Streets of Rage 2

aka: 3D Streets of Rage 2, Bare Knuckle II, SoR 2, Streets of Rage II
Moby ID: 6633
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/29 2:53 AM )

Description official descriptions

After Axel Stone, Blaze Fielding and Adam Hunter destroyed the evil Syndicate leader, Mr. X, the city became a peaceful place to live, and each one of them followed their own paths. One year later, after their reunion, Adam's brother Sammy returned from school to find their apartment in a mess, and Adam nowhere to be seen, and after calling his two friends, one of them notices a photo of Adam chained to a wall, next to someone they knew very well - Mr. X, who returned to turn the peaceful city once again into a war zone. Now, Axel, Blaze, Sammy, and Axel's good friend Max, a pro wrestler, must head out to stop Mr. X once again...hopefully for good...

Streets of Rage 2 differs from the previous title in several ways. There are changes in both graphics (characters now are bigger, more detailed and with more animation frames, and scenarios are less grainy) and gameplay (the rocket move was replaced by a special move that doubles in offense and defense along several new moves), along other new features such as life bars (and names) for all enemies and the radically different new characters.

Spellings

  • ベアナックルII - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Genesis version)

31 People (25 developers, 6 thanks) · View all

Main Planning
Planning
System Design
Main Program
Main Enemy Program
Enemy and Demo Program
Music Composers
Sound Effects
Sound Driver
Project Management
Object Design
Main Design
Background Design
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 50 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 180 ratings with 11 reviews)

The Legendary Beat em up. The game that topples Final Fight

The Good
Hi there and welcome to the game that crushed Final Fight. Let me talk about what this beauty does right.

The Graphics. A HUGE Improvement over the first streets of rage though not as big as Final Fight. HOWEVER the speed of the sprites and the number far outranks the Final Fight games.

Another great thing about the sequel is the complete revamp of the character graphics. Axel's sprite is bigger has more muscle mass then before and his clothes have a few more minute details compared to Streets of Rage 1. Blaze also has a few new graphical touches over the original streets of rage.

New Characters: Skate is a great addition to the game. He's blazing fast compared to Axel and Blaze and definitely max. Skate also adds some challenge due to having the lowest stamina and strength rating. Also Max joins in. A wrestler that is more akin to Haggar from Final Fight. Though it feels strange not having Adam in this game.

Special Moves! A improvement over Streets of Rage 1. You can now use a special move with the A button where like Final Fight you do a move that is a gang up prevention. Axel does a flaming dragon punch, Blaze does a fireball, Skate does a drill kick and max does a rushing dash. Great stuff. Also each character also has a regular special move. Like the "get da powa" uppercut move that Axel does.

More variety in the levels. In this game you go through bridges and arcades, beaches, a baseball mound, city areas. And several other amusing areas. Though to be honest I wonder why they go through this city on foot. Wouldn't it be easier to go through it by car?

Music. Is SERIOUSLY better this time around. Sure there are some remixes but the quality is far improved and sounds quite a bit better. The soundtrack in streets of rage 2 is the high point of the series and is a pinnacle in beat em up music pleasure.

Sound effects. There's far more this time and they sound far more clear and sharp compared to the original Streets of Rage game. There's punches, kicks, karate yells, axel yelling GET DA POWA, screams from enemies dying, knife hits and bar smacks. This game has tons of great sounding sound effects. Way to go.

The difficulty is adjustable and quite frankly this game gets insane once you start going into the hard and very hard and mania modes. This game offers tons of beat down and the higher the mode the more beat down you serve to the game. Playing this game is pure unadultered awesomeness when it comes down to it.

The Bad
To be honest the only nitpicks I can find about this game are below.

high scores disappear when game is turned off.

Why is it that only skate can run? Why not Axel, Blaze and Max?

The Bottom Line
If I could describe this game I would describe it as a pure rush. This is a pinnacle of beat em ups. Right up there with Double Dragon and just a scotch above Final Fight.

Beginners and Vets will love this type of action and the game never gets old. The game is also pretty cheap too ranging from 5-10 bucks so you won't be breaking the bank when picking up this cart. A give this game a deserving 10/10 for providing so much beatdown that it oughta be illegal.

Genesis · by Mr. Huh (105) · 2005

Best fighting game ever.

The Good
I'm not really the one for fighting games and very few have ever managed to impress me. However, this did. Sega have real gem with this game here and it's fantastic. The idea is that you are on a street with a character, (4 to choose.) and you fight different people, with different health and moves. The game boasts 3 different difficulty levels and it's AI is ahead of it's time. Different moves are good against different people and the enemies counter your moves, and have some have their own items. Speaking of items, there are many you can pick up and use against your enemy. The enviorments are interesting and you can smash up chairs and bins with your weapons. Each character has unique moves too. With multiplayer co-op and fighting avaliable, who wouldn't love this game?

The Bad
Nothing I can recall.

The Bottom Line
If you're looking for a fun, classic and strong beat 'em up. Get this game, for cheap. It rivals new games and has aged well.

Genesis · by Exeox (38) · 2004

Is This the Best 16-bit Brawler?

The Good
So, who do you feel like playing as? Max, Axel, Blaze, or Skate? The choice has it's temptations, and I'm sure each fan of this game has their favourite. And that is understandable as they all have their offerings. Max is a Samson-esque figure with devastating power; Axel is the all-American hero-type; Blaze is the beautiful female player with a penchant for kicking; Skate is your inline enthusiast with agility and attitude. I've simplified these characterizations a little unfairly, but this is only a fraction of what the game offers. It doesn't matter who you select, "Streets of Rage 2" is a balanced and fun side-scrolling "beat-em-up" set in a gritty, urban environment - the "Streets of Rage" themselves I imagine.

The first thing I really enjoyed about this game was the soundtrack. Yuzo Koshiro takes us through these concrete jungle and back-alleys with his catchy and moody early House 'tracks. Although this style of music is pretty well obsolete, there is a great synergy between your character, what you are doing and where you are doing it. The music, which varies respectfully throughout the levels, adds an almost dreamy and catatonic impulsiveness, and, seeing as the entire game is set at night (am I right in saying this?) the music holds another level of believability. It adds an impression of a sub-culture of drugs, violence, and an after-dark underworld. The enemy appear almost like a disease as they continuously appear in your way.

The game-play itself, although deeply repetitive, is really well done. The "beat-em-up" has pretty much disappeared from modern games, and so "Streets of Rage 2" offers a great insight into this forgotten or superseded genre. Although there are no "Dead or Alive"/"Tekken" style button combinations to memorise and perfect, this game has it's modest share of violent combos. Remember that it 1992, there was no audience for insanely intricate customisation or player/character identification; rather, "Streets of Rage 2" gave players a feeling that their punches and kicks were landing square and true. This is the first game I remember playing that instilled a feeling of Power (capital "P"!) when you let fly on one of these punks or thugs. Not to mention the satisfaction of a two-player brawl where anything and anyone goes (flying).

Graphically, "Streets of Rage 2" shows the Megadrive at it's peak. Although fairly comic book in it's art design, the environments, characters and limited animations are top-notch. It's surprising that a game with quite simple animation conveys such potent feelings of connection between fist and head. On that note, it must be said that the collision-detection is spot-on; this can be painfully true when cornered by some of the giant-like shirt-less Karate experts!

The Bad
The main problem that I have with this title would be in the repetitive nature of it's game-play. It must be said that the level designers probably put as much effort in as anyone else out there at the time did, but by todays standards you find yourself repeating scene after scene of ultra-violence. (But, again, this has a strange hypnotic and exhaustive feel to it also!) You visit many different environments it must be said, but when all you do is walk left-to-right within them, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference if you're in a nightclub or a maniacs mansion - it's just a different backdrop.

The Bottom Line
For an action game, this has got to be one of the best 16-bit titles out there. I can't think of any other games that surpass "Streets of Rage 2's" all-roundedness. Some may look better, some may play better, but none combine the elements as successfully as this New York-based brawl-fest. (Why do I say New York? Well, the Twin Towers are visible in one of the levels). So, pick your man and hit the streets - Mr. X is at it again...

Wii · by So Hai (261) · 2008

[ View all 11 player reviews ]

Trivia

Cut fighting moves

In early beta versions of Streets of Rage 2, Axel had two very different (and familiar) attacks: a move VERY similar to a Shotokan Dragon Punch, and...a Shotokan Hurricane Kick?

Looks like Sega axed them for good reason: legal action from Capcom for unauthorized teachings of Shotokan moves to their characters. (Shotokan, by the way, is the fighting technique Ryu, Ken, and Akuma use in Capcom's Street Fighter series).

MC.K

In Stage 1, there is an enemy called MC.K who only appears once in the entire game. He is worth about 10,000 points, much more than any other non-boss character.

Music

Yuzo Koshiro claims to have been influenced by early 90's European club music while producing the soundtrack for SoR 2. This is mostly visible with the music in the first part of level 4, which bears an uncanny resemblance with the dance hit Move Any Mountain by The Shamen, released two years before.

References

  • Two fat thugs in the game are called Talk and Wanter. They're named after Talk Uchimura (Planning & System design) and Wanta (Project management).
  • Before the Round 4 Stadium, you can see a sign that says "It's like Boo!". This may be a reference to "Fat Boo" from Dragonball Z, which looks an awful lot like the SoR2 character Big Ben.
  • The character Skate resembles DJ Boy (from the game DJ Boy, another side-scrolling beat-em-up game). This arcade game developed by Kaneko was later published by Sega on the megadrive. In fact, Sega changed the name of the character from 'Sammy' in Bare Knuckle 2 (Japanese release) into Skate in Streets of Rage 2 (US release) and the US publisher for the Megadrive conversion of DJ Boy was the company "Sammy".
  • It's no coincidence that the fat enemies in the game often go by the name of 'Heart'. It's a reference to the popular manga Fist of the North Star (Hokuto No Ken), which featured an extremely overweight martial artist also called Heart.

Version differences

  • Sammy "Skate" Hunter was renamed to Eddie "Skate" Hunter in the U.S. and European versions of the game.
  • Max Thunder, the hulking pro wrestler, doesn't appear in the 8-bit versions (Game Gear and SMS) of SoR2.
  • Only in the Japan version, the final boss smokes a cigar
  • In the US version, the jump kick animation of Blaze was changed. Originally her legs are wider apart and reveal her panties.

Awards

  • EGM
    • 1993 Buyer's Guide - Hottest Video Game Babe (Blaze)
    * Retro Gamer + September 2004 (Issue #8) – #64 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote) Information also contributed by [Luis Silva](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,61998/), [MasterMegid](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,44055/) and [Sciere](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,30979/)
  • Analytics

    MobyPro Early Access

    Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

    Related Games

    Streets of Rage
    Released 1991 on Genesis, 1992 on Game Gear, 2011 on Windows...
    Streets of Rage 3
    Released 1994 on Genesis, 2007 on Wii, 2012 on Windows...
    Streets of Rage 4
    Released 2020 on Windows, Linux, Macintosh...
    Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X Nightmare
    Released 2021 on Windows, 2022 on iPhone, Android...
    Rage
    Released 2010 on iPhone, iPad
    Mean Streets
    Released 1989 on DOS, Linux, 2014 on Windows...
    Rage of Mages II: Necromancer
    Released 1999 on Windows
    Rage (Anarchy Edition)
    Released 2011 on Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

    Related Sites +

    Identifiers +

    • MobyGames ID: 6633
    • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

    Contribute

    Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

    Contributors to this Entry

    Game added by Satoshi Kunsai.

    Windows added by Duduzets. PlayStation 3 added by Lain Crowley. Nintendo 3DS added by Michael Cassidy. iPad added by Rik Hideto. Nintendo Switch added by Kam1Kaz3NL77. SEGA Master System, Game Gear added by RKL. iPhone added by Sciere. Macintosh, Linux added by Foxhack. Arcade added by Kohler 86. Wii added by gamewarrior. Android added by Deleted. Xbox 360 added by Ben K.

    Additional contributors: chirinea, Sciere, Alaka, lights out party, LepricahnsGold, Patrick Bregger, Starbuck the Third, Thomas Thompson, Jo ST, Harmony♡.

    Game added June 7, 2002. Last modified March 25, 2024.