Streets of Rage 4 Review

Ahoy Captain Cats here and today we are going to look at a series that hasn’t see the light of day in over 26 years and now the Streets of Rage series is back with Streets of Rage 4 and the biggest question is does it live up to the series standards or crashes hard and the answer to that is yes it does live up to the standard but also set the bar.

Streets of Rage 4 (SoR for short) or Bare Knuckle as the series is known in Japan, take place in the series timeline 10 years after the events of SoR 3the City of Wood Oak is in peace. Soon after a new crime syndicate lead by the Y Twins, Mr. X’s kids are throwing the city into chaos once again. Axel Stone, Adam Hunter, and Blaze Fielding are back with two new characters, Cherry Hunter, Adam’s daughter, and Floyd Iraia, Dr. Zan’s cyber-enhanced apprentice.

SoR 4 is co-created by Lizaedcube, Dotemu, and Guard Crush Games and they did a fantastic job on this game. The graphics are some of the best I have seen in a long time in terms of 2D beat’em up. They took all the things that made the first 3 games in the series such a joy to play and improved on them and gave them tweaks that gave this classic series a new lease on video game life. Another thing SoR has is a new combo system and it makes the combos feel like your playing a fighting game and it makes you want to keep the combo going to see how are you can keep it going or mix it up to learn new things. The controls here are as tight and responsive as they were back in the day and that is a huge plus with level of difficulty goes up a bit by bit as you progress in the game. The more you progress and unlock new things such as more playable characters the more you want to keep going and find every Easter egg and unlock everything and there is a lot to unlock.

The music in this series is one of the best in gaming history, and SoR 4 doesn’t disappoint at all. It is up there with SoR 2’s iconic and classic album and with a lot of huge names as guests, it will have its article in music this week, that’s how great the music is.

Overall SoR 4 is an instant classic, not only we are seeing a classic series make a huge comeback, but it was done right and handle with care and it shows. This game is a continuation, not a remake or a cash grab on nostalgia, this game is 100% the real deal. SoR4 is out now on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch and easily a game of the year contender.