As the dust settles and we finally recover from PAX pox, it’s finally time to get into what we saw and played during PAX South 2020. Now even though the show lacked the presence of big developers and publishers, that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a lot to see. In fact without the presence of the bigger developers/publishers, indie developers and mid tier developers/publishers had the chance to shine. One such publisher was DotEmu. At PAX South 2020, DotEmu was showing off two games: Windjammers 2 and the focus of this impressions Streets of Rage 4.
For those who need a refresher, Streets of Rage was a series of beat em’ ups that were developed by SEGA in the 90’s. This was SEGA’s answer to other beat em’ ups such as Double Dragon, Final Fight, Battletoads and various other games that came out during the same time. It was known for its non-stop action and its electronic dance influenced music scored by Yuzo Koshiro. Now considered a cult classic, DotEmu along with developers Lizard Tube (Wonder Boy) and Guard Crush Games (Streets of Rage EX) have decided to bring back the series with Streets of Rage 4. To keep the hype up till its release sometime in 2020, DotEmu brought the game to PAX South 2020, where I and friend and contributor to the site Cherrie B got to go hands on with the game.
Let’s start with what has had some people following the game a bit worried, the graphics. When the game was first revealed and shown off, may die hard fans of the series didn’t like how the art direction was going. Some have said that the game looked like a low budget flash game. And at first I did kind of agree. But when we saw the game in motion in person, it looked great. The animation was really smooth, the colors used for both the characters and backgrounds really popped and the new updated character/enemy designs looked really cool.
As for the the gameplay for Streets of Rage 4 is pretty much the same as the previous entries into the series with some additions. One of these additions is the inclusion of a grapple. In previous games, to grapple you would have to walk up to an enemy and press the punch button and hopefully you would be able to grab them and either deal out strikes from the clench, hold them so that your buddy can hit them or perform a throw. In Streets of Rage 4 all you have to do is walk up to an enemy and press the B button (we were using Xbox One controllers) and your character will grab the enemy. Now depending on where you grabbed the enemy you’re able to perform different throws. These range from a German Suplex to a jumping Pile Driver. Juggling enemies between players is easier this time around thanks to a really simple combo system. As you can see in the video, Cherrie and I took the bad guys to task with team grapples and throws.
As bad as a beat down the enemy AI was getting from us, it wasn’t a push over either. Each enemy type seemed to not only have their own individual AI but they seemed to be tracking our moves. For example whenever we would try to surround the mini-boss Goro, he would always counter our strikes and have his back away from us, preventing us from surrounding him. Now he didn’t do this at first, he did this only when we started to gang up on him. Even lesser enemies also started to block more whenever we be came aggressive. It was really cool to see enemy AI really react to how we were beating them up and trying to counter us.
The game looks great, it plays great, but how does it sound? Pretty damn awesome. Before we got to try the game out, Cherrie was telling me how she was a really big fan of the series composer, Yuzo Koshiro and the electronic dance music the series is known for. With some games that get remakes/reboots they tend not to have the original composers on board due to various reasons. With Streets of Rage, Yuzo Koshiro is closely tied to the series through his music, it would have disappointed long time fans if he wasn’t on board. Luckily he is back and not only that, several iconic composers have also lend a hand to making the soundtrack. Motohiro Kawashima also worked on Streets of Rage 2 and 3 with Koshiro-san, Yoko Shimura who has worked on the Street Fighter II games (Guile’s theme anyone?), Hideki Naganuma who worked on Jet Set Radio and Jet Set Radio Future, and Keiji Yamagishi who worked on Ninja Gaiden, Tecmo Bowl, Captain Tsubasa, and Gitaroo Man have all contribute to the game’s soundtrack. With this list of heavy hitters, Streets of Rage 4’s music will sound epic.
Final impressions: We really enjoyed our time with Streets of Rage 4. From the art direction and gameplay to its jamming music, everything seems to be coming along just fine with the game. The only thing left to do now is just wait for a release date, which is set for sometime this year.
