Streets of Rage

"An excellent beat em up that only a few games can compete with."

In 1991, scrolling beat em ups still where a very popular genre which allowed you to beat up enemies with your bare hands and in most of the games it where also possible to pick up weapons on the stage and use them against your enemies. Another reason why this type of games was as popular as they where was because it's was one of the few Arcade type of games where it was possible for two (or more) players to work together against the evil enemies.

Some popular games in that genre is Double Dragon, Golden Axe, Final Fight and some of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. Since many of these type of games got ported on the SNES, Sega needed another exclusive title than just Golden Axe in this genre. Streets of Rage was born!

"This city was once a happy, peaceful place... until one day, a powerful secret criminal organization took over. This vicious syndicate soon had control of the government and even the police force. The city has become a center of violence and crime where no one is safe.

Amid this turmoil, a group of determined young police officers has sworn to clean up the city. Among them are Adam Hunter, Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding. They are willing to risk anything... even their lives... on the... Streets Of Rage."

That's what the opening in the game tells us what's going on in the city that the game takes place in. The evil Mr X is starting to build an empire of crime in the city, and not even the police can stop him. However the three young police officers Adam, Axel and Blaze won't allow this to happen and decides to challenge the thugs on the Streets of Rage and save the city from Mr X.

The three characters are perhaps the three best balanced I've seen in any game. Every character are good at two things and a bit worse in the third thing. Adam is has an A in ATTACK and JUMP, but just a B in SPEED which makes him the slowest character. Axel is just as strong as Adam, but Adam can do better jump attacks while Axel is faster.

Blaze, just like almost any other female in any video game, has weaker attacks then the boys but can jump as good as Adam and walk as fast as Axel. My personal favourite is Blaze, but I guess Axel is the best since I rarely do jump attacks in this game. Pick the character that fits your playstyle.

When you have picked a character, it's time to start the game. Just like many other scrolling beat em up games you are walking on a stage, enemies pops up from everywhere and you have to defeat them to get any further. All the characters in this game can do a punching combo if you press the attack button more than once. The last attack in that combo will make the enemies fall, which means that you have to wait for them to stand up if you want to attack them even more.

If you think that attacking with your hands doesn't do enough damage on your enemies, you can also grab them by moving close to them when they aren't attacking. Then it's possible to hit them twice with your knee and then throw them away, which takes a lot of damage. Another great attack do quickly do some fast damage is to press the jump button and then attack the enemies while you are in the air, however keep in mind that Axel is much worse than the other two characters when doing this.

It's also to pick up weapons in this game. While you do more damage when you are using a weapon, it's not possible to do any combos with weapons, and an attack with weapons is usually slower than a bare hand attack, on the other hand weapons usually have a longer range. There are also different help items that you can pick up, some gives you more health while others gives your more points, lives, or another back up call.

It's only possible to use on back up call on each life for each player. A back up call will make a police car appear and use a heavy fire arm to defeat all the regular enemies on the screen and do notable damage on the stage bosses. When a player losses one life, it's possible to do another back up call. A good strategy is to save it for the stage boss.

There are four different difficulties in Streets of Rage, and the difference is very big. Easy and Normal shouldn't be difficult to anyone but hard is challenging and to beat Very Hard it takes two experienced players to finish the game. I don't want to spoil to much about this game, but lets just say that many lives will be lost during the final stage, so you better make sure to not lose to many lives during the first stages.

To fully enjoy Streets of Rage, I recommend that you find a friend to play this game with. While this makes the game a little harder since now there are two bosses on each stage that must be defeat (except in stage 5 and 6, where there are two bosses no matter if you play alone or with a friend). It's also possible to hit each other by mistake (or on purpose if you want to annoy your friend). A good teamwork is very important if you want to beat the game on Very Hard.

Normally I try to ignore to mention the music in my reviews unless there are some really classic tracks that any average player have heard, but when it comes to the Streets of Rage games it's just impossible to ignore. The soundtrack on each stage is a master piece and fits really well to the stage design.

Streets of Rage doesn't stand out in the same way as the sequel, however there's no doubt in my mind that this game still is better than most of the other scrolling beat em up games which was released during this time. So while it's not as great Streets of Rage 2, I'm still going to call it a classic in it's own. At least this game supports 2 player mode unlike that game Capcom released in two different versions on the SNES.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/18/07