After liking the first game a lot and enjoying the sequels, I don't know what to expect aside from 4 fresh, new and younger faces and a story trying to build what little to no plot the arcade game had.

But as soon as I got through half of the first level and the second story segment, I made a realization: This is basically a port aside from the graphics and redesigns. A remake disguised as a new sequel. I knew animations were the same but I honestly didn't think entire levels would be as well.
I wanna say I was disappointed but given how rare the series is as a whole (from what I imagine overseas) makes me think of a couple of reasons why that is:
1. Someone wanted to port the game to make up for the canceled dreamcast port of the original game now that they have a more powerful console in their hands.
And 2. Take advantage of online. In the Xbox's case you don't need an additional network adapter like the PS2 Phat model since the game is by enlarge, a multiplayer game.

As for the game itself, it's Spikeout but with that classic mid 2000s beat em up aesthetic (which somehow makes the game uglier than its arcade counterpart.) I joke but at the very least, some locales didn't transition too terribly. I do admire they went through the effort to redesign every playable character and bosses, even bosses that are clones/recolors.

I like the new playable characters, erm... gameplay wise.
Spike Jr. is.... well... Spike Jr. with a couple of small differences.
Jackal is by far the worst one. Some slow moves, really bad throws. He's sort of a combination of Jr. and Tenshin but worse.
Min Hua is pretty much Akira from Virtua Fighter. Same animations and all. She's probably the most combo friendly character to play as making her my favorite. Because she's so short, some high attacks will barely graze her. Unintentional, maybe, but I'll take it.
Fiona is a special case because her moveset was lifted from Alberto, a character from Spiker's Battle. Same with Void (a story unlockable) whose moveset was taken from Gorn from Spiker's.
You can unlock pretty much every boss and miniboss in the game which is stuff I always like. Special requirement is to be on normal/hard mode, do a 4 hit combo on the boss before death all without getting hit (but you can get hit by their mooks though. And trust me, the 4 hit combo thing is more generous than it might seem if you're good at grab attacks.

Just like the original game, it's hard. But fun. You can map all sorts of inputs which makes performing some of these moves more comfortable to pull off on a controller. And it's probably me, I think hits have more of an impact than the arcade game.

Battle Street mode is pretty much the arcade mode. You can turn on the oh-so unforgiving timer, continues and even friendly fire if you want and transitions to online play. You can even switch difficulties. Stages also unlock after doing the story mode so you can replay the entirety of one stage. So this is a nice way to experience the original game in this new coat of paint.

Now for the big cons...

The way story mode was handled is kind of horrendous lol
Thing is, there are no continues or checkpoints to be seen anywhere. You can switch on easy mode... but only if you die twice and you can't switch Story mode difficulty willingly. It's not so bad in a few story segments if you're decent at the game. Its those couple of two or three that sour the whole decision to not have continues. Story segment 3, and especially 7 suck major balls cuz they're one of the longer stages which makes dying really tiresome.
Health kits restore very little health as you'd expect unless you're playing easy mode. By the way, enemy AI is pretty much the same, even damage. Only difference is that health items restore more health and bosses don't have invincibility frames after getting knocked down.
You know you're unforgiving when even God Hand has more generous checkpoints. But at least there's no timer by default.

The story just.... exists... but it is pretty funny though. The story starts with Spike missing... nothing much happens.... then at the beginning of the final level, Spike comes out of nowhere. Spike Jr. is pretty much an asshole to everyone, especially the female characters. Lots of raised questions dropped. Game acts like its wrapped everything up. It's the high cheese levels only to come out of this era of games.

Can I just say that the game doesn't teach you how to actually play the game unlike the arcade demos. No even a character movelist. I would know given my experience with the series.

I imagine that's why this game got review bombed in the first place. Reviewing an entry to a relatively unknown series whilst going in not knowing how the game even works PLUS whatever I said during my story mode rambling.

I still enjoyed my time with it. If you want Spikeout with more characters, online co-op (if you can get it to work) then you might get a kick out of it. For newcomers, I'd just look up how to play on the web (Gamefaqs or the jp wiki) and play the story on easy mode. That's all I can say if you want the best experience possible.

I want to make this joke so I can officially be the first native english speaker to say it in a review:

Crows - Burning Budget

Based off of a popular manga series (in japan) but surprisingly has only two games including Burning Edge. There was one beat em up that dates all the way back to the Sega Saturn. Given the quality of this one (and the fact you can't buy it anymore unless you import whatever remaining copy that's out there), it might be the last Crows game for a while.

Straight into the gameplay, it's a brawler and not a very good/stable one. I was under the impression that its an action adventure game, but there isn't much adventuring at all and what little there is relegates to running around in an empty, overexposed neighborhood.

The brawling is pretty easy but mostly for the wrong reasons. Half of the time, you stunlock mooks and sometimes "bosses" for a little while.
Hit boxes hardly work half of the time either. I would try to stomp an enemy right in front of me only for my multiple stomp animations phase through the downed body.
The game has "different" fighting styles but despite having different animations, they all feel the same.
Special moves are just there. You press a button and a cinematic plays to look cool(ish) but they're no real special mechanic especially with how easy it is to get them (counter button or spam punches to stun).

The only thing worse than the combat is the presentation cuz GOOD LORD!! I know this game was released on Ps4 (which got released) and Vita (which didn't). I imagine this was a simple lower budget Vita game that got a lucky PS4 port. Not a lot of animated cutscenes where there should be (with not very good cinematography despite having a manga to copy camera shots from), the text box scenes just have frozen 3d models (they're not images. The models have different shading with each environment) with all characters with the same stiff pose just looking at the camera coupled with the lack of facial expressions other than an open mouth.
The game in general looks ugly as sin.

This game is rushed. No doubt about it. Probably to fit with the series' 25th anniversary. That's the only reason I can think of because there's not a lot of valuable information about the game's development other than the Vita version getting cancelled.
Combat wants to be complex and tactical but falls back on its ass to being simple (just like Yakuza. Hey-OoooooooooooooooH!) And the game looks like a fan recreation with basic engine shaders.
Despite me bashing a lot of it... I kind of enjoyed it? It's one of those games I have more fun with when I turn my brain off.
Honestly, I don't think I'd recommend it to Crows fans, much less people just wanting a decent import. If you want a decent brawler or delinquent adventure game, it's just not here.

Game's REALLY fuckin' good but REALLY fuckin' hard.... just like Ninja Gaiden ;D

Movement is god damn everything. Even takes more priority than stuff like combos and Ryu is more than agile enough to slip past every enemy and boss moves if timed well enough. Movement in combat feels smoother than something like Trickster from DMC3 (as a direct comparison.) With this game, they made god damn sure you use that movement at all times.

My only real problems are with a couple of enemies. The black ninjas, while I got used to them for my first playthrough, can be infuriating whenever they whip out their sticky bombs. And the fish... the fish at the last couple of levels can kiss my ass.
And sometimes I feel the camera has a hard time keeping up with the fast-paced action going on. And it's one of those camera that can screw up the view when in an unlucky spot. Also, I don't like when the R-stick defaults to the first person camera every time you boot up the game so you have to click the R-stick to the more normal camera control.

Badass game despite how soul crushingly hard it gets.

It's a nice little game. Its structure is pretty unique as far as brawlers with RPG elements go.
Its as long as you want. You either play by the rpg system's rules or you get good and go straight for the bosses regardless of level except a high amount of Willpower.
It's nice in a sense that it wastes no time and you're constantly progressing (aside from the times you have to grind.)
Difficulty curve is pretty balanced as well.
Combat is pretty tight similar to its NES sister series, Double Dragon, as well.

Overall, very good beat em up and pretty great NES game.

It's alright. It more or less has the same structure as River City Ransom. Combat controls are pretty nice overall.
What isn't so nice is the way the RPG elements are handled.

My biggest gripe with the game is how enemy health (apparently) is scaled as you progress with the story. Including basic enemies from all the way to the first area who turn into damage sponges later on. I feel this defeats the purpose of the stats where I feel the only character stat that's noticeable is Stamina.

Funnily enough, that isn't the case for the bosses. Overall, I enjoyed almost all of them.
I saw some people have trouble with them, which I don't get. Their patterns seem pretty clear cut to figure out. If you're slightly patient, you'll find out much all their patterns with a death or two at most. Sometimes, you can even bum rush. Simple case of boss doing an attack -> you dodge -> boss is open (provided they don't have their temporary invincible mode on at the moment) -> attack.

The writing.... let's just say it's not my cup of tea (meaning cringe.) But at least the tone is consistent throughout.
More importantly, I can skip all cutscenes by holding one of the face buttons.
Though, I do like both the normal ending and the secret ending. Especially as someone who has played the japanese only Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-tachi no Banka.

Speaking of which: https://youtu.be/2cnG4_2VS5I

Will there ever be a good Crows game? No.

This is the first Crows game a year before the manga series was wrapping up. All while the Sega Dreamcast on the rise.
(btw Backloggd, it was released in '97)

So, Crows is about high schoolers and young gangsters beating each other to death, so why not a beat em up?

The game is your usual 2D-side scrolling brawler. That isn't a bad thing by itself but the problem lies in a lot of little annoyances especially when compared to other brawlers before it:

1 (MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL). The game's speed is slow as balls.
2. You can't move when picking up large objects.
3. You don't have pre-canned combos when pressing punch and kick per say. You get to customize special combos with a certain number of slots depending on the character. They require special inputs and act like your "get-off-me" special move in your usual beat em ups (health is lost after each successful hit) which leads me to...
4. No special move to hit surrounding enemies. The special combos are liable to miss and enemies can easily break you out of it. Not even a back-kick like the Kunio-Kun games.
5. You can't select Ryuushin and Tatsuya after finishing the game. You gotta play the sections where you unlocked them but they never stay unlocked before starting another new game.

While the game looks nice overall, I don't really get the decision to put it in the super deformed chibi style à la Kunio-Kun/River City. And not even Takahashi Hiroshi's chibi style. Sad! Especially when everything else other than the gameplay has the manga's original style.

Overall, below average. Meh even by generic brawler standards. It's not long at all but it sure feels like it when the game runs underwater.