Cleared on May 5th, 2024 (SEGA Genesis Challenge: 63/160)
Streets of Rage is an arcade style beat em up that is not a port of an arcade game to the Genesis, but instead made with that system in mind. It takes liberties to capture the feeling of going to an arcade machine and just fighting bad guys except once you pay a hefty fee (apparently $49.99 + $179.99 was a lot of money back then), it is yours to try as many times as you want without paying a quarter to continue. It might have sounded dumb since nowadays you can get the game on Steam for a dollar (maybe even less on sale), but back then, the idea of having an arcade game all to yourself without paying to continue or taking up so much space in your house was awesome. That being said, you're going to need all the chances you can get because one of this game's liberties they took from arcade beat em ups is being really difficult... and not always in a good way.
The game has three buttons which are jump, attack, and special. Yeah, I hope you like pressing the same button to attack over and over, but actually, they made even that more fun as not only can you perform a good variety of moves like grapples, throws, back kicks, air kicks and suplexs, you can also pick up weapons to give you an advantage. Knives will increase the damage you deal although it will get thrown after a bit. Glass bottles also increase damage, but the range isn't as good nor is the damage, but it lasts as long as you don't get hit. The pipe and bat are really fun to use since they got not only damage, but range. The problem is that they don't have a dedicated combo as you can only swing once before given a window of vulnerability. There's also the smoke bomb which is uncommon, but when used can immobilize enemies for a brief moment.
There are few enemy variants. You have the basic enemies which might not seem special at a glance until you realize they are the only enemies in the game that hold weapons and besides the glass bottle which are found in crates, are the only way to actually get weapons. There are grapplers that will throw you if you get too close to them and sometimes will slide kick you. You have whip girls with long range, these martial art dudes with flips and kicks that can be difficult to avoid, and jugglers that throw projectiles at you. Due to this game's perception, avoiding these guys is actually a bitch. The good news is that if you can hold your ground long enough, you can acquire health pick ups to heal and if you get enough points, you can get additional lives which may actually be a boon if you can survive the bosses to use your special on and then again when you lose a life.
The bosses are... not very fun. Not only do they hit for a lot of damage, they feel very fast too. I've fiddled around the rewind feature on Sega Genesis Classics collection on Steam to verify that the simple act of making the wrong move can put you in a position where you literally cannot avoid an attack. Heck, there are times where no matter what move you make, you will get hit for a lot of damage. And god forbid if you choose Adam among the cast because his movement speed is so shit and avoiding attacks takes a fuckton of foresight. Axel and Blaze aren't actually much better, but you can at least position yourself faster with these two. Another weird quirk to these bosses is that they can easily be cheesed just by just barely surviving, then as soon as they come out, use your special attack to have the police back-up nuke them for massive damage, then once you lose a life, you can use your special attack again and really chunk their health. From there, brute force your way against the bosses and you win. Also, there are two levels in the game where you can actually have an additional special meter, so you can use it up to 3 times.
The bad news is that I think even the developers know about this, and have it so that the special is outright disabled in the final level and forces you through a boss rush where you have to fight all of them properly. The worst ones are the wolverine wanna be and those ninja twins. At least with the ninja twins, as long as you keep your back turned, you can trick them into thinking they can easily grab you and follow up with a back kick by pressing the Jump + Attack button at the same time. The final boss, though, is a testament to how this game does not want you to win. He's already fast as fuck for a fatass in a tuxedo, but he has two minions aiding him that will keep respawning throughout the fight and he has a gun which isn't as bad as it sounds. In fact, it will often hit his own men more than it will hit you, but then he dashes around and unless you can time your jump kick perfectly, you will take a massive hit from his melee attacks.
I don't know how this game compares to the later games in the series since at the time of reviewing, I don't know what they are like, but even I can tell that it has the issues that first games usually have with clunky control quirks such as how you can't jump around in any other direction besides left or right. I don't know if this is ever addressed in the sequels, maybe in Streets in Rage 4 with how modern it is, but it was something I found annoying. It's still worth a playthrough because the combat is satisfying enough and the music and atmosphere are really good. Just don't ever pick Adam like I did the first time since he has the worst movement speed in the game. Axel will give you the same power at the cost of having a weak jump which seems quite miniscule with how it works here while Blaze, despite having lower power, can still deal good damage with weapons and throws.
Streets of Rage is an arcade style beat em up that is not a port of an arcade game to the Genesis, but instead made with that system in mind. It takes liberties to capture the feeling of going to an arcade machine and just fighting bad guys except once you pay a hefty fee (apparently $49.99 + $179.99 was a lot of money back then), it is yours to try as many times as you want without paying a quarter to continue. It might have sounded dumb since nowadays you can get the game on Steam for a dollar (maybe even less on sale), but back then, the idea of having an arcade game all to yourself without paying to continue or taking up so much space in your house was awesome. That being said, you're going to need all the chances you can get because one of this game's liberties they took from arcade beat em ups is being really difficult... and not always in a good way.
The game has three buttons which are jump, attack, and special. Yeah, I hope you like pressing the same button to attack over and over, but actually, they made even that more fun as not only can you perform a good variety of moves like grapples, throws, back kicks, air kicks and suplexs, you can also pick up weapons to give you an advantage. Knives will increase the damage you deal although it will get thrown after a bit. Glass bottles also increase damage, but the range isn't as good nor is the damage, but it lasts as long as you don't get hit. The pipe and bat are really fun to use since they got not only damage, but range. The problem is that they don't have a dedicated combo as you can only swing once before given a window of vulnerability. There's also the smoke bomb which is uncommon, but when used can immobilize enemies for a brief moment.
There are few enemy variants. You have the basic enemies which might not seem special at a glance until you realize they are the only enemies in the game that hold weapons and besides the glass bottle which are found in crates, are the only way to actually get weapons. There are grapplers that will throw you if you get too close to them and sometimes will slide kick you. You have whip girls with long range, these martial art dudes with flips and kicks that can be difficult to avoid, and jugglers that throw projectiles at you. Due to this game's perception, avoiding these guys is actually a bitch. The good news is that if you can hold your ground long enough, you can acquire health pick ups to heal and if you get enough points, you can get additional lives which may actually be a boon if you can survive the bosses to use your special on and then again when you lose a life.
The bosses are... not very fun. Not only do they hit for a lot of damage, they feel very fast too. I've fiddled around the rewind feature on Sega Genesis Classics collection on Steam to verify that the simple act of making the wrong move can put you in a position where you literally cannot avoid an attack. Heck, there are times where no matter what move you make, you will get hit for a lot of damage. And god forbid if you choose Adam among the cast because his movement speed is so shit and avoiding attacks takes a fuckton of foresight. Axel and Blaze aren't actually much better, but you can at least position yourself faster with these two. Another weird quirk to these bosses is that they can easily be cheesed just by just barely surviving, then as soon as they come out, use your special attack to have the police back-up nuke them for massive damage, then once you lose a life, you can use your special attack again and really chunk their health. From there, brute force your way against the bosses and you win. Also, there are two levels in the game where you can actually have an additional special meter, so you can use it up to 3 times.
The bad news is that I think even the developers know about this, and have it so that the special is outright disabled in the final level and forces you through a boss rush where you have to fight all of them properly. The worst ones are the wolverine wanna be and those ninja twins. At least with the ninja twins, as long as you keep your back turned, you can trick them into thinking they can easily grab you and follow up with a back kick by pressing the Jump + Attack button at the same time. The final boss, though, is a testament to how this game does not want you to win. He's already fast as fuck for a fatass in a tuxedo, but he has two minions aiding him that will keep respawning throughout the fight and he has a gun which isn't as bad as it sounds. In fact, it will often hit his own men more than it will hit you, but then he dashes around and unless you can time your jump kick perfectly, you will take a massive hit from his melee attacks.
I don't know how this game compares to the later games in the series since at the time of reviewing, I don't know what they are like, but even I can tell that it has the issues that first games usually have with clunky control quirks such as how you can't jump around in any other direction besides left or right. I don't know if this is ever addressed in the sequels, maybe in Streets in Rage 4 with how modern it is, but it was something I found annoying. It's still worth a playthrough because the combat is satisfying enough and the music and atmosphere are really good. Just don't ever pick Adam like I did the first time since he has the worst movement speed in the game. Axel will give you the same power at the cost of having a weak jump which seems quite miniscule with how it works here while Blaze, despite having lower power, can still deal good damage with weapons and throws.