I enjoyed the first Streets of Rage, and pretty much the same is true for its sequel, Streets of Rage 2, which released on December 20, 1992 for the Sega Genesis and later for the Game Gear and Master System. Developed by Sega, Streets of Rage 2 is pretty much the same game with a few minor and one major change.
First, instead of 3, you now have access to 4 characters to choose from, each with their different stats. Second, instead of everyone having the same special attack, each now has an individual one. However, this time, using a special attack drains your health, adding a quite significant penalty to using it. Third, there is an Easy mode in this game that is ACTUALLY easy. I managed to beat the game on my first time through using one continue on the final stage, and that's mainly thanks to the fact that Sega cooled it with the ridiculous bosses that felt like they were designed to swallow coins on Arcade machines due to their unfair difficulty. In Streets of Rage 2, unfair enemies are still a thing - especially on harder difficulties - but it's not on the same ridiculous level to the point that you won't manage to beat the game within 10 hours.
The soundtrack here is another great one and the levels are varied and good looking. The game looks prettier than the original, with bigger and better looking sprites and more detailed backgrounds. This creates the right atmosphere for this game where, once again, the whole city turns into chaos due to an evil syndicate taking over. This time it is Mr. X, who you face in a pretty cool final stage.
In terms of its gameplay, it has a fun loop but becomes pretty repetitive after a while. There is no dodge button, no guard button or anything of the sort, which means there is little you can do in terms of defending yourself in gameplay. The trick to being successful in this game is to time the enemy attack patterns and strike at the right time, at least that's what I would assume. Since that is much easier said than done, a lot of the game for me was spent either breezing through all normal enemies or getting into a slug-fest with one of the tougher enemies, where I would usually lose one life and try to out-damage the enemy. There aren't a lot of combos you can do either, so overall, I can't say I enjoyed pressing the same button over and over again for the entirety of the couple hours I've spent with the game.
All in all, it's a solid beat 'em up game I can recommend if you're a fan of the genre, but I didn't have as good a time with it as I would have hoped.
(This is the 80th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
First, instead of 3, you now have access to 4 characters to choose from, each with their different stats. Second, instead of everyone having the same special attack, each now has an individual one. However, this time, using a special attack drains your health, adding a quite significant penalty to using it. Third, there is an Easy mode in this game that is ACTUALLY easy. I managed to beat the game on my first time through using one continue on the final stage, and that's mainly thanks to the fact that Sega cooled it with the ridiculous bosses that felt like they were designed to swallow coins on Arcade machines due to their unfair difficulty. In Streets of Rage 2, unfair enemies are still a thing - especially on harder difficulties - but it's not on the same ridiculous level to the point that you won't manage to beat the game within 10 hours.
The soundtrack here is another great one and the levels are varied and good looking. The game looks prettier than the original, with bigger and better looking sprites and more detailed backgrounds. This creates the right atmosphere for this game where, once again, the whole city turns into chaos due to an evil syndicate taking over. This time it is Mr. X, who you face in a pretty cool final stage.
In terms of its gameplay, it has a fun loop but becomes pretty repetitive after a while. There is no dodge button, no guard button or anything of the sort, which means there is little you can do in terms of defending yourself in gameplay. The trick to being successful in this game is to time the enemy attack patterns and strike at the right time, at least that's what I would assume. Since that is much easier said than done, a lot of the game for me was spent either breezing through all normal enemies or getting into a slug-fest with one of the tougher enemies, where I would usually lose one life and try to out-damage the enemy. There aren't a lot of combos you can do either, so overall, I can't say I enjoyed pressing the same button over and over again for the entirety of the couple hours I've spent with the game.
All in all, it's a solid beat 'em up game I can recommend if you're a fan of the genre, but I didn't have as good a time with it as I would have hoped.
(This is the 80th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)