Streets of Rage 4

I know I should be tackling my games list, but Streets of Rage 4 has just been released! Streets of Rage II is one of my favorite Mega Drive games and it's a game that I still play today, especially multi-player. The latest edition of the franchise has been released on the Xbox One, PS4, Switch, and PC. I've decided to purchase the Xbox One version mainly because I have several controllers for the system and will come in handy for multi-player sessions.

The only difference between each version is that the Xbox edition currently lacks additional video settings such as a CRT filter but will be added in a future update. Apart from that, each version is basically the same. Price is around AUD 38 and is just over 4.6GB in size. To date, I've played it for around seven to eight hours, and from what I've experienced, it's awesome. It's one of those games where you're thinking about it when you're not playing it, which is a good sign. 

You initially start the game with four characters available, Axel and Blaze from the Mega Drive trilogy and two new characters - Cherry Hunter and Floyd Iraia. Additional players as well as character variants of the three previous games are also available when unlocked. I've mainly been playing as Floyd as he plays very similar to the Max character from Streets of Rage II. 

Controls are slightly different as the B button is used to pick up objects but apart from that it feels like the original games. A couple of new additions is the ability to juggle enemies off walls and each other for extended combos. You can also recover spent health by using a blitz move and to perform successive follow-up attacks. Star icons can be collected to perform super bomb moves that can do massive damage to multiple enemies at once. They are hidden throughout the stages.

The graphics are a joy to behold. They're super detailed with intricate lighting effects, glorious parallax scrolling, and fantastic animation. The soundtrack & SFX are equally good with new music by the original composers, Yuzo Koshiro, Motohiro Kawashima, and others. You also have the option of selecting the original Mega Drive chiptune soundtrack.

I love a good challenge so I've decided to start playing on the Hard setting...man this game is tough!! You basically get two lives to complete a level with unlimited tries where you can continue or change your character. The incentive to keep playing is high as you try to improve your score and ranking. The more you play, the more you unlock those hidden extras. There are 12 stages in total, so you're definitely getting your bang for your buck!

To make things a little familiar, the first level is reminiscent of the first two games right down to the naming of some of the buildings (Pine Pot for example). The streets are full of life, there's flashing neon lights, moths surrounding street lights, steam from manholes, birds flying, reflections on water puddles, people in buildings, and so much more.

So that's Streets of Rage 4 in a nutshell. Obviously, this is a no-brainer for fighting fans. A big thank you to Lizardcube, Guard Crush Games, and Dotemu for their fantastic work and for keeping the dream alive of bringing these classics to modern gaming (a big thanks to Zehb for giving me the ok to use his illustration on this post, please follow him on Twitter).