By Sam Coles:
2D brawlers are a dime a dozen these days, this is mostly
due to game design moving onto different pastures but that doesn’t mean smaller
scale projects don’t take hold of the genre. Streets of Rage was Sega’s answer
to Capcom against their popular Final Fight series, where they produced a
trilogy of games on the Mega Drive back in the early 90’s. Fast forward over 20
years later and we get a 4th game in the franchise, and you know
what it is amazing and one of my favourite games of 2020 so far!
Well the narrative is as basic as you can get with a 90’s inspired
video game, Axle Stone and friends plan on clearing the titular Streets of Rage
up from corruption and crime. That is pretty much it, I honestly was not
expecting anything particularly deep with a narrative for Streets of Rage, and
it just sets up the context and tells you to punch anything with a stupid
haircut until it tells you to stop.
You can pick four characters (to begin with) you have Axle
Stone, Blaze Fielding, Cherry Hunter and Floyd Iraia. All feel great and unique
to use, my favourite to use was Blaze as she was quick and nimble but powerful
at the same time.
Gameplay is what you would expect when it comes to a Streets
of Rage game, you progress through a level, beat seven shades of blue out
anything that moves and eat food off the floor which makes me wonder they are
not constantly vomiting, but I digress. However the controls are easily tightest
in the entire series, everything is fast and fluid without it being frantic, it
is easy to get a grasp of the situation but that does not mean this game is
easy.
You can punch, kick, jump and pick up various weapons to
help in the fight these can range from lead pipes, knives, stun weapons, police
batons and of course your special attacks come into play too. How this works is
that it bizarrely takes inspiration from Bloodborne with its mechanics, when
you use your special attacks it takes a fraction of your health. However as
long as you don’t get hit after you perform said attack, you can get your
health back by attacking enemies. It’s a great dynamic where it gives you
powerful attacks, but at the same time you are literally risking your life in
the process to cut down a large percent of health on a boss.
This game gets rather challenging the further you progress,
with tougher enemies such as the police officers with their shields where they
can bridge on being annoying rather than challenging. It is a good steady curve
of difficulty at the start of the game, but then it takes a sharp spike when
you get to the old pier stage. But overall gameplay is superb and had me smile
with glee as I pummelled thugs into the dirt.
After you have finished the story mode you can do arcade mode
where you rack up a high score on any stage of your choosing, as well as a boss
rush mode which is rather self-explanatory. Not only that you can play the game in co-op
with up to 4 players, both online and local play which keeps the old school
spirit alive.
The presentation is absolutely amazing; from the booting the
game up you will see the superb animation that the main characters have. It’s a
mix of western animation and anime, with fluid movement throughout and it is
honestly beautiful! Colours really pop and leap off the screen, coupled with
the fantastic soundtrack where you can also change it to the old Mega Drive OST
if you wish. Over presentation is great, coupled with the smooth and crisps
framerate that never stutters.
Streets of Rage 4 is a return to form, it takes the existing
foundation of the previous three games and dials it up to eleven. It has tight
and responsive controls, great music and sound as well beautiful animations.
This is one of my favourite games of 2020, go out and get it!
🙌 Great Post Mate.
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