The early 90’s - the time of terrible dance music and Pat Sharp’s mullet - a lost cause then? Not quite, as Sonic and Mario continued to dominate the gaming headlines Sega found an ace card: the Streets of Rage series. The adventures of Axel, Blaze and company were the stuff of gaming dynamite, proving very popular both at the time and still today.
Streets of Rage – 1991
Mr. X and his evil crime syndicate have taken over the city, it’s up to you as one of three young police officers who’ve handed in their badges to bring him down. The original is where it all started and is still a classic to this day. It was the Megadrive’s answer to the SNES’s Final Fight and debate still rages on as to which was the better game.
It was your mission to take Adam, Axel and Blaze into the heart of the city and take the fight to Mr X’s minions before taking on the big man himself. On the way you fought on beaches and boats amongst others, against everything from your typical punk to a lethal Freddy Krueger-alike.
If you pressed the C button along the way you could get help from your cop buddies who would come along and fire some rockets at your enemies that bizarrely only affected your enemies, despite the fact that you were stood in the middle of explosion - magic! Aside from this attack, the original was the most realistic of the series in its fighting, the 2 sequels added more over the top moves like Axel’s “Grand Upper” and took away a bit of the gritty realism that was present in the first of the series.
After battling your way through all of his minions, you came up against Mr X himself. Before battling him however, he offered you the chance to join him. Those stupid enough to take him up on his offer (or just wishing to play for longer) were sent through a trap door and back to round 6! Those who were sensible enough to refuse his offer got to take Mr X and his Tommy Gun down.
Many people don’t know of the bad ending which can be found in the original. Depending on the options taken in the final boss battle it was possible to take over the syndicate yourself, a rather stupid idea considering the rest of the syndicate had just been disposed of. Still the player does get to take over Mr.X’s rather suave looking chair so maybe it is worth it?
The original also saw a Game Gear and Master System release as well as appearing on Sega’s Mega Tech and Mega Play arcade systems. The GG and MS conversions were quite good, although more difficult than the Megadrive original. Owners of the GG version of the game lost Adam as a playable character as well!
Streets of Rage 2 – 1992
Mr. X is back and he’s kidnapped Adam, just when everyone thought it was safe to go outside again - how typical. This time you have 4 characters to choose from, prettier graphics to look at and more levels to get to grips with - bonus!
The second instalment was hugely popular and is widely acknowledged as the best the series has to offer. The game exploded onto the Megadrive in late 1992 and quickly became regarded as a classic. The finest side-scroller ever? It’s certainly up there.
Thanks to Adam getting captured, there were two new faces alongside Axel and Blaze for the second in the series. The first of which was Skate, Adam’s kid brother, who was the fastest character but was also the weakest. The second was Max, the complete opposite of Skate, amazingly powerful but agonisingly slow. Blaze was an all rounder in this instalment and Axel was somewhere in-between Blaze and Max.
A major gameplay addition in this instalment was the addition of Street Fighter-esque special moves on the A button instead of calling the police - these took life off of the characters for using them but were great for getting the characters out of a tight spot. Skate’s corkscrew and Blaze’s fireball were particularly cool.
The locations were much more beautiful this time around, with improved animations and far greater detail - one of the best levels was the second one on the Bridge, with its annoying biker thugs and flying “Jet” boss. The bosses were fantastic this time around with classics such as R.Bear, Zamza and Abedede populating the levels.
After you battled your way to Mr. X’s HQ it was time to take him down. But before that it was time to take out his right hand man, Shiva, a vicious boss with plenty of devastating moves, who was often more difficult to deal with than the big guy. After that it was time to take down Mr. X and his Tommy Gun again, and once he was been dealt with, it was time to let the credits roll. Adam is rescued and the team are picked up by helicopter as one of the best tunes to come out of a Megadrive plays out.
The 2-player duel mode was a fun addition to SOR2 although it wasn’t on the level of Street Fighter 2 or Mortal Kombat. It was however a great way to settle the which character is best debates, if you resisted the temptation to beat each other with lead pipes that is!
SOR2 was released for the Game Gear and Master System, with the ports being much better than that for the original. Some of the levels were different in these versions and the Game Gear again lost a character, this time around Max is the one to go.
Streets of Rage 3 – 1994
The third in the trilogy is often the least appreciated, without much good reason. The graphics are once again much improved, helped by a 24-meg cartridge, the gameplay still works beautifully, the only fault that could be levelled at it is that it’s more of the same. This is a little harsh however as it did introduce new elements to the formula, such as the bulldozer set piece on round 3 which saw the players bashing their way through walls to escape its clutches.
The cast list is changed again, Max is gone, to be replaced by Dr. Zan, a half human, half cyborg who is integral to the plot. His special attacks involve him shocking his enemies, he replaces Max as the power character but doesn’t feel quite so clumsy to use. He’s a good addition and adds a little variety to the line-up as Blaze, Axel and Skate have similar characteristics to number 2 and play much the same.
The wish for Shiva to be playable was granted by Sega in number 3 as he is an unlockable alongside Roo, a Kangaroo who can be used if you defeat his master first during round 2. Both are great additions, Roo is particularly entertaining, there aren’t many Kangaroo’s with boxing gloves around and interestingly, said gloves prevent the marsupial from picking up any weapons.
The special moves from the second in the series were built upon in the third instalment with the addition of a strength gauge: this built up until “OK” flashed above it and allowed you to use one A button attack without any penalty to your health bar. Use of the attacks when the health bar wasn’t fully powered up would result in a loss of life. Zan’s “Electric Reach” attack was the best of the new moves.
Sega of America made numerous changes during translation, the biggest of which was the butchering of the plot, meaning that it had many holes. Other changes included the removal of the obviously homosexual Ash from the first stage and changing the colour of the characters clothing. The Japanese version, Bare Knuckle 3 (as the series was known in Japan) is worth a look at just to see the raft of changes that were made.
This time around the syndicate is back with a clever plan to replace high-ranking city officials with robots under the control of Mr.X. As usual it’s up to you to save the city, as well as rescue the chief of police and oust the fakes. After his first two altercations with you, Mr.X has been reduced to a mere brain. The bosses include Robot X and robot Axel who Mr.X uses to try to pin the blame on Axel himself. The final stage includes many boss battles, the most spectacular of which is the timed battle with Robot Y, and how quickly you won affected the ending, but Shiva had to be taken out one last time before the credits could roll.
The multiple endings were affected by both the Robot Y battle and whether you saved the chief of police, and they helped to add a bit of longevity to the game. As did the inclusion again of duel mode which was expanded upon in number three. The changes included the introduction of some of the trap rooms from round six which helped to mix it up a bit and added a little more strategy to the battles.
The Music
Yuzo Koshiro’s beautifully composed soundtracks for all three games were released on CD in Japan. They pop up on eBay from time to time and are quite expensive to get hold of. Koshiro’s work on the SOR2 soundtrack is seen as some of the finest to be heard from a Megadrive.
The Current – SOR4/Sega Ages/Homebrew
There is footage on the web of an early version of SOR4, reportedly canned by Sega of America as they didn’t know their heritage and decided scrolling fighters wouldn’t sell in the marketplace, even though a new Streets of Rage game would practically sell itself. The game is well in its infancy and looks very basic and to be fair would have required a lot of work to be a stunner, although it would have been worth it though and a sure-fire hit.
Sega also announced Streets of Rage would be remade as one of their Sega Ages 2500 updates. These have been hit-and-miss with some being fun to play and others bordering on terrible. When it does come to fruition lets hope it’s more of the former than the latter.
Beats of Rage was a well-received remake by Senile Team who ripped some SNK sprites and turned them into their own scrolling fighter. The game was originally released for the PC and was later ported to the Dreamcast, PS2 and others. More information can be found at: Senile Team
There is an ambitious attempt to remake SOR being made by Bomber Games at the moment, from the screenshots and videos it looks to be going quite well, more information can be found at: Bomber Games
The Future
So what now for the series? Many fans still clamour for the real #4 to come from Sega and if done properly it would be amazing. Would the game work as well in 3D though? It’s a tough call and would take a lot of work from Sega to get it right. In a perfect world there would be an amazing Xbox 360 version with 3D sprites on a 2D plane, playing in the classic format.
This is currently a pipe-dream however, and maybe it’s for the best to let the franchise rest and not sully its reputation with a terrible fourth instalment. If a fourth instalment isn’t forthcoming, the best use of the series would be to bring out a compilation pack in the vein of the recent Sonic Collections - the 3 SOR games on one UMD would be perfect for the PSP. The addition of a PSP version of each game with new characters, levels and weapons is a mouth-watering prospect.
The End?
Sadly, the most likely outcome at the moment is that Sega will do nothing with the series: neither a brand new episode, nor a compilation to bring it back to the masses which is a shame. All this means however is that you need to go and scrabble round in the loft or scour eBay to get your fix of classic Streets of Rage action. Or for the lazy among us, Bare Knuckle 1,2 and 3 are unlockables in the Japanese version of Sonic Gems Collection. And on a final note, as bad as Pat Sharp’s mullet was, the twins on Fun House more than made up for it.
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