Streets of Rage 2 (1992)

Good music, clearly the best of the console brawlers and one of the better brawlers in general, more fun to play than most, and love that enemeis have an HP bar. I was almsot going to warrant playing this more than a honorary 3 star with a tag of 2+ player to remember to play it with my brother or husband some time, but then the first semi-boss Jack kept going off screen and dseemingly replenishing his health. I figured it out to get him to stay on screen but quite tacky. Not my fault your camera doesn't follow the boss properly! Never liked that aspect of brawlers, the camera movement factor, and as always don't like the depth issue, tho so far this one has been relatively manageable. And the weapons/attacks have been fun.

Yeaaaa I got bored in the bar scene but this deserves the recognition it gets and deserves the aforementioned 3 star and tag.

This is a great beat em up. Better than SOR1 in every way. I would probably have to study some play throughs to 1cc this, but I was able to beat it in one go on normal using both continues as Blaze. I had to do some save state practice with the final boss because it requires a lot of experimentation to figure out a strategy that works.

BEAT 'EM UP - The four vigilantes set out to rescue Adam Hunter from the dastardly villain, Mr. X.

PROS:

++ Improved combat. At its core, the game plays very similar to the first but just feels much better to play. Throwing, suplexing, and dive-kicking your enemies is still lots of fun. They also added a new offensive/defensive mechanic where you can sacrifice a sliver of health in order to do a powerful move that can deal lots of damage, or clear the space around you. The combat has more depth than it seems. And another thing, you can finally see how much health the enemies have!

++ Phenomenal sound design. Not only is the soundtrack great once again, but the sound effects for the punches, kicks, and throws makes the combat feel so satisfying.

++ Four playable characters. In the first game, the three playable characters played similarly to the point where the differences between them felt negligible. In the sequel, all four characters feel distinct with wholly unique movesets, and most of all, each one was fun to use and play as.

++ Great art.

++ New enemy types. Most of the past enemies return, along with a handful of new ones that are really fun to fight! The ninjas who can quickly move behind you, the muay thai dude that can counter the dive kicks, the motorcyclists who run you over, and all the others made for great combat scenarios.

CONS:

-- Foreground. Minor gripe but there were some areas where the foreground would block the view and I wouldn't be able to see my player or the enemies, which led to cheap hits.

-- Positioning. Sometimes it's hard to tell if you're on the same lane as an enemy, so you end up punching the air or whiffing a dive kick. But when an enemy dives from a seemingly different lane, it still connects. Not too bad, but still a bit frustrating at times, especially against certain bosses like the bald boxer dude, and the guy who flies and dives.

-- Lack of move list. I'm assuming this just wasn't a thing in the past, but I wished I had a move list for each character.

There's still roast chicken on the ground. They cannot alter this in any future games. Anyway, after playing SoR 1 and 2 back to back I gotta say this is one hell of an improvement. The enemies now have health bars, the bosses are a little more challenging but they provide a more fair fight, the sprites are art within themselves, the animation is more fluid, the stages are designed really well and are very original, there's a lot of good things about this game. There are some flaws, but honestly, I find it hard to remember them and to distinguish them between actual game features. I guess the fact that when enemies aren't being hit or go off-screen their health bars disapper, the big fat overalls guy spitting fire is pretty annoying, it's very hard to avoid, but that's really all I can think of. It's just good times all around. One thing to add is that the music is somehow WAYYY better than in the first one (which was pretty hard to top), I really like the Mr.X penthouse theme too, it has a really melancholic feel and gets you hyped up to beat his stylish ass. One more gripe would be that Mr.X is just as same as he is in the first game, just with a new sprite. It's a little disappointing as they could have created new strategies for him, but it's pretty minor. I beat the game single player with Max Thunder, and playing him feels great. It's so satisfying to pound thugs with WWF-style dropkicks. It feels like you're playing a god damn Space Marine. Sorry for the tangent people, I just love this game. If the first one was one of the best games of 1991, then this one of the best games in general. Anyway, 9/10, I was not expecting for it to be this good.

Kupo out.

Streets of Rage 2 has stood the test of time thanks to its nice style and straightforward, focused design. While it leaves room for improvement in a couple areas, it's easy to get into and never stops being fun.

The game's simplicity not only gives it a great pick-up-and-play quality and fast pace, but also lets the great visual style and music shine. Levels have distinct feels, and I really liked the vibe of some of them. They go some surprising places that somehow never feel totally out of place, and whose absurdity was pretty entertaining.

The gameplay doesn't change up a ton over the course of the game, but it offers just enough variety to avoid wearing out its welcome. There's a regular flow of new enemy designs mixed into the old ones, and opportunities to use weapons or parts of the environment. And there's nothing here really to distract from all that core fun and slow the game down, which I think is great.

The hardest thing to get used to about the gameplay in this style of game is the 3D movement. Though you can move up and down, the flat 2D presentation makes it tough to align yourself with enemies. This is particularly true for rare cases of enemies who fly or ride fast-moving vehicles. I did get used to it to an extent, but it's hard to escape the occasional awkwardness.

The only other major thing I'd want changed is how special moves work. To keep you from spamming these moves, the game takes away a bit of your HP every time you use them. While you can recover that HP, it's a limitation that really discourages using these fun moves. I thought a charging "special meter" would have been a better approach, and wasn't surprised to learn that Streets of Rage 3 would later introduce one.

As I recently mentioned in another review, this is not really a genre that I usually like, but I found this game pretty appealing anyway. Even the complaints I do have are pretty minor, and the overall experience is totally one I would play again at some point.

Streets of Rage 2 has the same beat-em up formula from the first iteration, but smooths and improves so much about the experience that we get a dramatically better game from the first, and one of the best beat-em ups I've played.

Taking place after Mr. X dies...wait! He's not dead! And he kidnapped one of the original three characters, leaving the other two and two newcomers to team up to defeat Mr. X once more. This gives four very different playstyles that come down to more than (jump, speed, power) and gives a variety of different moves (slides, grabs, chops, you name it) along with a special button that can use a variety of special moves at the cost of a little bit of health. It can be a bit of a gamble, but using that and every move at your disposal comes in handy.

The enemies and combat are much more improved, especially with enemy life bars. The player is at less of a disadvantage with larger, more animated sprites and more variety at their disposal. Items are also much more helpful, with katanas and pipes and knives that can turn the tide of battle. Movement across the field also includes more vertical and diagonal traversal, making gameplay much more interesting. Bosses include giant baseball players, a clan of ninjas, pro boxers, and a dragon-like demon! Surprises wait around every corner and are much more fun with a friend.

The graphics and music that made the predecessor so great come back in full force with 2, with astounding set pieces across eight stages (with multiple levels!). Rocking pirate ships show teetering rotation, misty fog enshrouds an evil haunted attraction, and breakneck speeds pull a baseball diamond elevator down to an underground fight club. Everything looks even more gorgeous than the first and the music is truly some of the finest in video games, pushing that house and techno inspiration to the limit. I'd be lying if I didn't get these caught in my head for days.

Streets of Rage 2 is an excellent sequel, taking a by-the-books brawler and making it truly special and unforgettable.

Gameplay, Story and Value:

Streets of Rage 2 is a side scrolling beat em' up game that borrows a few elements from fighting games, which results in a fun and tactile experience. The game allows 2-player co-op, has four playable characters and spans eight stages, each with multiple sub areas.

Controls are straight forward with A initiating a special attack at the cost of a small amount of health, B acting as your primary attack and action button and C for jumping. Your special attack changes based on how you're moving. Attacks can be performed while jumping, and you can pick up various weapons and items along the way. Characters also have the ability to use special moves via a string of inputs, like in fighting games, though I could never get them to work consistently.

Everything handles really well, aside from the presence of friendly fire in co-op. This is actually one of my biggest complaints, especially when it happens as frequently as it does in this game. Not only can both players hurt each other with attacks, but something moving near each other without pressing anything will initiate a grab. Sure, it can get pretty hilarious at times, but from a gameplay standpoint it's really frustrating.

Stages never stray too far from typical beat 'em up affair, but there are enough small variances in levels to keep things interesting. One stage, for example, has you fighting on a high-speed elevator while enemies fall from above. Enemies are generally uninteresting with most being recolors of each other, or just the same enemies with weapons. Unique enemies are added throughout, though, so it's never too much of a problem.

Bosses typically follow the same formula, usually just being a bigger, stronger version of a normal enemy. After a boss is defeated you can expect to see lesser versions of that boss appearing as enemies in future stages as well.

Presentation, Music and Sound:

The game looks really good, almost like it's going for an intentionally retro look, despite actually being retro. Brightly colored sprites, high contrast environments and flashing neon signs scream with personality, not unlike what you'd get from a game like Double Dragon. Sprites are large, and your characters generally do a good job of distinguishing themselves from enemies, as well as each other.

I've head a lot of praise surrounding the music in Streets of Rage, so I was a bit let down to find that it was only "pretty good". Don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the music in this game, but for me it quickly faded into the background. The sound effects, on the other hand, were great. The "thwack!" sound when you make contact with enemies is infinitely satisfying, and the rest of the audio holds up nicely as well.

Afterthoughts:

To be perfectly honest, I really don't like beat em' up games, and while this is a very good one, it's not going to change my mind regarding the genre.

Streets of Rage 2 was another game that I've heard nothing but good things about, and between that and my not really liking these kinds of games in general I have to say it pretty much met my expectations. My wife and I played through this one together, and had a lot of fun doing it, but the constant accidental grabbing (groping) and attacking each other got old pretty quickly. Otherwise it was good fun, and I can see myself returning to beat it some day.

Review:

Gameplay: