Whatever apprehensions or concerns you might have had about the resurrection of one of the most recognizable franchises of the 90's Sega canon, 26 years after the last entry in the series, those quickly dissipate the moment you take hold of Alex's strut through the familiar goon infested alleyways of Streets of Rage 4, as you pummel thugs with a led pipe and knee thrust mohawk junkies to death to the sound of Yuzo Koshiro's synth dance music. I'm emboldened enough to say that this project revitalized the series with the same assurance and resolution as DMC5 did to its dead in the water legacy a year earlier, just by playing to the strengths of its predecessors and nothing more.
While it would have been perfectly acceptable if it simply regurgitated another Streets of Rage 2 that fans would just eat up and then toss aside as a cute nostalgia throwback for a day, Streets of Rage 4 instead takes the established formula and just adds on top of it with new mechanics that reinvent this pre historic and usually devoid of complexity genre. Taking a note from our friend Dante, you are now able to juggle enemies and all pretenses of realism are thrown out the 4th wall as you bounce them off the edges of the screen, allowing the player to combo pools of mooks in a single sequence of uppercuts and sommersaults with that oh so satisfying half second freeze frame that allows you to feel every impact of their meat sack bodies being flung all around the pavement.
Characters are now much more distinct between each other than they ever were in previous entries, incentivizing different approaches and strategies on how to maximize combo potential, and added to all that a bunch of other smaller tweeks and improvements, like being able to throw weapons and catch it mid bounce off of enemies and restoring lost health from a draining special move in a Bloodborne rally inspired mechanic that adds a layer of risk and reward, and you have provided the player enough depth and expression so he not only feels commited to finishing the game, but finishing it with style.
I wouldn't call the new comicbook artstyle a homerun, as it fails to capture the grimy and gritty punk vibe juxtaposed with the colorful beatiful pixel art that characterizes the series, but it more than does the job done by adding its own flair and a touch of added personality to its classic ensemble of heroes and foes, with the new opponents being a welcomed addition to the canon. And of course, we cannot discuss Streets of Rage without discussing the singular essence that ties it all together: the music.
The music is....unfortunately a mixed bag. While not being bad per se, and much of it is gonna depend on each player's tastes, a lot of the soundtrack does not reach the highs of the magnificent soundtrack of the first two games, oddly having some tracks paying more homage to 3's much maligned experimental techno tunes instead. But when it gets going, oh boy does it get Streets of Rage-y as fuck. When everything just clicks into place and you find yourself taking that classic elevator up to the top of the starry night cityscape as the music crescends into pure megadrive magic and you fend off every single lunging fist and jump thrown at you, a single blast processed tear might just manifest in your inner 16 bit child.
Suffice to say that there might not be much here for those without this formative arcade experience. If you never played many beat em ups in your life time, you probably will not find the dopamine release you expected coming here. But for those who want a taste of those old glory days, this might be just the right detour down unapolagetic videogame violence memory lane.
And MAN, is Blaze hotter than ever in this one.
While it would have been perfectly acceptable if it simply regurgitated another Streets of Rage 2 that fans would just eat up and then toss aside as a cute nostalgia throwback for a day, Streets of Rage 4 instead takes the established formula and just adds on top of it with new mechanics that reinvent this pre historic and usually devoid of complexity genre. Taking a note from our friend Dante, you are now able to juggle enemies and all pretenses of realism are thrown out the 4th wall as you bounce them off the edges of the screen, allowing the player to combo pools of mooks in a single sequence of uppercuts and sommersaults with that oh so satisfying half second freeze frame that allows you to feel every impact of their meat sack bodies being flung all around the pavement.
Characters are now much more distinct between each other than they ever were in previous entries, incentivizing different approaches and strategies on how to maximize combo potential, and added to all that a bunch of other smaller tweeks and improvements, like being able to throw weapons and catch it mid bounce off of enemies and restoring lost health from a draining special move in a Bloodborne rally inspired mechanic that adds a layer of risk and reward, and you have provided the player enough depth and expression so he not only feels commited to finishing the game, but finishing it with style.
I wouldn't call the new comicbook artstyle a homerun, as it fails to capture the grimy and gritty punk vibe juxtaposed with the colorful beatiful pixel art that characterizes the series, but it more than does the job done by adding its own flair and a touch of added personality to its classic ensemble of heroes and foes, with the new opponents being a welcomed addition to the canon. And of course, we cannot discuss Streets of Rage without discussing the singular essence that ties it all together: the music.
The music is....unfortunately a mixed bag. While not being bad per se, and much of it is gonna depend on each player's tastes, a lot of the soundtrack does not reach the highs of the magnificent soundtrack of the first two games, oddly having some tracks paying more homage to 3's much maligned experimental techno tunes instead. But when it gets going, oh boy does it get Streets of Rage-y as fuck. When everything just clicks into place and you find yourself taking that classic elevator up to the top of the starry night cityscape as the music crescends into pure megadrive magic and you fend off every single lunging fist and jump thrown at you, a single blast processed tear might just manifest in your inner 16 bit child.
Suffice to say that there might not be much here for those without this formative arcade experience. If you never played many beat em ups in your life time, you probably will not find the dopamine release you expected coming here. But for those who want a taste of those old glory days, this might be just the right detour down unapolagetic videogame violence memory lane.
And MAN, is Blaze hotter than ever in this one.