Streets of Rage 1, 2 & 3 Review!

So, Sega's answer to Nintendo's Final Fight - a side-scrolling beat-em-up with great music. It was a massive success, spawning two sequels.

Streets of Rage (known in Japan as Bare Knuckle -- you can hear Axel shout this with his special) was released in 1991, followed by SoR 2 in 1992, and SoR 3 in 1994. All three were developed by SEGA and MNM Software, and music done by Yuzo Koshiro, although I wouldn't put the Streets of Rage 3 Soundtrack on your resume - it's awful.

Myself and V1 played through SoR 1,2 and 3 and so I thought I'd give my thoughts on the games.

Streets of Rage 1



Plot : Some crime organization have taken over the city. So it's up to 3 dedicated police officers to clean up the Streets....of Rage!

Cast :
Adam (the generic black guy)
Axel (the generic white guy)
Blaze (the hot chick)

Gameplay :
This is where it all started. From the get go, it's obviously a HUGE rip-off of Final Fight. Holy God, it's so, so similar. But Sega never got sued. Graphics were great for the time, the music unprecedently awesome club-style music, pushing that Blast Processor to the max! Side-scrolling action, being able to move up and down to match your enemies' position. Three buttons - punch/kick, jump and special.
This is the only one where "robocop" as we named him, drives up and shoots huge gunfire into the air, and clears the screen of all the filth, leaving you unharmed. AWESOME. Yes, he somehow is still on the boat level, and even when you're on the elevator outside a building, he shoots through the building to help you out! Thanks, Robocop!
The different baddies rely a lot on "palette swapping", which is when it's the same basic model, but in different colours. Like in Street Fighter 2, Ken and Ryu are the same models, but different colour pallettes.

You know what's awesome about SoR, never mind that you're cleaning up the streets, beating up low-life punks? You can STAB them! YES! ARRR! And BATTER GIRLS! Take that, bitch! BYAH!! (Sorry :eek::D)

A lot of the baddies in SoR 1 remained on:
Standard punk with blue cut-off jacket and pants.
Then there's the one in the mohawk and yellow jacket.
Sexy S&M girls with whips. The kneel down after one hit.
Clowns juggling weapons. Annoying bastards.
Karate dudes. You suck!

Bosses :
Guy with boomerang. Kick this guy's antipodean ass! Bloody chaz-wazzer!
Freddy (blonde dude with claws)
The Ultimate Warrior (****in kicks ass man, bit of a cheater with his punch/clothesline)
Fire-breathing fat guys ( you can't suplex them )
Palette-swapping Blaze. Do you think we wouldn't notice? They're pretty rock hard. Your best bet is to hit them when they're coming down for a jump, but they're pretty unfair bitches.
Mr X, the final boss, is a ****. He has a gun, the only one in the game. You'll lose a good few lives taking down this arse!

Levels : Back Alley, Inner City (pretty much the same), Beachfront, Bridge under construction, Ship, Factory, Lift, inside Mr. X's place, Mr. X

Pros : the engine for the game started it all -- it's shamelessly ripped off in SoR 2 & 3.
The baddies from SoR 2&3 mostly come from here.
Robocop to bail you out!
Music is the best out of the three
Difficulty is perfect. Except for the very end, but that can be forgiven.

Cons : Graphics are a bit ropey
Limited moveset

Overall?
This game KICKS SO MUCH ASS! It's SO satisfying, and simple as well. Batter people until the sign says "Go!", which is the coolest go sign of the three.

A problem with all three, is the hit detection. Not only will you hit your partner, but sometimes your shots will go THROUGH your opponents to hit ur partner! WTF! Oh yeah, and baddies' bullets go through their own, and hit you. Bull****!


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Streets of Rage 2



Story : One year later, the streets have becoming dangerous again. Mr X is back somehow from the dead. Adam (black guy) is kidnapped, so this time we have a Haggar (FF) clone, Max, a wrestler, and also the very demographic-grabbing Skate (black kid)....4 friends hit the streets...of Rage! Two!

Cast :
Max (wrestler, slow heavy hitter) : Does suplexes and grabs face and PUNCHES IT until they go down. ****ING AWESOME
Axel (generic white street fighter is back!) His uppercuts and haymakers now have dragon flames....copyright infringment intended
Blaze has full out-Chun Li'd. She has a kikoken, and does lots of flips remeniscent of Chunners. She also has bigger thighs now. She's pretty hot alright.
Skate sucks.

So instead of robocop helping you out, you have a special, which drains a bit of life. Bit of give and take, I guess. I miss Robocop!

Music is worse, although more intricate. The sprites are redrawn, much meatier. More, varied attacks. Max kicks ass! Wresling baby!

In addition to the better-drawn re-hashes of SoR 1 baddies, we have Donovan, the bandana-wearing brown-clad punk. Don't jump in at him because he'll uppercut you.
Roided punk with a knife.
White dude with black hair and a mustache. Not as hard as he'd seem. Especially since you can double team him!
Brutus Beefacake wearing Road Warrior Spikes on bikes. They come in and out of the screen, driving their motorcycles. You have to drop kick them off. Great idea, but annoying in practice.
There's fags on jetpacks who are annoying.
S&M girls are back
There's a blanka dude, who sucks
The bald fatties who spit fire now wear caps and suspenders
The Ultimate Warriors make a return!
Now there's kickboxers and a cheap bastard boxer.
You also get robots and Shiva, Mr. X's bodyguard.

Stages : Back Alley, Bridge under construction, Amusement Park, Stadium, Ship, Seaside/Jungle, Machinery Plant. Lift, Mr. X -- VERY, VERY SIMILAR TO SoR 1!

Good : Improved graphics
Music good, not great


Bad : It's the same game as SoR 1. Most of the characters, baddies and bosses are recycled.


Overall : Very enjoyable, but it's the same damn game as SoR 1! It's prettier and there are more attacks, but it has to be the most unoriginal sequel ever! It's the same damn game! And the same type of levels! GET THE BOAT! Saying SoR2 is better than SoR1 is like saying that this toaster is better than that toaster because there's a fiver inside.

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Streets of Rage 3.



Graphically updated, but still the same game. This game is FAR too hard. The jump in difficulty is ridiculous. Normal is hard. Easy is still harder than SoR 1/2's normal. WTF!

Storyline : Mr X is somehow back. Again. Adam is "too busy" to help (WHAT THE ****!)

Characters : We have Axel, Blaze, Skate and Van (sorry Dr Zan). Adam is TOO ****ING BUSY to save the Streets?!?! WHAT?! I'm serious, that's the reason the plot gives for Adam not being in this game! Your plot is 3 lines long. WTF! The combos are really sweet in SoR3, but wow the enemies are difficult!

The music is atrocious in this game. Definitely the mid-90s that we ALL want to forget! Rave is in effect.

In this game, instead of having a special that decreases your health, you have a "special meter" using a special while it's not charged uses up health.

Enemies : Goldie looks like Alex. There's some more punks, new ones. Donovan, Standard punk and mohawk punk are certainly back! New "Agent Smiths" with guns. These guys are so annoying, as their bullets travel through enemies to you. God damnit! Fat guys spitting fire are back, bikers now take a few hits to go down,
Shiva and the whip girls are back, now a Clown, with Roo are here. Sparing Roo means you can play as him. BOO!!! FIRE RUSSO!

Donovan rides a bulldozer in one level. You're supposed to hit the bulldozer to get him to back off! There's karate guys with flaming red hair. Pretty cool, and easy to beat if they don't start cheaping u with dropkicks.

Bosses : An Axel robot. What differentiates him is he has a Matt Hardy/HHH bad tan. What pisses me off about this game is that baddies can move faster than you, and also there is massive slow down in parts of the game. WTF lads, sort it out.

Yamato, a ninja that splits into three. What a ****. Unfair.
There's ninjas, who cheap. Throwing stars and the like.
Robot duplicate of Mr X. Got battered pretty easy.
little robocop jumping beans. They suck.
Jet dudes.
Some mad scientist who has a claw. TERRIBLE idea.
ROBOT Y. God, what a ****ing terrible name and character, but par for the course for robot clones.

Levels : Harbour, Nightclub (with strobe lights, pretty cool although makes it harder!), Construction site (how original!), Train tracks, hideout, Saving the Police Chief on a few different floors (GRRR!) either robot factory & Robot Y, or City Hall and Shiva.

Good : Varied movesets.
Graphics look great.
Some new characters
suplexing, punching robots is hilarious
branching endings

Bad :
Music is God-AWFUL
Game is too hard
Storyline is ****ing ATROCIOUS!
lots of re-hashed characters
Skate is still there, Adam is TOO BUSY
Roo SUCKS! GET THE BOAT
Levels are unimaginative
Robots suck....
Mr X is a brain in one ending, and a human in another ending
That you're supposed to "guess" the right doors to save the Police Chief
Mr. prize-catching robot arm. BOOO!!!!!

Overall: I didn't enjoy playing this game that much, because it was so hard. I don't enjoy cheap bastard enemies that stay off screen until I turn my back. And the level of unoriginality is huge. C'mon guys! Although they did try new things, some were very hit an miss. The type of attacks were all too familiar.


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OVERALL : I'd recommend playing SoR 1 mostly, or 2 if you're a stickler for graphics. One of the classic side-scrolling beat-em-ups, which every gamer should really try out. Although nothing original, it was pretty cool and satisfying to play, which is the main thing. Battering punks and cleaning up the city is what it's all about!

I played these games (well the first two) when I was a kid so there's definitely a nostalgic/retro feel to them. I'd be weary of introducing them to a younger gamer because beat-em-ups must be really foreign to them, they probably won't like it. Just as I'm not a fan of Pac-Man or Donkey Kong, they probably don't see the awesome value in Beat-Em-Ups.

SoR 2 is available on XBL, and ALL THREE are available on the Sega Collection for the PS2 and PS3.

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Anyway, please let me know if you enjoyed the review, if so I'll post some more