I’ve looked at a few of the reviews online for Streets of Rage 4 and I’m not really surprised at what I see, but just like Uncle Phil catching Will and Carlton in the middle of some shenanigans, I’m still disappointed. It would appear that some critics wanted some sort of evolution in gameplay for the series, and to me that’s disappointing because that was never the point of this game. I mean, I could tell that from the first couple trailers I saw and I think I’m a pretty obtuse guy.

This game is for fans of the originals that wanted the same style game, play it online or on the couch with friends, just with a new coat of paint and some new characters. Maybe some new moves. They don’t want some meta-xp system or skill trees or season pass super extra deluxe edition DLC upgrade bullshit. They just want to play another Streets of Rage again. I honestly think this game was made for guys like me. And you know what? It delivers on that 100% and I absolutely love it. This game belongs in your collection with your Genesis Mini and whichever Genesis Collection you’ve got on your consoles.

I’m gonna start with the graphics because that’s obviously what you’ll notice the most from the start. The art style is awesome. They went for hand-drawn graphics instead of going for the pixelated retro look like so many other smaller developers. The animation looks great and true to its 16 bit roots, the animations match the original games, they’re just hand drawn this time. the characters walking, jumping, attacking and every other animation they do snaps into whatever change you’re making perfectly. They didn’t go for any sort of realism in the animation, they just went for style. The graphics are bright, they’re colorful, and everybody looks great. The lighting effects for everybody’s specials stand out as well.

The backgrounds look beautiful now that they’ve got so much more detail in them. Personally I always enjoyed looking at everything in the background as I played the original games and it’s no different here. Over the course of the game you’ll see lots of new backdrops for the action including jails, the city streets, police stations, bars and the like. I have to admit that I was disappointed that there weren’t any beach levels, or back in the old games there was an amusement park and baseball stadium, and I thought those were a refreshing change from the dirty streets and alleys. Also has this city ever been clean? I think even Metro City from Final Fight was in better condition than this.

Storywise, there’s not all that much here other than another bad guy group called the Children of Y have taken over in Mr. X’s place and our heroes have decided to get the band back together to pummel the hell out of everybody – on foot, because they wouldn’t have it any other way – to save the city once again. As always, Axel and Blaze are back as they have yet to find corporate work that allows caving someone’s head in with a pipe, and this time they bring along former Streets of Rage 1 teammate Adam’s daughter Cherry, who apparently is a big fan of El Kabong, and Jackson “Jax” Bri- *ahem* Floyd, who was fixed up by that old cyborg guy Dr Zan from Streets of Rage 3. Nothing’s really changed with the OG characters as they’re still proving their commitment to community service by breaking faces, bones, and if you’re Blaze… you’re breaking hearts. As I said there’s not a ton of meat in the story. The previous games just moved you from stage the stage and you didn’t even want for anything in between. But in this one, there’s cutscenes in between each level. Since there’s not much going on, the story does feel kinda hollow. Honestly you get more story out of the character galleries to see how everybody’s been doing since the last game than you do during the game itself.

You’re going to recognize a lot of the enemies in this as well as they’re all back. Donovan, Shiva, Big Ben… Personally the idea that these same guys have been getting their asses kicked in for 30 years without somehow dying of a brain hemorrhage, ruptured spleen, or shattered prostate is really funny to me. Like most of these guys really should be heads of cabbage if not already dead.

The art style is awesome. They went for hand-drawn graphics instead of going for the pixelated retro look like so many other smaller developers. The animation looks great and true to its 16 bit roots, the animations match the original games, they’re just hand drawn this time.

The gameplay is seriously the same as it was on the Genesis. You pick your character, then play through each stage beating everybody up and eventually get to a boss. Beat them up, then proceed to the next level to do it all again. You’ve got some new tricks at your disposal this time around, so in addition to your normal attack combo, grab moves, blitz move and a special, you can also do a charge attack where you just hold the attack button down and release it for some extra power, and what’s called a star move. The star move costs stars – surprising, I know – but is this flashy ultra powerful attack that will wreck everybody unlucky enough to stand near you. Your special attack still costs health like in the previous games, however now if you start beating on somebody right after you land it you can get some health back. Whiff the attack and get hit in return, and you lose a big ol’ chunk of health instead. It’s a risk vs reward system that keeps things interesting. Another nifty gifty is that you can do a special attack in the air, which I found to be really useful.

Another new thing that’s fun is that you can build up a hit counter in it that’ll add to your score. Take a hit and it’ll go away, but keep it going and you’ll get congratulated by the game on how well you did. To assist with this is that you can juggle your enemies when you get used to the combat. This is easier with some characters than others, but I did find that you can really put a hurt on enemies and bosses by catching them in a corner to nail them a few extra times in the air before they hit the ground.

Everybody plays differently due to varying stats. Oddly enough, you don’t know the stats unless you check the character gallery after you’ve unlocked it. If you’ve played the previous games, then you can guess that Axel and Blaze play mostly the same. Cherry’s style reminded me a little bit of Skate, mostly due to her grab move where she sits on the guys shoulders and beats his head in, which is one of my favorite things to watch. Floyd basically plays like Max, except he’s got an awesome star move that looks like Iron Man’s proton cannon attack in Marvel vs Capcom. Also he can pick 2 guys up at once and smash them into each other, which I thought was pretty hilarious. You have an overall meta score that has certain milestones that will unlock classic Streets of Rage characters from previous games. It’s really cool to play with the classic characters and all their sounds are the same as they used to be.

As is expected there’s couch co-op for up to 4 players, and you get 2 player co-op online, which is great to see since this game begs to be played with friends. You’ve also got an arcade mode where you have to make it as far as you can on 1 life, a boss rush, which personally I always have fun playing, and a battle mode that lets you fight your friends and possibly leads to a brawl in real life. But take it from me, if you get into a real fight then play dead and your assailant will eventually leave you alone. You’ve been given 12 pairs of ribs for a reason and they can’t kick in all of them before the cops arrive. And if you’re *in* the ER and give them the coupon code “Broken Controller” they’ll ask what the fuck that is, sedate you, and you can sleep right through the whole ordeal.

There’s really only a couple things I’m disappointed with in this, and that’s my story gripes I had along with the music. When the music’s good, it’s really, really good and on par with the first 2 games and will stick in your head. There’s multiple composers doing the tracks this time instead of just Yuzo Koshiro, the guy who did the originals. His tracks are right up there with the original games, and you’ll actually be able to tell when it’s his songs as opposed to anybody else’s. At worst the music just doesn’t really fit the level it’s in and is just kinda meh. After my first playthrough I just switched out the new music for the original tracks, which include the songs from the first 2 Streets of Rage games (possibly the 3rd but I didn’t recognize anything from there), and I believe the Game Gear version as well.

So the game has some missteps in the story and music department but it’s still a great time and playing Streets of Rage again felt wonderful because I didn’t think another one would get made. The hand drawn art and gameplay really stand out and make this one of the better beat ’em ups I’ve played in a long time. I hope this does well and they make another because I think there’s still plenty of fight left in this series, and for this genre of game.