Streets of Rage 2

The Good
I'm not really the one for fighting games and very few have ever managed to impress me. However, this did. Sega have real gem with this game here and it's fantastic. The idea is that you are on a street with a character, (4 to choose.) and you fight different people, with different health and moves. The game boasts 3 different difficulty levels and it's AI is ahead of it's time. Different moves are good against different people and the enemies counter your moves, and have some have their own items. Speaking of items, there are many you can pick up and use against your enemy. The enviorments are interesting and you can smash up chairs and bins with your weapons. Each character has unique moves too. With multiplayer co-op and fighting avaliable, who wouldn't love this game?

The Bad
Nothing I can recall.

The Bottom Line
If you're looking for a fun, classic and strong beat 'em up. Get this game, for cheap. It rivals new games and has aged well.

The Good
Gosh, where to begin...

Let's start with the controls. First of all, all of the characters are controlled more or less the same way. (save for special circumstances like Skate's overhead throw or Max's inability to pole vault over enemies) That is you learn the controls for one character, you pretty much know the controls to another character.

What this means is that the entry barrier to learning a new character is actually fairly low. But this doesn't mean the characters don't PLAY differently. Oh no sir. That cannot be more different from the truth.

In fact, considering the control scheme is so uniformed, the characters play like night and day in terms of tactics and strengths.

What's even crazier is that despite this massive differences in gameplay, ALL of the characters are viable even at the highest difficulty.

Which leads to me to my next point: the difficulty.

I have never seen any game able to ramp up the difficulty so smoothly with such drastic differences. Try playing the game on hardest and then on Mania (the highest difficulty). The difference is HUGE. And yet, the game does an excellent job prepping you for it so that the skip in difficulty is not one that will just overrun you and make you throw down your controller.

Often times, you will get a situation where the added difficulty is just giving the players more numerical disadvantages and the enemies more numerical advantages. This game? The enemies will actually behave differently depending on the difficulty level. Higher level enemies will be far more efficient in their movements and attacks, and will try their best to surround you ASAP.

Which leads me to my next point, the AI.

For a game with this fairly simple attributes (simple by today's standards), the game AI is incredibly well put together at pushing the limits on those attributes.

The AIs all react to situations differently, and you can tell they have wildly different personalities, which combined with their existing movesets, make those differences even more stark.

Combining all of these attributes together, and you have a brawler that has rock solid tight gameplay, with incredible polish. This is one of those games that deserves to played again and again, not because each time you play you see new content, but because each permutation you make (i.e. character and difficulty) creates a whole new experience on the game.

For a game that only uses 3 buttons, it is incredibly deep because it is apparent that the devs have really made sure every move they put in there is accounted for in the game play experience.

In a lot of games, people will just add more content just to add more. But this game is a textbook example on how to use what you have and make it all count.

Designers now a days can learn a thing or two from games like this.

The Bad
one minor nitpick: the attributes you see in the character picking screen is more or less useless beyond the speed and stamina attribute. (The rest are highly dependent on the move you're using and the fashion you play) Imagine playing Street Fighter, and seeing a "strength" ranking on ryu's profile. Sure, you can certainly do that, but chances are it will mostly be irrelevant and meaningless. It's not even useful as a barometer for beginners because it doesn't even tell you that much. i.e. what does having a high "technique" score mean?

The Bottom Line
This game is the textbook example of milking every bit of game play out of a relatively small set of attributes. A lot of games out there will add more for the sake of more, not realizing it doesn't always add to the game play experience. This game is different.

Chances are, you will never find a better brawler with this streamlined of a system.

The Good
It's hard to get started, as there are so many things to choose from. Graphics are now true 16-bit quality, with large, well defined and animated characters, crisp backgrounds and great presentation, of near arcade quality. Some levels include some interesting visuals, such as the foggy Alien House, but for the most part, the style of the game follows the first, except a lot more detailed.

Gameplay, however, was the most improved part, mostly thanks to three things: the larger characters made the playfield smaller and by extension, gameplay faster, the rocket-attack was replaced by a more useful special attack (which doubles in both offense and defense) along a wider array of moves, and finally, names and life bars for everyone. Weapons are also more useful with some characters than with others: Max can make a huge deal of damage with a pipe, while Skate can barely do anything with it. These two characters also add more variety than in the previous game: while Blaze was only a little less strong and a little more fast than the two guys, Skate is lightening fast (and in fact, the only one with the upcoming dash move) but very weak, while Max is... well, saying "a walking battletank" does justice to him.

Music was once again provided by Yuzo Koshiro, and needlessly to say, it is again a wonderful piece of work, both inside the game and on it's own. The man himself considers this one to be his best work, so who are we to disagree ?

The Bad
For some reason, the difficulty level was tweaked down a lot. I sincerely doubt that anyone but a real novice in the genre can finish the game without losing more than a couple of lives in the process. If the players picks Axel, then things get even easier: his "Grand Upper" move is incredibly devastating, able to inflict a load of damage without much risk. One of the most difficult parts in the first game was dealing with the fat fire-breathers, as they were difficult to dodge if you were not ready, and couldn't throw/slam them. Well, now they are easier to dodge, and can throw them at will. It would make sense if Max could, but Skate? I don't think so.

Levels, while now visiting more than a place in each one, lack the traps of the first. The bridge gaps are sealed, and you can't get rid of some of the most annoying punks by "inviting" them to go head-first into the first floor, and the factory is lacking the presses, so most of them only change graphically, all being plain side-scrolling efforts (except the elevators).

The Bottom Line
This second installment in the series does exactly what a sequel should do: find out what was missing or wrong in the first, fix it and improve what was already good. The result is the best in the series, one of the best games of the platform and of the genre, to boot. While it is too easy for pretty much anyone (which only hurts those looking for a challenge), the gameplay goodness combined with the quality graphics and music make up for it. A true classic.