What is it?
Axel and Blaze return in Streets of Rage 4, the revival of the classic beat-‘em-up series. Featuring hand-drawn visuals and brutal action, Streets of Rage 4 builds upon the classic trilogy’s gameplay with new mechanics, a fresh story and a gauntlet of dangerous stages with a serious crime problem. Whether players gang up with a friend or clean up the city solo, Streets of Rage 4 is a skull-bashing, chicken-chomping brawl, all set to a thumping soundtrack sure to get your blood pumping!
Gameplay
Move from left to right, punch enemies, destroy objects for points, health and weapon pickups, punch a few more enemies and repeat. It’s simple and unadventurous, and while it expands modestly on combat with a few new skills to master, Streets of Rage 4 definitely prioritises nostalgia over any kind of big modern reinvention. Just like in the old games, each character has a special move that does a lot more damage at the cost of taking a chunk out of your own health bar. However, an added risk-reward twist for this game is that any lost health can potentially be earned back if you string a combo of standard attacks together on top of it.
Graphics
The plot is wafer-thin and predictably corny, but it’s beautifully presented in a comic book panel style. Within the constraints of the restricted nature of side-scrolling beat-’em-ups, Streets of Rage 4 at least makes an attempt to spice up the level design. Levels like Skytrain and Airplane add little bits of variety (like high-speed train signs flying at you during combat, for example) to keep the environments fresh.
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