Streets of Rage 4 is a fantastic beat ‘em up. I am still relatively new to this genre, at least the more traditional entries, but I can tell this is all quality.
If I were to say the game's combat excelled at something in particular, it would be how enemies control space, and how you have to deal with it. As simple as that sounds, this is very very difficult to get right. I believe it’s generally one of the largest shortcomings to action games and I’m sure it’s a huge one to traditional beat ‘em ups as well.
Before I can talk about how each enemy in SoR4 has a defined purpose, I must talk about the players moveset. Each character has differences but ultimately it can be described pretty simply.
Every character has a simple string of attacks, offensive and defensive special, jumping attacks and a set of grab moves.
The thing I want to emphasize now is that you are able to walk OR attack. Some attacks can “move” you but that doesn’t mean you are in the state of “walking”, at least in terms of how the game defines it.
In a game where the enemies are primarily about controlling space, this is a really big deal. If you could run around slashing like a ninja slashing your sword everywhere, it would be a very different type of game. This design decision creates one of the most seemingly basic yet intriguing value judgements in action games to me. It sounds a little silly but I think the only way to really show what this is to use the statement as a question, “should I walk or attack?” If that’s hard to really think of the implications of, you can simplify it a little further and say it’s almost like “should I play defensively or offensively?” There is a catch there, you can have offensive movements and defensive attacks, but that’s the idea.
This game only excels at this and I very rarely see games that do it better. It’s all down to the enemies, which to me are some of the best in the genre.
It’s too much to cover all the potential value judgements in this game, but even with the most basic goons there is a shockingly good amount just due to the speed of the attacks and the damage they do. Most attacks are fast and pretty damaging, they are all a threat in some way or another. That actually imposing threat is what makes this really click.
At a very basic level, a lot of this game is baiting out attacks and punishing them. There are value judgments in that alone I think but those are pretty whatever, the juicy stuff is when you implement another enemy. What if he’s close enough to hit you out of your attack that was supposed to be a punish? What if he has more range than you and his attacks are harder to punish? What if you try to get out of the way of an attack but it’s less advantageous because ANOTHER enemy is nearby, in your way. You can keep asking questions that don’t have completely solid answers, and that to me is the cool part.
You not only have choice, but they mean very different things in a game as system focused as this. Your problem solving has to be top notch because even a correct decision can still lead to something more negative later, just because you didn’t choose the most correct option, which may not have even existed.
That isn’t to say there aren’t strong options, hell I know there are. Doing the back grab slam thing is generally really strong due to the i-frames. The only thing you have to consider after you get it there is the crowd control, making sure you have a way out of that attack without being piled on by enemies. It’s impossible to make a game of this complexity without strong tools and I don’t think they need to. Strong tools let you devise a plan early on, and as you get accustomed to the way enemies work and the game is played, you can get better options for more situations.
Basically meaning, the tools in the game are not strong enough to be used for every situation, just strong enough to give you a good starting point past button mashing.
There’s just so much depth squeezed out of such relatively simple systems created by enemy design that’s just so genius I can’t wrap my head around it. The encounters are good too! They always have enemies that compliment each other. Pair an enemy that controls horizontal space with one that controls vertical space and you have a pretty good encounter already! They do this obvious one a couple times, if I recall. That’s not a bad thing though, in fact I really like it.
The enemies that uppercut you out of the air control your jump-ins, which is a really easy way to get combos. The enemies that run at you horizontally control horizontal space really well. Enemies who control the ground with poison are literally making some areas just bad places to be in. Some enemies have really long attacks and move fast, making it hard to whiff punish. Even with that roster alone, you can make really interesting encounters. Yet there’s so much more, and I can’t particularly think of a bad example.
The whole game is about pushing space control based judgement values to as far as the games systems allow and it does one hell of a job. If you even just like action games, this one is a great pick.
Just to get it out of the way, the game sounds and feels great. Top notch there too.
If I were to say the game's combat excelled at something in particular, it would be how enemies control space, and how you have to deal with it. As simple as that sounds, this is very very difficult to get right. I believe it’s generally one of the largest shortcomings to action games and I’m sure it’s a huge one to traditional beat ‘em ups as well.
Before I can talk about how each enemy in SoR4 has a defined purpose, I must talk about the players moveset. Each character has differences but ultimately it can be described pretty simply.
Every character has a simple string of attacks, offensive and defensive special, jumping attacks and a set of grab moves.
The thing I want to emphasize now is that you are able to walk OR attack. Some attacks can “move” you but that doesn’t mean you are in the state of “walking”, at least in terms of how the game defines it.
In a game where the enemies are primarily about controlling space, this is a really big deal. If you could run around slashing like a ninja slashing your sword everywhere, it would be a very different type of game. This design decision creates one of the most seemingly basic yet intriguing value judgements in action games to me. It sounds a little silly but I think the only way to really show what this is to use the statement as a question, “should I walk or attack?” If that’s hard to really think of the implications of, you can simplify it a little further and say it’s almost like “should I play defensively or offensively?” There is a catch there, you can have offensive movements and defensive attacks, but that’s the idea.
This game only excels at this and I very rarely see games that do it better. It’s all down to the enemies, which to me are some of the best in the genre.
It’s too much to cover all the potential value judgements in this game, but even with the most basic goons there is a shockingly good amount just due to the speed of the attacks and the damage they do. Most attacks are fast and pretty damaging, they are all a threat in some way or another. That actually imposing threat is what makes this really click.
At a very basic level, a lot of this game is baiting out attacks and punishing them. There are value judgments in that alone I think but those are pretty whatever, the juicy stuff is when you implement another enemy. What if he’s close enough to hit you out of your attack that was supposed to be a punish? What if he has more range than you and his attacks are harder to punish? What if you try to get out of the way of an attack but it’s less advantageous because ANOTHER enemy is nearby, in your way. You can keep asking questions that don’t have completely solid answers, and that to me is the cool part.
You not only have choice, but they mean very different things in a game as system focused as this. Your problem solving has to be top notch because even a correct decision can still lead to something more negative later, just because you didn’t choose the most correct option, which may not have even existed.
That isn’t to say there aren’t strong options, hell I know there are. Doing the back grab slam thing is generally really strong due to the i-frames. The only thing you have to consider after you get it there is the crowd control, making sure you have a way out of that attack without being piled on by enemies. It’s impossible to make a game of this complexity without strong tools and I don’t think they need to. Strong tools let you devise a plan early on, and as you get accustomed to the way enemies work and the game is played, you can get better options for more situations.
Basically meaning, the tools in the game are not strong enough to be used for every situation, just strong enough to give you a good starting point past button mashing.
There’s just so much depth squeezed out of such relatively simple systems created by enemy design that’s just so genius I can’t wrap my head around it. The encounters are good too! They always have enemies that compliment each other. Pair an enemy that controls horizontal space with one that controls vertical space and you have a pretty good encounter already! They do this obvious one a couple times, if I recall. That’s not a bad thing though, in fact I really like it.
The enemies that uppercut you out of the air control your jump-ins, which is a really easy way to get combos. The enemies that run at you horizontally control horizontal space really well. Enemies who control the ground with poison are literally making some areas just bad places to be in. Some enemies have really long attacks and move fast, making it hard to whiff punish. Even with that roster alone, you can make really interesting encounters. Yet there’s so much more, and I can’t particularly think of a bad example.
The whole game is about pushing space control based judgement values to as far as the games systems allow and it does one hell of a job. If you even just like action games, this one is a great pick.
Just to get it out of the way, the game sounds and feels great. Top notch there too.