I grew up playing this on the 'Genesis 6-pak' with my brother and I remember loving it and the music. While the music is still really good, my memories of the game have failed me. Half the enemies bum-rush you from offscreen resulting in cheap hits, later stages simply make you fight two copies of the same boss, and those damn ninja girls drained a handful of lives from me without me even laying a finger on them. This has the same problem as the original 'Mega Man' in that damage input/output is all wonky and has me losing 40% of my health from a single hit in the final stages. I still really like it but a lot of my rating is nostalgia bias at play.
Pretty strong first entry on the Streets of Rage series and a solid Beat em up game. Good music, gameplay and sprite art, ect. However the bosses weren't too memorable and that duo boss soured my experience of the game for a bit and the fact you have to beat it twice was worse.