It’s a very, very good time to be a beat ‘em up fan. Following up 2017’s critically-acclaimed revamp of Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap, developers Dotemu and Lizardcube announced a team-up with Guard Crush Games—the folks behind the bizarre cult hit photo-animated brawler Streets of Fury—and revealed their hand-animated approach to Streets of Rage 4, a distant sequel that seemingly appeared out of left field. We’ll get to the finer particulars below, but fans will be thrilled to know that the precious series’ future was left in very good hands.
The Streets of Rage games have always stood out as crown jewels of the Sega Genesis library, but most fans would agree that Streets of Rage 2 carried the championship belt. A significant update to the first game, the sequel upgraded its bone-crunching belt-scrolling action with special moves, “blitz attacks,” and one of the most influential video game soundtracks of all time. Many would argue that, while an enjoyable game in its own right, the third entry went a little too far off the deep end with changes, introducing multiple endings—and, of all things, a boxing kangaroo—but all three games together still amount to an important piece of beat ‘em up history.
Enter Streets of Rage 4, a direct narrative follow-up hitting screens a whopping 25+ years since the previous entry. This one trades in those gloriously gaudy Genesis pixels for an eye-popping hand-drawn style that needs to be seen in motion to be believed. The new look is such a dramatic departure from the original games, yet the basic flow of combat has been kept consistently intact, making the final product feel much more like a seamless evolution than a quirky, hastily scrabbled-together experimental detour.
For newcomers (or just series fans who have forgotten it all along the way), Streets of Rage’s goofy lore is probably worth an internet dive or two beforehand, and most all of it somehow factors into the new game. The narrative is delivered here via motion comics between all 12 of the game’s stages and, while it’s nothing outstanding, it looks fantastic, and is quite revealing of the key factor here: every aspect of this project is evidence of obsessive Streets of Rage fanaticism. Whether it’s a tiny reference hidden in the beautifully detailed backgrounds or the way classic enemies appear instantly familiar despite their high-def makeovers, Streets of Rage 4 seems through and through a dream project made by people who deeply care about their source material.
The raw basics of gameplay are as you might expect, with levels taking you through mostly urban blight environments from left to right. Early vest-wearing enemies and cannon-fodder punks pose minimal initial threat, but they’re strong in number and hound you when they can find a free moment to interrupt. Each level also introduces at least several new types into the mix, until halfway through the game you’re dealing with Muay Thai masters, judo experts, gun-toting bodyguards and psychotic head-butting bikers (happily, there’s no annoying motorcycle-riding thugs this time around). Crowd control is critical to your success, meaning that a careful use of area-clearing throws and special moves are needed to prevent enemies from ganging up on you, and new air-juggling mechanics let you pummel clustered groups all at once. The lower difficulty levels are fairly breezy, especially for experienced brawlers, with most enemies offering players breathing room for punishment.
For the fans, though, the “hard” difficulty level is probably the safest bet for a first-time run. Having five difficulty levels available from the start is a smart inclusion that ensures all players get a chance to see each area of the game, but the three tougher modes were absolutely designed for diehards to crack their teeth on. They are also where the particulars of smart combat really become apparent, requiring quick thinking to even reach each end-of-level boss, and the difference between certain portions of a stage among the various difficulties can be night-and-day.
The five central characters include series mainstays Axel and Blaze, as well as newly-returning hero Adam Hunter. ing these three are Adam’s daughter Cherry, the badass guitar-wielding rocker, and classic brawler slow-tough-guy archetype Floyd, a cybernetically-armed juggernaut who is the strongest of the five (and a personal favorite pick). All five characters have blitz attacks, some have a dash or a run ability, and they’re all fairly differentiated, making it incredibly fun to experience each level freshly with another hero. This sounds simple enough, but it’s a crucial requirement for the staying power of a beat ‘em up’s single-player campaign.
If the gameplay is rock solid and the animation is -perfect, it’s still within the finer details that Streets of Rage 4 comes alive the most. For instance, consider how picking up items and weapons off of the flow utilizes its own special button, preventing any error in combat and correcting a flaw to be found in the original games. Blaze retains her series aptitude with knives, changing the weapon’s normal stab motion (when used by any other characters) into a flashy trademark flourish. Floyd may be much slower than the others, but one of his special abilities yanks distant characters into a quick grapple, ensuring that he retains a way to deal with faster enemies. Cherry adopts Skate’s aptitude for bulldogging foes from above, bops back and forth on enemy heads with careful jump attacks, and her special ability smashes them with an electric guitar. Each character has a limited screen-clearing ultimate move that looks brutal, including her wonderfully-animated guitar-solo slide across the floor.
Speaking of special abilities, there’s a brilliant mechanic where activating them reduces your health bar (which is itself quite common in beat ‘em ups), but this loss is potentially temporary. If you can manage to damage enemies without getting hit you will recoup this lost health, adding an engrossing risk/reward aspect which also pushes players to use these fun abilities more often. The combo scoring system follows in line, with points only being awarded if combos aren’t interrupted by any received damage. This means that any scoring built from a long successful string of attacks can be completely lost by a single punch received at the wrong time. It’s a brutal but fair system, requiring careful and constant attention to nearby enemies while your combo counter continues ticking upward. Those points aren’t just for bragging rights either, with high scores awarding useful 1-ups on a sliding scale that refreshes after each stage.
Each of the five starting characters (technically four, but Adam gets unlocked fairly early on) present their own combat idiosyncrasies…but wait, there’s more. Pixel-perfect renditions of most Streets of Rage characters can be unlocked over time, including Dr. Zan, wrestler Max, Skate, and even multiple versions of Axel and Blaze from the original trilogy. It’s ittedly nostalgic fun to play through levels with these characters (they even retain their combat sound effects from their respective games), but Streets of Rage 4 doesn’t quite mold around them as fluidly as the main crew. Since Max and Shiva are both updated and encountered as bosses in-game, it’s a little unusual that their modern versions aren’t unlockable, and hopefully they will arrive in the coming months as a free update or paid DLC.
The fan service doesn’t stop there, with the option to freely play through the entire game while listening to the original soundtracks to Streets of Rage 1 and 2. Again, much like the aforementioned retro characters, it’s a hat-tip to nostalgia, but enabling this option also means missing out on the wonderful new OST in Streets of Rage 4. The game’s diverse soundtrack is absolutely superb, and it’s set to timed shifts and changes as you progress through each level, which doesn’t occur with the retro tracks turned on.
The challenge of reviewing Streets of Rage 4 is that most every single aspect of the game is easily worth a thousand words, whether it’s the excellent new musical themes, the fantastic elevator sections, how each level’s lighting affects visual shading on the heroes (even on the retro characters), or the heavy-duty challenge of mania difficulty. This isn’t a retro throwback made to lazily nurse on nostalgia, but a hugely entertaining and replayable beat ‘em up that confidently earns its namesake; furthermore, certain sections, like the Chinatown level dojo or the glass elevator fight, might represent some of the greatest moments of the entire series. While internet multiplayer was not able to be tested for this review, best believe that its servers will be tested in the coming weeks, as old and young fans experience the game together for the first time and fistfight their way up the leaderboards. Streets of Rage 4 delivers on most every promise in the genre, sticking to its standards but excelling . If anything, it might just leave players wanting more—an endless dojo mode, multiple endings a la Streets of Rage 3, even more updated characters to choose from—but what’s available in the package as it stands represents a near-perfect representation of the genre. Here's hoping that this sequel is just the tip of the iceberg.
Streets of Rage 4 releases April 30, 2020 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. A digital PC code was provided to Screen Rant, for purposes of review.
