It takes only one minute of playing SoR2 to feel how SoR is a product of its time. If you’re not interested in the franchise as a whole, you may just as well skip this one for its much more polished sequels… but, well, that’s what I would say if I thought this doesn’t deserve a playthrough, which definitely isn’t the case here.
For all of that, I believe that Steets of Rage stands as a solid 3 out of 5 game. A GOOD game.
The extra half-star I’m giving it comes from this 3DS port, which I believe may just as well be the best way to play it, at least for a single-player experience.
Being able to select 7 lives by default without having to enter a button combination is amazing (c’mon, more lives = more fun! and a fair challenge as well), and just by having a savestate slot for resuming your playthrough whenever you need is a fairly good addition; but having the back attack mapped to the right shoulder button makes it, to me, the ideal way to play it, since it originally demanded you to press both the attack and jump buttons at once, which can sometimes make you jump and attack instead of getting the right input.
Besides that, I just love what M2 did for these classic titles on the 3DS. I’ve played through the entire game with the 3D effect on, a thing I rarely do (and which I think few people do as well), and I don’t regret it: the effect here is FANTASTIC, and it’s amazing to see how they achieved giving the game different layers of depth as you turn the 3D slider up.
Not only it makes the colours pop way more, but every element from the game’s foreground and background immediately turns alive; suddenly, like magic, a just OK-looking game from the early 90’s turns into a modern visual experience truly worth having, if you have the means to visualise it.
As I said, I’m not an advocate for the 3DS’ 3D functionality. It’s often more of a gimmick than anything else, and few are the games that make use of it in a meaningful way.
However, these classic games, faithfully ported by M2, really take a brilliant advantage on the 3D effect, and with this new life they got from these revamped visuals, it truly is worth it to at least give it a try.
And all of that made Streets of Rage a very special thing for me. It definitely was the doorway to a genre of games I originally didn’t gave two shits about, and to which I now have a newfound and ongoing admiration.
decided to play the 3DS version of this game while i was bored during a power outage. the 3D effect is kinda cool, but it doesn't really elevate the experience enough for this to be considered the definitive edition or anything; at worst it is exactly on par with the original Genesis version.
thought it would be a racing game