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Streets of Rage
Developer: Sega
Year: Streets of Rage - 1991
Streets of Rage II - 1992
Streets of Rage III – 1994
Backing up from the success of Double Dragon and Final Fight as side scrolling beat-em-ups, Sega brought of Streets of Rage (known as Bare Knuckle is Japan). And basically, it was a direct clone of Final Fight. There was not much originality or inspiration in the first game of the series, besides to shift units and ride the wave that other games had created. I mean, it wasn't a BAD game, the sound and graphics weren't all that impressive but weren't shiite either. The gameplay was good, but when someone could play Final Fight which was simply more fun, it just failed to impress. A mediocre game received a mediocre response.
However, (when you see a "however", you always know that there's going to be some ground-shaking revelation... right?) when Streets of Rage II was released in 1992 by Sega it seemed they had finally hit the mark between originality and repetition that make games good. The game had four characters, each with different moves, and each with the pros and cons of either being strong and slow, fast but weak, medium-strength and medium-speed, infected with syphilis. Ok, I made up the part about syphilis. But you get the picture anyway. The game also features greatly improved graphics, and a more responsive control system. You had a bigger variety of weapons, but once again you were let down by the enemies, with about 7 different models and the rest just being pallette swaps. The sound was... there.... and not all that different from the original. In the Streets of Rage community, the second is generally received as the best and most favoured of the series.
Which brings me to the third game in the series, inventively named "Streets of Rage III" (or Bare Knuckle III in Japan). And once again, the same gameplay formula had been copied, although it seemed that Sega had gone back a step, or not progressed much... or something. Either way, Streets of Rage III was about as much fun as being whipped with a wet towel in a sauna by someone in a Santa Claus costume. I hope that hasn't made you interested.
Streets of Rage, while not all that important to Fighting History, and not all that relevant, did prove one thing: people could in fact get sick of side-scrolling beat-em-ups. Thankfully it wasn't long before we got our sweaty little hands on 2D Fighting classics such as Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat.
Pube
Streets of Rage image galleries:
Streets of Rage
Streets of Rage II
Streets of Rage III
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