Streets of Rage 4 - Review

I have been so excited for Streets Of Rage 4 to be released. I wanted a physical copy so made sure to order it from Limited Run Games. It has been over a quarter of a century since Streets of Rage 3 was released, and the series was one of my favourites growing up. I expected it would be weird playing it on the PlayStation 4 as previously I had only played it on the Mega Drive. It finally arrived last week and I could not be more eager to play a game.


In the nineties when I lived in London I went to Beanos in Croydon (long since closed) with my best friend at the time Dave. Beanos was a great music shop which managed to be small and large at the same time, it was like a mini-tower. On the top floor, there was a large TV that played movies and a couch. They sold American chocolate and made fresh milkshakes and malts. This was the first time I tried Hershey's Cookies N Creme, it was amazing. All these years on when I have one I still have fond memories and still tastes good. While playing Streets of Rage 4 I found myself asking was it just nostalgia or was it still tasty?

Story


27 years ago Mr X was finally defeated once and for all by Axel, Blaze, and the gang. The city experienced peace once more until a new syndicate took control, this time led by the children of Mr X -  Mr and Ms Y. Axel and the gang must take to the streets and take down these new powerful foes. This time sees the return of characters like Adam and Max, along with the introduction of new characters like Cherry (Adam's daughter) and Floyd - a beefcake with bionic arms.


Overall the story is pretty straight forward and simple with a few 'ooooo' moments. I really loved the story especially the fact they played homage to the previous games.

Visuals


When I first watched the trailers for Streets of Rage 4 I was unsure about the art style. I had gotten so used to the 16-bit graphics from the Mega Drive it was hard to process this new art style initially. Quickly that faded, I really like the new look, it was fresh but also had an old school feel. The levels are so vibrant and colourful, the characters look new but also so familiar. Honestly, I could not have asked for more.  Even the older bulky looking Axel looked perfect and made sense, I think the only character that did not really age was Blaze. Even the animation for attacks look fantastic, just look at the images above and below. One of my favourite looking levels was one where you are in a glass elevator which is really intense, along with being on top of a train watching the city go by.


Overall I have zip/zero to complain about, the game looks great and is a great addition to the series.



Music


I cannot overstate this but I loved the Streets of Rage soundtracks for the first three games. Kuzo Koshiro created the sound for them and it as important as the gameplay itself. He has helped create the sound for many other games including Sega's Revenge of Shinobi (another fantastic soundtrack and game).  I was excited to hear he would be returning to work on Streets of Rage 4, this time he brought some friends: Olivier Deriviere, Groundislava, XL Middleton, Keiji Yamagishi, Harumi Fujita, Mothiro Kawashima, Yoko Shimomura, Scattle, Yuro Koshira, Das Mortel and H-Pi.


The soundtrack is over an hour long and features many great tracks, in fact so many I stopped writing them down. If I had a gun to my head and could only pick five tracks they would be; The Streets, They're Back, Mr Y, Nora, Barbon, and Double Divas. Overall a great soundtrack, and while I don't like it as much as the others once I have listened to it for over a hundred hours like the others that might change.

Gameplay


The gameplay is classic side-scrolling beat em' up action, that anyone who played the previous games will be familiar with. There are however a few changes that add a new dynamic and a new level of replayability. As always there are a number of different difficulty levels from easy to mania. There is a boss challenge mode, level select mode, and a versus mode. This time you can play up to 4-players in Co-Op which is really neat. The more you play the more you can unlock, everything from the soundtrack to more characters including some of the classic look characters and for the first time you can play as Shiva, Mr X's right-hand man.


The fighting is a lot of fun, the animations and in general, the fighting is really smooth. Special moves can eat your health but if you knock out an enemy quick enough you can recoup the loss. Similar to previous games each character have their own strengths and weakness along with special moves. There a lot more weapons this time and it seems the enemies are as free to use them as you are.


There are eleven stages in the game which is the most any game in the series has featured to date. Each of them has a very different look and feel along with more than a few hazards that can be used to your advantage. Each stage has its own boss and sometimes two, this can be extremely challenging as you only have two lives per round but you can get more if you are willing to reduce your score.


Overall the gameplay is fast and tons of fun and cannot recommend it enough!




Final Thoughts


So, after just a few shorts hours how did I feel? Like I wanted to play the game over and over again. The story was fun and a nod to its predecessors. The visuals managed to be both new and retro at the same, great soundtrack (even though it not my favourite..yet). The gameplay is fun and the new modes give it a lot of replaybility. This one gets a smooth 5 out 5