Never in all my years did I think I'd make a negative review for a Streets of Rage game, and yet here we are... I can't even call this a Streets of Rage game. It's more like a clone that stole the rights to the name & does everything wrong. Let me start by saying I love the graphics. The art is beautifully hand drawn, animations are fluid & the lighting/shadows look great. But likeNever in all my years did I think I'd make a negative review for a Streets of Rage game, and yet here we are... I can't even call this a Streets of Rage game. It's more like a clone that stole the rights to the name & does everything wrong. Let me start by saying I love the graphics. The art is beautifully hand drawn, animations are fluid & the lighting/shadows look great. But like all things, looks aren't everything & can be deceiving. Put a snake in a tutu & it's still a snake.
The game play is a mixed bag. It's solid enough & punching enemies feels good, but you are doing nothing but punching enemies the entire time. You attack, maybe you'll special attack to get an extra hit or two, or to become invincible and avoid a hit, only to get countered by the next hit afterwards & then you lose twice as much health. You may be on a good combo streak, decide to jump attack your next target only for them to air counter you into the ground. You may decide to chase down your enemy only for them to constantly circle around you & run away then they leap at you out of no where & send you flying. See, this is where I say SoR4 is a clone. It gives your enemies all these kick ass abilities, they can attack you from angles, air counter, block your attacks, charge you from across the screen, spit fire at you, they have weapons & shields, super armor that makes them invincible, they leap at you from a mile away and can home in on you like a missile, while you get a bunch of sissy punches/kicks with a lame special attack that drains your health & leaves you open to attacks & you can only attack from left to right. You get nothing & they get everything. It sucks. It's made even worse because enemies are constantly spawning every time you take one guy out. They are like Hydra. Remove one head, two more takes it's place. They just keep coming & coming & I'm tired of mashing X for the love of god! Just let me move on please! Stop spawning already! They even spawn during boss fights just to rank up the tedium & make your life even more miserable. Bosses ain't no joke either and later on you'll be fighting multiple bosses at once, along with the spawns. They just won't stop, for the love of god just STOP THROWING ENEMIES AT ME EVERY SECOND! Give me something else... I know it's a beat 'em up but for crying out loud the amount of tedium here is insane. Even other games give you a break between levels & let you buy stuff or have some kind of progression system. There is no progression system in SoR4. All you do is mash X, occasionally you'll jump, pick up/throw an item or special attack but mostly you'll be mashing X a lot. Sometimes you'll >>X, but it won't matter.
Then there's the STARS. See, this game gives you stars which either give you bonus points at the end of a level & increase your rank, or give you an ultimate attack per star & the only way to get these stars is to find them in the game in containers (very rarely) or sacrifice your score & points earned at the end of a level. Points are used to unlock things in the game, but not by spending them. Oh no, they are like experience points and by sacrificing them you earn nothing. You can't beat later levels without these said stars & extra lives because the game is so ridiculously hard, even on normal. So, you are quite literally getting screwed by the game itself by choosing to use these stars.
They could have done something else for players to get unlocks. You know how you pick up cash piles in the game, why couldn't they make a shop for you to spend that cash in instead? They could have also just had a meter for ultimate attacks, yet they decided to make them a pick up that also is tied to your rank & score. Why'd they have to tie everything to the friggen score? I can't get a decent score because I need lives & stars to beat the level but to get lives & stars to beat the levels I need to sacrifice my score & that means I can't unlock anything because I can't get a decent score &... See, this game's a POS!
This game gives your enemies everything, gives you nothing, expects you to win with nothing & then if you try to win with something it takes away everything for anything you do. It's like a greedy banker that keeps on taking & taking & then when his customers expect some kind of interest or compensation he makes them pay more fees.
This game is NOT a Streets of Rage game. It's a piss poor clone designed to make you grind for points to get unlockables. That's all it is, that's all it ever will be.
In the end, this game does some weird middle ground between retro & modern but doesn't really accomplish either. It's like playing through a modern beat em up with characters from old games that weren't updated & because of that it's just not very good. If you're gonna make an updated version of a classic series then you gotta update it all the way, not stop half way through.… Expand
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