Streets of Rage 4 - Reviews

(4.6)

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19.8.2020

It's been 26 years since Streets of Rage 3. Since then, fans have been forced to fill the SoR-shaped hole in life by setting up boomboxes and wandering down the streets punching people, but it's not a satisfactory substitute. No matter how many times you explain to the authorities that you're actually an off-duty cop bringing down a massive criminal conspiracy, they never listen. It's even worse when you find actual gangsters to punch, because they tend to have guns. But now there is a new Streets of Rage game! Finally, we can kick criminal scum in the 'nads until their healthbar is empty, with no pesky jail sentences to worry about.It's not the first time that a classic Sega series has been resurrected in recent years,with Sonic Mania setting one hell of a benchmark. After 70+ hours of 1080p side-scrolling face punching, my opinion of SoR4 is similar to that of 2016's blue-rodent-exercise-simulator revival: very fun, a spot-on recreation of the classic mechanics, lovingly made, effectively modernised and with some worthwhile feature additions... but misses the original tone a little, and has a few iffy design decisions. A-.***Moveset***The foundation of a great fighting game is a satisfying and intuitive combat loop. The fighter should feel like an extension of you. This was key to the original games, and because this game sticks so closely to the moveset of Streets of Rage 2, it excels at it. There are a couple of new moves too, which feel similarly intuitive. It lacks SoR3's running ability though, which is a controversial move as some players have grown accustomed to quickly zooming across the screen.***Characters***Oh my flying spaghetti god, so many characters. You get 4 to start with. Axel and Blaze from the original games, aged up a bit to fit the timeline (Blaze having become super thicc in the interim, Axel looking like he's spent the last decade drunk in a dumpster). Plus new characters Cherry (Adam's daughter), a fast short-reach character that's essentially a stand-in for the old games' Skate, and also Floyd (Zan's friend), the super-heavy character standing in for SoR2's Max. All have subtle differences in their moveset, giving each a unique playing style. Mid-way through the game you unlock literal coolest human Adam, who may make the straight males among us rethink our orientation.Repeated playthroughs unlock characters from the previous games, so by the end you'll have 17 playable characters, including four different versions of Axel and Blaze, although the low-res Megadrive sprites look a bit out of place amidst SoR4's beautifully detailed nightscapes. All the *new* characters are hand-drawn at 60FPS, the animation is absolutely glorious.***Graphics***SoR4 is a seriously beautiful game. Despite being 2D, it has a lighting engine, so the neon street signs, fire glows and spotlights reflect perfectly off the characters moving below them. Backgrounds are bursting with details you'll spot more of with each playthrough - people sitting around playing Go in Chinatown, cooks working in restaurants, rats scurrying around the sewers, gang wars raging back and forth.The art style is a bit different to previous SoR games, French flair added to the already curious Japanese-American mix of the existing series. This is very much a modern looking game though, whereas the similarly detailed and lovingly made Sonic Mania was designed to resemble what a 2D Sonic game in the late '90s could have looked like.***Enemies***The way the enemy AI works is a key difference to SoR2 and 3. In those games, enemy behaviour was heavily randomised, and some enemies had a counter to everything you could use against them, so successful attacks depended on the random-factor preventing them using their counter. In 4 though, every enemy has a weakness (typically approaching them via the lateral axis) and often broadcasts their attacks beforehand. The game is more predictable, so more skill-intensive: if you get caught, it's because you've done something wrong. But of course as the difficulty escalates and more enemies flood the screen, it becomes increasingly difficult to anticipate the behaviour of every single one. The key is to learn enemy behaviour patterns, and pick up tricks that aren't actively taught to you. There's a high learning curve.One fun touch though is that for the first time in the series, there's infighting: you'll encounter gangster and police enemies, and if they cross paths, they're just as likely to attack each other as you. If you want, you can just sit back and watch them fight.***Difficulty***If you pick a high difficulty setting for your first playthrough, you're in for a world of hurt (probably a Game Over on Arcade Mode), even as an SoR veteran. This is because the gameplay is balanced around the player knowing enough about how the AI works to avoid getting hit. If you're a new player, you're not going to be able to anticipate enemy attacks, and you're going to die a lot. Older games threw extra lives at you throughout the campaign, under the assumption that even a good player would haemorrhage lives near the end (literally nobody gets through SoR2's factory elevator intact on high difficulty, for example). In SoR4, instead, you *don't find any extra lives in the level itself*, and only earn them through scoring points during gameplay. In order to score those points, you need to be able to get through large chunks of the level without taking any damage, as there's a new Combo system that'll give you most of your points. If you take a hit (even a tiny Galsia slap) then the combo breaks and you lose those points. It can be extremely frustrating.Fortunately for new players, Easy difficulty is pretty forgiving, and if you do badly then the game can give you extra lives at the expense of your final score. (Final scores can give achievements, get ranked on a global scoreboard, and unlock bonus features such as concept art and playable characters.)***Campaign***SoR4's campaign is the longest in the series (except for the gargantuan fan-game Streets of Rage Remake). If you watch every cutscene and take your time then it's slightly under 2 hours; if you skip them all and hurry then it'll typically be 1hr 30. I don't think they could reasonably have made the campaign any shorter after 26 years' wait, and in modern games anything less would be skimpy even for a budget title. But it does mean that it's uncomfortable to get through in one sitting. The devs have anticipated this, and the default way to play (Story Mode) is one level at a time, with your lives resetting between each one, so you can still complete the game if you do badly at some point. The old-school one-sitting format is now called Arcade Mode, and because extra lives are so rare, it's essentially the game's ultimate challenge. However there are also multiplayer modes (competitive or co-operative; online or local) and a Boss Rush level. When you add in all the playable characters too, the amount of replay value in SoR4 is off the hook, if you will excuse the appropriately '90s expression.Cutscenes are all skippable, and of course beautifully animated. The writing is noticeably better than SoR3's, with some fun dialogue, but the ending feels abrupt and anticlimactic. Anticlimax is a problem in the game generally, really: the game becomes challenging early on, and doesn't particularly escalate. Regular enemy encounters are often tougher than bosses. You don't really get a sense of penetrating the heart of an evil empire, as in the previous games. And while the music is fantastic, very funky, great to punch Galsias in the face to, it doesn't become darker as you approach a boss or the late stages of the game. Like Sonic Mania, you don't have the same sense of importance, seriousness, epicness, escalation and peril that made the best parts of the original games so memorable.***Conclusion***There is an optimal point at which SoR4 is extremely enjoyable, between around 4 and 20 hours' time logged. It's after you've learned how to play properly, so can pull off lengthy combos, dance skilfully around enemies, kick some serious arse, have some serious fun. But after that point, you'll probably start chasing S-ranks on higher difficulty modes, maximising your score under the toughest conditions. This is when you bounce up against the frustration of the unforgiving combo system, and find yourself replaying the same section time after time, trying a new approach, taking a little damage, having to restart. This is how I've racked up 77 hours in a game with a 1.5-2 hour campaign, and by this point I'm grinding my teeth. If they patch the game so that combo scores get *banked* when you take damage instead of being cancelled entirely, the frustration will end and I can finally return to the blissful contentment of hours 4 to 20.Streets of Rage is ultimately about the satisfaction of kicking arse to funky music, and 4 does that supremely. If you're an existing fan then there are potentially some nits to pick, some room for improvement. My opinion, SoR1 still has the best music, SoR2 is still the overall standout, SoR3 does some things I occasionally miss in the others. But 4 is a work of art, and I would argue it has the series' most finely-honed gameplay.If you've never played before, this is as good a place as any to start. And good news, it's awesome.

11.8.2020

This is a game that could have gone really well or really badly. Fortunately it leans towards the former.The graphics are the most noticeable difference between this and previous games. The hand-drawn animations lean towards more cartoon-y cell-shaded graphics compared to the darker tones of SoR3. The graphics however are good, but like previous games it can be quite apparent that palette swaps have taken place to artificially increase variety. The game could have benefitted from a few more sprites.The game play is the bread and butter of SoR and this iteration achieves this very well, for the most part. The rather glaring flaw is the variance of depth between the characters.

27.10.2020

Fantastic game. It's true value comes from its replayability. Finished the game on easy? Try normal. Then hard. Finally, try and complete mania. Done that? Good. Now go all the way back to easy and try and get 'S' high score rankings on all the levels. Trust me, it's hard. It's awesome.A great challenge with beautifully simple to learn fighting mechanics. Most fighting games are far too convoluted, with different players having different move sets. Like in street fighter I just end up using Ryu and Ken because who wants to spend hours simply learning all the different moves for all the players? Who has time for all that? Here, all the players have basically the same move mechanics and subtle but significant differences in execution.Graphics,

5.8.2020

I'd pre-ordered this & I felt like a kid at Christmas waiting for this game to come out! Was & still am a massive fan of the original games & played them none stop as a kid! My favourite games ever! I was not disappointed by this new one at all! I spent hours playing it the day it arrived! I soon completed it over a few days! Loved it! I really did! The hand drawn game artwork & characters are really beautiful, love how there's 12 stages too so longer to play & enjoy it! I really love the music too! Its good! Gets stuck in your head! The makers have captured the perfect balance of nostalgia along with the newness perfectly! Spot on! A really amazing game & the best money I've spent this year!!!

2.8.2020

Great game. Was worried I wouldn't like the new animation style or that the game wouldn't 'feel' right however it looks and plays great. My son (who was massively skeptical and adamant that dad's favourite old game would be rubbish) has loved the couch co-op and relentless action just like I did when I was a kid. He has been begging me to play 2 player with him all day every. A few minor gripes include the absence of a 'call for back-up' special move and some of the bosses lacking the magic of the old games. Being able to play level by level also feels a bit wrong although there is an arcade mode to unlock. Overall this manages the near impossible job providing a nostalgia rush but also being good in its own right.

14.11.2020

I loved the originals on my Saga Megadrive and I love this as well. The game play is the same, easy to pick up and play straight out the box, no fancy key combinations to master, just pure joy and fun. The new characters are great and the game play is the same, addictive and enjoying. Even in my 30s I still get so much joy out of this game, along with some frustrations when I can't defeat the end of stage bosses. The addition of online play is a great feature, enjoying it so much.

4.3.2021

I used to play streets of age on the pc with my cousin when I was 14 years old. So when I found out that sega made streets of rage 4 I was super excited. I looked online at reviews and after seeing 10/10 and 5 star for the game, I bought it. As soon as I started playing the first session, I was hooked. The graphics, music and gameplay is just absolutely awesome. You can play co op with friends or online. I love it. Thank you sega for giving us this diamond of a game.

26.9.2020

Got this for the daughter who lives the games. The original was always my favourite, I found the subsequent versions annoying game play or the characters seemed clunky & less responsive.This new game is great. Very addictive & since purchasing this we haven’t played the original since.What’s great is the multiplayer function so the rest of the family can play too although the screen does get crowded but it’s good fun.

17.10.2020

Really great game. Yes its next gen style but they really managed to hold onto that 90's feel. Retro soundtrack and location backdrops that really bring back memories. You can unlock original SOR characters in the 16bit graphics. As you can save after each level it actually makes for a nice play, you can pick up at the beginning of a level and carry on. Even has an arcade mode, 1 credit finish the game, die, game over.

30.10.2020

This game is an absolute love letter to the original Streets of Rage series. Whether you are a veteran or looking at getting into some side scrolling beat ‘em up action, I'd recommend picking this up.The graphics and music are great – and runs like a dream on Switch.It won't take too long to get through the stages but there is some replay value in unlockables and the difficulty settings.

1.8.2020

Awesome game from the past updated, New modes more characters, solid gameplay & animation. Sounds just like a streets of rage game. Pity developers don't do this genre much anymore. Would love to see others updated like this(final fight especially). If you loved the original you must get this. If you are not from this era then it's a great pick up and play game.

2.3.2021

I bought this as a Christmas present for my younger brother and its a great game, lots of fun to play particularly with multi players I rember playing the original version of the game when I was a kid on the Sega mega drive and even loved it then but this version on the switch is even better I would recommend it if ya are looking a good multi player game

21.9.2020

Great games, looks and plays great, more like your rose tinted memories of the originals as opposed to what they were actually like. The newer comic book style suits it perfectly too. However it is short and so as a single player game has a limited shelf life. Grab a mate though and it's great fun, just like back in the old days.

29.12.2020

Bought as a Christmas present for someone who has always loved the Streets of Rage games. Recipient loves it, excellent graphics and gameplay kept to the true nature of the originals, and still a challenging play! I also hadnt realised there was a keyring and art book included in the case so that was a lovely bonus!

25.10.2020

Brilliant game. I was one of the 1st to get it on Steam on launch day and this switch port plays just as well as the pc edition. Even came with a free keyring in the game case win win. But it if you loved the classic sega megadrive sor or even new to the beat en up scene what better game to start with.

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