I decided to play the Japanese version of this game because I heard many times over the years how the Western version got fucked by being really difficult. In spite of that, I'll be calling this game Streets of Rage 3 from here on, for the sake of consistency with the past two games I played.

Streets of Rage 3 is in a lot of ways better than its prequel.
Faster gameplay, the ability to run, the removal of the time limit, a more involved story, and the ability to upgrade overtime your abilites!

That last one is actually pretty awesome as, for example, Axel's Grand Upper can become even more destructive and last longer! No wonder they nerfed the base move compared to the previous game.

I also like how the Special Move button has a meter that builds up, and when that meter is full, you can do your special move without health cost, which is great!

You have a ton of options of how you wanna approach your enemies, and I really like Streets of Rage 3 for that!

I do have a few issues with the game though.
For starters, I didn't find the soundtrack to be as memorable as 1 and 2. It's not like the OST is bad or anything, I just kinda didn't care for it as much the previous two games.

Additionally, I'm not the biggest fan on some of the gimmicks that this game's stages add, like the spiked truck moving towards you in Stage 3.

And the final stage's bosses can go kick my ass.

But in terms of presentation, it's even better than Streets of Rage 2, and really goes to show how much Mega Drive graphics evolved over the years.

Overall, I did enjoy Streets of Rage 3, but not as much as its predecessor.