Streets of Rage

The Good
Ahhh the game that started a direct rivalry between the snes and genesis beat em up genre. When Capcom brought Final Fight "a inferior port" to the super nintendo, the genesis stood up and produced Streets of Rage for their system though in the beginning a rather poor man's final fight. Lets talk about the good

The graphics for the time were decent. Though smallish compared to Final Fight they were able to support FAR more characters on screen to pummel compared to Final Fight. This game could support over TEN characters on screen to beat you to oblivion.

You get three characters to choose from. Axel, Blaze or Adam.

You get a special attack which is very useful in the game.

The Levels are quite varied and very diverse. Always a plus when playing a game where beating up people is the main focus.

The music! This game is the first game from Yuzo Koshiro. The Music in the Streets of Rage series has constantly outperformed the Final Fight series. In my opinion anyways. Some of the great themes in this game are the intro telling the storyline and the character selection screen. Most of the beats in the game are fairly memorable. The game beats Final Fight in the music respect hands down.

The Bad
Now for the downside of the first Streets of Rage game

Though more characters can be on the screen at once compared to Final Fight, the first streets of rage is inferior to final fight in the graphics department. Smaller characters compared to Final Fight.

The enemies are almost as cheap as Final Fight. They crowd you and beat the hell out of you and never let you up.

No Special moves like the first Final Fight. No character specials make this game more simplistic then Final Fight. Thankfully Streets of Rage 2 takes over soon.

Bosses can be EXTREMELY CHEAP. How cheap? Some of them can't even get a hit in with some characters due to their long ranged highly effective attacks that cause massive damage.

Cheap hits A PLENTY. FOR YOU!!!

The Bottom Line
This game is a great starting foundation for Streets of Rage for the inevitable SUPERIOR sequels which eventually overtake Final Fight in innovation and beatdown. A good game but not a classic like the sequel. Overall a good solid seven out of ten. Though if you have Streets of Rage 2 or 3 then this game pales in stark contrast to them or even the first Final Fight.

This game is dirt cheap and fairly easy to find. If you want some cheap good beatdown fun and can't find Streets of Rage 2 or 3 then get this.

The Good
In Streets Of Rage you play as three ex-cops who quit cause all the corruption in the police and the city which used to be a nice place to live there names are Adam Hunter, Axel Stone, and Blaze Fielding so you clean up the streets by killing Mr. X the man behind the syndicate.

The gameplay is standard sidescrolling beat-em-up move from screen to screen killing and beating up bad guys with knives, glass bottles, pipes, and baseball bats throughout the 8 stages you have to dispatch of women with whips knife wielding maniacs and karate masters with a boss at the end of every level from Australians with boomerangs and clowns with wolverine type claws. At least this has team moves unlike other games you may have played.

But the music… oh how the music rocks the only song I can think of that’s not that good is the factory level the other 7 stages and the main theme are great kickass tunes.

The Bad
The graphics are not particularly good even for the year of 1991 with objects that aren’t the right size either too tall or wide.

The special move with the cop car is somewhat cheesy and is not usually needed as the game isn’t particularly hard.

The Bottom Line
Overall this game is a great genesis game while the second improves on it in just about everyway but that’s for another review.

The Good
The first in the legendary beat ‘em up franchise from Sega. All of which appeared on the Sega Genesis, and the first two on the Master System and Game Gear. These were some of the finest games on the Genesis and of the 16-bit era.

In Streets of Rage series you chose between 3 characters. Axel, Adam, and Blaze. They become vigilantes, when Mr.X’s stranglehold on the city becomes to tight. The ex-cops vow to rid the streets of his insidious presence. Eight stages of head busting action await you before you can face Mr. X.

The Graphics in SOR are not that good. It came out in 1991 and compare it to other games at the time, like Sonic.

The Music/Sound is one of the areas where this game really excels. Yuzo Kosihiro’s soundtrack is incredible, there is not a single tune that does not kick ass. The sound effects are passable, but the incredible score makes up for this ten-fold.

The Gameplay is solid. With plenty of bone-cracking action to go around. It is one of the most satisfying action games this side of Shinobi III.

The Bad
The Graphics are bad, for the time. And compared to the others this one is weak.

The Bottom Line
Play this game, it is still fun after all these years.

The Good
This is such a fun game to play, alone or 2 player. The button response is perfect for the pace of this game. The graphics look pretty good and the game runs great without any lagging or choppy graphics. The levels are pretty cool and the artwork looks cool too. The music in this game is awesome too.

There are three characters to choose from (Adam, Axel and Blaze) each with unique abilities. I noticed Axel walks faster and Adam has long range kicks and they all have different attacks.

The enemies in this game are pretty interesting. From ninja's that jump from one side of the screen to the other to mistresses with whips, I'd say they're appropriate street scum.

The bosses in this game are pretty random, only in the sense that you would'nt expect big fat fire breathing fat guys. Did I mention they are fat?? A couple other random bosses would be the tall boomerang throwing guy, the tall guy with "Freddy Kruger" gloves and what street thug game would be complete with out the random wrestler? Yeah that's right, a wrestler, only he doesn't fake punch you, he's the real deal.

Oh, and the best part of the game, the weapons. There are pipes for swinging, bats for bashing, knives for "shanking" and bottles for breaking on peoples heads and of course using the remains to stab, repeatedly. Also when things get tough you can Call For Back-up and police cruiser will rush to the scene and lay down some heavy artillery.

The Bad
Don't get me wrong, I love this game but there are some things that annoy me. For instance the constant re-use of the same bad guys. The game continually changes the color of the enemies and then tries to pawn them off on you as some different bad guy. Then the game takes it a step farther by doing the same thing with Bosses! I guess creating a handful of more characters was too much to ask for.

The Bottom Line
Awesome action packed game, one of the best for Genesis. A good start to nice lil' trilogy.

The Good
It's hard not to start without mentioning the soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro. For a console that was pretty much laughed for the poor sound abilities, having one of the best soundtracks in the history of videogames is no easy feat. Still, you've probably heard so much about the soundtrack that it's almost pointless to go in details on how not only it sounds good, but also fits the mood of the game perfectly, so for the sake of brevity, I'll just say it's rated "5".

Gameplay works fine for most of the time (except a couple of parts mentioned later), and it's perfectly possible to define a strategy and apply it without much problems. Two player interaction makes things a lot more interesting, as combination moves and avoiding hitting the partner during the 7-opponent brawls surely open the strategy of the game. Characters are different enough to force different tactics, mostly based on hitting power (Axel and Adam) or Jumping and Speed (Blaze). Some scenarios include traps (such as industrial presses or pits), and mastering the use of them (or the spot to launch a punk from the elevator in the seventh level) is a shortcut on the way to victory, and let's be honest, very amusing.

The Bad
While I love the genre, SoR does one of the things I usually loathe - the way women are portrayed in these ga... oh wait, nevermind. Still, using the same boss twice, the second time with a second added and both with a different colour palette is a cheap way to increase the overall difficulty level. Honestly, I can only image what went in the heads of the good people at Sega: "Hey now, we have the boomerang guy, the fangs guy, the wrestler, the fat guy and the cheap re-use of one of the main character sprites. Now what?". Well, as expected, once beaten they return in later levels with slightly different colours. In fact, pretty much of the 8th level premise is fighting bosses. All over again.

Graphically, while not being horrible, the game is lacking a bit of polish as backgrounds are a bit grainy and characters without much detail and animations lack a couple of frames here and there. However, we're talking about the first game in the series, so it can be excused. A final mention goes to gameplay. First, the lack of a dash button make some enemies such as the fat man very hard, and generally slow and over-reliable on "strafing" to approach certain enemies. Second, the special attack. While all mighty and powerful, one should ask if it makes any sense. I mean, why can't our guys just storm a level, speeding and running over the punks using the car? And how can the bazooka be so accurate not to harm friendlies in site? Thankfully, it was replaced by a more useful move in the second game of the series, so like the graphics, it can be excused (but penalized in score) again.

The Bottom Line
In the end, while still being one of finest examples of the Mega Drive's early titles, it had most shortcomings sorted out in the second and third (the original Japanese version, at least), and can't hold a candle to them. However, when placed against similar titles for the platform, it still manages to be one of the best. It might not have the graphics and moves of the second, or the plot and multiple paths of the third, but it's still a solid gaming experience.

The Good
Streets of Rage.....

I say it was a dismal year, because this was the year the SNES was released. 1991. A system that pretty much threatened to blow everything else out of the water....

When Final Fight came out for the SNES I was furious because it had been rushed out mid-development so that it would be ready for the SNES launch in America. That meant that levels, characters, and two player simultaneous mode were NOT IN THE GAME.

All was not lost. Sega released this little gem, Streets of Rage. Streets of Rage is an obvious rip-off of Final Fight (a side-scrolling, fighting platform game). The graphics are inferior to Final Fight and the sprites are smaller, but the graphics are still good and make the game enjoyable.

The game actually has more moves than Final Fight. Its longer than Final Fight (for the SNES). It has more types of enemy characters than Final Fight. And finally, it is actually a TWO PLAYER game. Quite rare for this genre back then.

The Bad
The graphics were not as good as Final Fight, not by a long shot. But they were still roughly arcade quality. About on par with the Double Dragon games (the arcade versions, not the NES).

That's about it. It was pretty good.

The Bottom Line
If you like this one, I'd recommend Streets of Rage 2. You have to try that one out. Its pretty nice.

The Good
Streets of Rage is definitely the best beat-'em-up I've ever played on the Genesis, and one of the best beat-'em-ups ever. It is only bested, in my opinion, by Capcom's arcade game Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.

Since the game is simple, I may as well keep the review simple: terrific graphics, awesome music, great level design and lots of fighting moves. The scenery changes, the music changes, the enemies change, the only thing that more or less stays permanent in this game is the violence...

... and oh, what great violence indeed.

The Bad
Nothing really, it's quite complete.

The Bottom Line
A terrific beat-'em-up, definitely the best on the Genesis and worlds better than its sequel.

The Good
This is perhaps the most awesome of all kick arse games for the Sega Genesis. The amount of times this has helped me to release my anger.

The special's have come in handy i don't know how many times, but you can not use them on level 10, the final round.

The Bad
The levels are almost the same, with the exception of levels seven and ten. You also cant high kick the level 2 boss, god damn it.

The Bottom Line
Well worth the money.