It’s April, and it’s time for a blast from the past. This month, I’ve been playing Streets of Rage 4, a sequel to a trilogy of classic beat-’em-up games released in 2020 – 26 years after the series’ last outing!
So, was it worth the wait?
Reminder: For the Year of Gaming Challenge, I have to play a game I’ve never played before (one of the many games I’ve bought in Steam sales and never got around to playing), give it a fair chance and write up my thoughts by the end of each month. (That may not sound like much of a challenge, but as a father with a lot going on right now, it will be hard to fit it in!)
The original Streets of Rage games were released on the Sega Mega Drive between 1991 and 1994. I have fond memories of playing them with friends when I was at school (and probably too young to be playing them – but hey, it was the 90s!). They were side-scrolling beat-’em-ups, and probably among the most famous examples of the formula from the height of its power. But a lot has happened in the last 26 years; has Streets of Rage been able to keep up?
Streets of Rage 4
The game was developed by Lizardcube, Guard Crush Games, and Dotemu and released in 2020. It features classic Streets of Rage gameplay but with an updated art style. It can be played with up to 4 players, locally or online, but this review focuses on the single-player modes.
The Streets of Rage 4 logo, surrounded by the characters from the game
Story
The story takes place ten years after Streets of Rage 3. Mr and Mrs Y – the twin children of series villain Mr X – have established a new crime syndicate and… *sigh* look, we’re not here for the story. And it’s just as well! The entire story is dumped on us in the opening crawl, and there’s no mystery or twists. It’s just a loose thread to follow as you beat up one henchman after another until you reach the final boss. On the one hand, that’s all you need for this kind of game, but that doesn’t prevent it from feeling a little disappointing.
Craft
One thing that is definitely not disappointing is the updated art style. They haven’t gone for a ‘retro’, pixelated effect like many other games, but a high-res, modern 2D animation style. The characters are interesting, mostly well animated, and you get different lighting and shadow effects based on what’s going on around you. There are still lots of palette-swapped enemies, but that’s probably as much of a tribute to the classic games as it is laziness on the part of the art department!
I admire the developers for trying to do something unique and interesting. (I know some people get nostalgia boners for that retro look, but it’s never really appealed to me!) Similarly, the soundtrack is great too, featuring a lot of 80s-inspired bangers and, again, evoking the old games while bringing things up to date.
Gameplay
It’s the classic beat-em-up formula: move from left to right, sliding up and down the screen and beating up a colourful parade of bad guys. You can destroy bins, which drop food to restore your health (yuck!), and there are pipes and knives to pick up and whack/throw at your enemies. It definitely feels a lot like the original SoR trilogy… but that’s not quite as high praise as it may sound!
I started out as Blaze, who used to be my favourite character (not just because I was a teenage boy but because I’ve always preferred the faster, more agile characters, honest!). I also tried the new, guitar-wielding Cherry and returning main character Axel, but I found the game frustrating to play with all of them. I finally settled on DLC character Estel. With her, I was able to blast through the story with relative ease, apart from the final level, where there is an obnoxious difficulty spike!
If you do struggle, you can replay levels with extra lives and power moves. The only penalty is a lower score, which limits your progress towards unlockable rewards. However, the rewards are heavily pixelated versions of characters from the old games. They haven’t made any attempt to update them to fit the new art style, and even with the retro filters turned on, they still look ugly and out of place. In their defence, they aren’t just reskins. As I said, I didn’t really hit it off with SoR4 Blaze, but when I unlocked SoR1 Blaze, I had a lot more success (and fun!).
It’s slightly annoying that you lose all progress when you die; it would be nice if it felt like you were earning something for your time and effort, even when you fail. You might also expect to be able to upgrade your characters, either via shops or levelling up. This is pretty common in other modern beat-em-ups, and feels conspicuously missing here (at least in the main game modes).
That’s not the only thing that feels a little dated. You can’t jump on desks, it lacks the fast vertical movement you get in Shredder’s Revenge, and the false perspective makes it hard to judge depth or to work out when you’re close enough to wail on the enemies. That last thing has always been a problem with these sorts of games, but it feels like other recent games have done a better job of alleviating it.
All of this points to a game that – while it looks and sounds a lot better – hasn’t really evolved in the last 25 years, and is missing some of the innovation and quality of life features that have become standard in most of its modern competitors.
Additional Content
Since I beat the story in around 5 hours, I got to try the other modes. Most of them – like Arcade and Boss Rush – are nothing to write home about, but Survival Mode is a bit more fun (and shows that at least some of the developers have played other games in the last two decades!). You play through a series of random arenas, with random baddies – including some from the old games, and after each round, you select from three random upgrades. You can also level up characters and unlock alternative moves. The art style in this mode is all over the place, but at least it mixes things up a bit.
It’s a shame you can’t unlock this stuff normally, but this mode – and the alternative moves – were added in DLC.
The Stats
- I bought the game in a Steam sale, paying just under £13 for the base game and DLC. It currently costs £22.49.
- I played it for nearly 7 hours, completing the main story and several runs through Arcade and Survival modes.
- I will probably dip into Survival mode occasionally, but I feel like I’ve seen most of what there is to see. I also hope to persuade my friends to carve out the time to play it together at some point, but I won’t hold my breath!
Final Thoughts
Streets of Rage 4 is a gorgeous-looking, great-sounding game that evokes the spirit of the original games… possibly a bit too well! It will inspire a strong sense of nostalgia for anyone who played the original trilogy in the 90s, but it hasn’t done much to innovate on the actual gameplay, at least not in the main story.
I enjoyed it, but anyone playing it without the benefit of rose-tinted nostalgia glasses may find it a bit dated and clunky compared to its modern peers.
For more, check out my other Year of Gaming 2025 reviews,
as well as my other Game-related posts.