After buying it like 4 or 5 days ago or whatever, I finally played through Streets of Rage 4. More specifically, my little brother and I played through it together, since we both grew up with the other 3 and I absolutely wanted him to play this one with me. We made it to the stage 1 boss on hardest, realised that we were in for a tough one, switched to hard, and then were able to beat the game in a couple of hours. And it was a really great time!
The game is well worthy of being a sequel to what came before it and I’d call it the best entry in the series in fact - it’s so bloated with fanservice while having its own completely unique and exciting identity, we both really loved the entire experience.
Mechanically the game’s so fucking tight, lots of the levels have some pretty unique mechanics to them that make them feel like more than just backdrops for a beat ‘em up, there’s a great balance of risk versus reward with how specials work as well as the lives and point systems, the latter of which especially comes into play in the higher difficulties (we knocked one or two levels out in Mania just to see if we could - by that point we were practiced enough for it to be easier) due to greater enemies leading to higher combos leading to more points leading to more lives, it really rewards skillful play in that sense, and the star moves are just another great way in which the beat ‘em up mechanics are fresh and exciting. Plus, having a dedicated pick up and throw button is just, so unbelievably appreciated, really ties it all together to make for the best controlling game in the series. Back attacks are similarly just, helpful, the control is so tight and it’s great.
All the new characters are fun as hell and fit in with the old super well, I love the implementation of the classic variants of the characters (even though we were only able to unlock the Streets or Rage 1 cast in our one playthrough), the retro soundtrack and visuals are both really great, the modern visuals are genuinely stunning, the modern soundtrack is just fucking bop after bop after bop, the game’s just fucking, really damn great overall. I had a delightful time. Lots of retro revival type games like this can go horribly wrong due to not understanding what was great about the originals in the first place, and I’m thankful to say that’s not the case here.
The main things I would say against the game probably are that the ranking system seems pretty tough on you, like perhaps a bit too much so, and also, you really don’t get enough opportunities to use star moves - it feels like most levels will give you 1 if you’re lucky and then that’s it, and they aren’t restored between lives or anything either. Again, they’re fun, fresh, add to the moveset of each character, but they’re just too uncommon, and also don’t really do enough damage to justify their limited use. We also encountered a few glitches, including a softlock in the versus mode when we both got thrown off the elevator stage at around the same time - and then another when we looked at the stage select and did the train stage to go for a better rank, the boss spawned yet had no hurtboxes to speak of, ergo she was invincible and unbeatable. Which is a bit of an issue. Those were actually the only bugs we encountered though, again neither during the main campaign or anything, so like, eh.
Overall really great time, I don’t really score games ever so.
