It seems that lately many developers have been remaking and remastering classic titles to be sold on to modern consoles for new and old players to enjoy once again. Instead of simply remaking a classic series, the combined minds of the developers at Lizardcube, Guard Crush Games, and Dotemu decided to make a series return by introducing a story continuation and whole new campaign with Streets of Rage 4! Seeing how it has been roughly 25 years since we got a main game entry, this is not only surprising but also concerning since Streets of Rage ended with a sour taste after the third installment. Luckily, this team knew what Streets of Rage was actually well known for and properly brought it back!

Story

Ten years after the fall of Mr. X, the Y Twins have decided to pick up where he left off and take over the city. Original members Axel and Blaze return with some new fighting moves to pair with their old ones in order to stop the evil duo from corrupting the city once more. They can’t do it alone though, so they brought back up in the form of Cherry and Floyd.

Gameplay

Proving to be a proper predecessor to the classic series, this game features a similar beat ‘em up gameplay style and adds a few new features for players to take advantage of. You are once again given the standard combo that only continues as long as your hits are landing, be it on one enemy or multiple that are close enough together, but now you get a few new tricks to increase your combo and damage numbers.

Before getting into the special tricks, it is a good note that each character is given their own fighting style. Axel and Blaze use the same ones we’ve grown to love, but Cherry does a more acrobatic style that ends with a pile drive finish and Floyd uses his powerhouse strength to demolish his way through enemies. They also brought back the grab moves, so if you walk up to an enemy it automatically grabs them and you get to decide if you want to throw them forward or backward. Floyd is the only slightly different case because he can grab an enemy behind him as well thanks to his strength.

Now, what they added are a few different things. The first and most useful one being the back attack letting you interrupt a combo to hit an enemy approaching behind you. This move lets you keep yourself from getting surrounded and are able to truly defeat the gang without being touched if timed well enough. You can’t build a combo off of the back attack, but it is more to save you from an attack from behind. The next thing they added was a powerful attack that takes some of your health when used. While these attacks are devastating to your foes, they don’t come without cost but that cost is regain-able as it isn’t a permanent loss and only a temporary one. The health bar lowers with a green bar holding place of where your health was and if you don’t get hit it can regain, but if you get hit even once it is all lost.

The last addition deserves its own section for explaining as it is your super attack. When you go through the level you can break barrels and boxes, just like the old games, to find various weapons, health items, and occasionally a star. These stars are a one-time use special attack for the player to use at any point in the level. I suggest saving them for boss fights, especially when they start bringing in the backup enemies to help them, but each character gets a different special attack.

Now, the way that you unlock more characters is a classic style on its own: you earn them through gameplay and skill! As you play through each level, you will earn what they call “lifetime points” and these points build up a bar. On this bar, you will see different pegs that each unlock a certain character. The first bar has 3 pegs and completing it will give you the full original Streets of Rage character line up. The second bar has 4 pegs and gives you the original Streets of Rage 2 character line up.

Other than the lifetime points bar, beating the story mode unlocks the Boss Rush and Arcade modes. These are very challenging modes on their own but are also a classic return for this series. Boss Rush has only one difficulty and you get no extra lives while fighting through them, so be sure to be ready to face each boss head-on because one death sends you back to the beginning. They will call for backup in these fights too, so bring your top skill! The Arcade mode brings the game to how the classic games were: no checkpoints, one set of lives, beat the game in one go, or start over. In the story mode, it checkpoints at the beginning of each level and will let you return to these levels with the Level Select menu once you beat it, but you can’t just hop into any level with any difficulty - you have to earn your way to it first.

The last thing to mention is the battle mode. While you can turn Friendly Fire off when playing the Story mode on multiplayer, be it local or online, the battle mode is a pure PvP experience. There are multiple levels to choose from and some of them will bring enemies into play, but there are some that leave the fighting to only be between the players. This lets players have a variety of battleground options when it comes to handling business with each other.

Visuals

It looks like they remastered the classic games and added a bunch of new areas to it. Everything looks modern, from the characters to the backgrounds, and they give you the option to play as retro character skins once you unlock them. It was also a nice touch to let players change what the small and large food options are, making it so you can personalize it or keep the classic apple and turkey.

Audio

With an interchangeable at any time soundtrack, you can enjoy the new music or the retro version that goes with the level type you are in. The best note about this is, sometimes I thought the retro version was turned on when I was just listening to the new track! They did an amazing job matching the style and keeping the series sounding like it picked up right where they left off.

Replayability

Thanks to the additional modes, multiplayer options going up to 4 players and being local or online, high skill cap ceiling, and difficulty options ranging from Easy to Mania (which is absurdly hard when playing solo), this game is loaded with replayability. Also, when you replay it, the game rewards you with the retro characters by maxing out the lifetime bars. There is plenty of reason to keep playing this game over and over, be it for skill capping, unlocking characters, or whatever else.

Verdict

Streets of Rage 4 is the perfect return of a classic series! I used that in the title and didn’t include a “What Could Be Better” section because I really have no complaints about this game. The small issues it had we’re patched before I even wrote this, showing the developers are aware of some problems and continue to improve the game. It has everything a Streets of Rage fan could ask for and is every bit as enjoyable as the series was back when it was in its prime, if not even more so now.