Streets of Rage II

"What? I DIED???? Already?"

Streets of Rage was published on Mega drive/genesis,1992, it's a direct plagiarism from Final Fight, that I think it can have a fairer gameplay etc.
Sega made it, I don't believe, Sega made this crap.... oooch to the review

-GRAPHICS AND SOUND/FX-
Not bad, but this game is simply simple regarding graphics, to be sincere, it looks more like a nes game than a genesis game, I feel that the characters moving around and being punched are just merely dolls.
The roads simply look like roofs instead of streets, but the characters simply look like if they were in a cartoon, I hardly can see any face unless I fit my face on the screen.
There isn't much to talk about sound though, simply because there is barely no music, well, music and fx there are in, but they are very annoying and not much varied, they can get on your nerves sometimes of so much repetitiveness, I'd mute my TVset. It's like if I put a CD in my walkman basket and hear the same sound over and over.

--GAMEPLAY-
Guys, what these ignorants from Sega were doing? The gameplay is simply repetitive.
Well, you start the game choosing four chars, each char has their own special, there is neither weaker nor stronger, but there is a thing called balance, the most balanced character is the girl, but she has everything in 2 (rating from 1 to 3 starts), the slowest is max, he loses in speed, but he gains in power.
If you wanna know, the stats don't really change, actually they won't upset your fun, but the stupid system can do it.
Well, if you are wondering why I am bashing this game, lemme explain, once you start a game, chosing you char, you'll be seen on a street, well, it's ok now, but it'll get worse fastly. why? this game has something called ''FAKE HARDNESS'' that makes the game look like SFZ3 set at the hightest difficult level, the reason is that your enemies (most likely the bosses) can remove 25% of your lifebar in one hit, when you can only hit him causing 15% or slightly more of damage.
The lifebar is also too sensitive, the weaklings that run through the city can kill you if you let them, thing that is not so far, atleast, let them more difficulty but atleast make the lifebar more resistant.
If you let them hit you, you'll be dead in few seconds,guy.
Some bosses aren't hard though, like the sluts that you face in second stage, while some are hard, like
a madman that can fly and hit your butt, but one stage will make newbies get crazy, there are 2 bosses, one has the special lifebar that the normal bosses have, and the other has a normal life bar like you, the problem is that they attack you at the same time, making impossible for you to defeat them.
The stages interacion isn't so high, the stages themselves look the same, by example, the stage of the city, the first one, loos like the city was the same the entire stage, but each stage has its own ministage, each ministage might contain a boss or not.
You will first walk on the streets, after some time, you will enter a mini-stage, and after the ministage, you will come back to the city, and basically every stage runs like this.
The control layout is another disappointment, actually, we can understand this if it were wellplaned, but the guys at sega didn't worry much, there are 3 buttons (duh), A is an speciall attack, B is a normal attack, and C is jump. They could have made more combinations to make the controler be used well, but they didn't and the entire game will keep you pressing BBBBB. Bah.
The game has 4 modes of gameplay, the first one is oneplayers mode, whre you will run through each stage defeating the quarrelsome bullies; the second, your friend can help you to kick their buttocks.
The third is sort of a street fighter clone, where you can pick some special things, this is the dullest though, and having 4 chars, I doubt you will enjoy doind this lotsa times. the fourth you might know, or not? why it's the options.
Wanna more on errors about gameplay? well, I've got one very hot, the enemies don't seem to be hitting you, but once they are close to you, you lose energy, just another one, you can waste life using specials.

-STORY-
Dejavu .... I've already seen it, mainly on ART OF FIGHTING and FINAL FIGHT.
Remember on FF? Mike Haggar had her daughter kinapped (she was a daughter, sister, I don't remember), And now we have another KIDNAPPING story, the main villain kidnapped the poor adam.

SCORING
SOUND: 46%
GRAPHIC: 52%
GAMEPLAY: 64%
EXTRAS: 2%
REPLAY VALUE: 32%

Rent or Buy?
The answer is no, this is merely a rip off from Final Fight, although having flaws, it's enough to be rented, but not to be bought, a day of rent will be enough to make you able to beat the arcade mode, if you buy, I don't think it'll make you happy until your death.

Closing
Well, Streets of Rage I think is a blatant rip off from Final Fight, That I enjoyed a lot, so bad I can't say the same for this, sega, sorry, but that wasn't this time, maybe Double Dragon got closer to FF, but not much, but aleast, enough to be better than SOR.
Worth a rent.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 11/05/01, Updated 11/11/01