Welcome Back To The Streets Of Rage – Streets Of Rage 4 Review (PC)

By Phil Neyman Last updated Apr 29, 2020

Nostalgia is a tricky thing. Looking back at moments in your life can make you feel a lot of different ways but, often, over time the memory of what was can become clouded and start to make you feel as though things were better than they actually were. Anyone who grew up in the 90s and played the original Streets of Rage trilogy as they were released will know exactly how this feels.

Booting up Streets of Rage 4 for the first time will bring that nostalgia back in a big way. To check out whether the nostalgia was misled, we went back and played the first three games after our first playthrough of the fourth entry in the series. What we learned was that not only was the nostalgia warranted this time around, but this is a series that now has four extraordinarily strong entries – which is something that will make any fan happy.

It has been over twenty-five years since we had a proper entry in the series. Taking place ten years after the events in Streets of Rage 3 – Axel, Blaze, and Adam are joined by newcomers Cherry (Adam’s daughter) and a part man, part machine and complete beast named Floyd. After terrorizing the streets for years, Mr. X was finally defeated and a new crime syndicate has risen from the ashes. Believed to be led by his children, the Y Twins, this new crime family is even more deadly than the one their father used to lead.

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Streets of Rage 4 pays tribute to the original games while amping everything up to eleven. Gameplay will be familiar to anyone that has played an old school beat ‘em up at any point in their life. Basically, you have three options when controlling your character. Attack, which is your basic attack when facing an enemy. Special attack, which adds a little something extra to your punches and kicks. Depending on which character you choose, this could be anything from shooting a bunch of energy at your opponent to attacking them with your guitar. Finally a back attack, this will be the closest thing you have at your disposal to defend against an oncoming enemy attack. Each character brings something special to the table, so you’ll want to make sure you try them all.

Throughout the stages you will be able to collect all sorts of fun items. Food items like turkey and apples will give you health and points towards an extra life. Any money that you find goes towards earning an extra life as well. You will want to make sure you destroy anything in the level that you can to find these items, especially on the harder difficulties where health and life are rare commodities. Finding stars hidden in the levels will give you an extra special attack that you will want to stockpile for when you need them most, generally during the boss fights. Like the old games in the series, approaching a bad guy exactly right will cause your character to pick them up and perform a throw or slam. You’ll also be able to grab weapons that enemies drop and use them against them until they wear out and disappear.

If you find yourself overrun and die while trying to complete a stage, you will have the option to restart the level with an assist. These will give you extra lives and stars, but they come at a price. You will lose points for whichever assist you pick, so choose wisely if you decide to use one at all.

The story mode is broken into twelve chapters, each one with a fun boss to take out at the end of each level. After a few shots back and forth you should be able to learn their patterns and defeat them. Patience is the key here though. With no real ability to block, you’ll want to pay attention to their moves and try and back away and then counter them in order to give the most damage while taking as little as possible.

Once the story mode is completed, you will have the ability to choose between a few other modes that add some much-needed longevity to the game. Unless you are playing the game on some of the harder difficulties you should be able to complete the story mode in just a few hours. Having stage select, arcade, boss rush, and battle modes unlocked will allow you to play through the levels any way that you want. You will even have the option to play them with friends through local and online multiplayer. However, you’ll want to be careful when playing with other people because you can hit each other and not only hurt your teammate, but kill them as well. Other extras include a gallery and a character info section that gives you all the details you need for the characters to choose the one that best fits your playstyle.

Recommendation: Streets of Rage 4 is one of the best entries in a classic series in quite some time. With beautifully updated graphics and a soundtrack that you will be humming along with for quite some time, you’ll be reminded of how you felt if you played these types of games when they were first made popular. Anyone unfamiliar with the series will still have a blast fighting their way through each level alone or with a friend. Streets of Rage 4 has found the perfect balance of retro and modern gaming and really is everything you would want this game to be. The only complaint that you may have is wishing there were even more levels for you to fight your way through.

Streets of Rage 4 is available Switch, PS4, Xbox One and PC on April 30th.