Streets of Rage 4 announced, but...

Games
#39

Actually serious questions incoming . . . .

Is this game significantly tougher single player compared to two player? I am playing a bit of both and it seems like single player has the same number of enemies, same enemy health. Is that accurate?

Is the game also significantly tougher than the original Streets of Rage on MegaDrive or have my beat-em-up skills declined significantly since I was a 13 year old with masses of time to play Streets of Rage over and over and over again?

Questions might be related in some way . . . :-P

#40

Sections of this new game are harder than the originals, but not overly so. I say this having beaten Streets of Rage 2 a few times in the last year on Normal solo. I do not know about multiplayer, but I finished 4 on Normal with Axel with only the Shiva boss level really giving me any serious issues.

One thing I will say is platform and specifically your controller you use on that platform will affect your play. On the PC with an 8bitdo M30 I was breezing but when I switched to Xbox One with an Xbox One controller I had a much harder time executing because the d-pad is much less precise and analog stick is not even an option given the need for double tap special moves.

#41

I am playing on PC with an X360 controller . . . where would you place that on a continuum? Go on, be generous, tell me I am swimming against a high current :-P

#42

I completely forgot I owned this. I got bored at stage 4 but now I’m reinstalling just to enjoy my controller a bit.

#43

Good luck. That controller is almost assured to make it feel like nothing works right in this game.

#44

I have a hard time in this game with anyone outside the Hunter clan - the double tap run is just too valuable for positioning. Once I gave them a go I was able to handle Normal and Hard pretty easily with Cherry. Doubt that I would be able to clear Hard with a less mobile character. Finished up the unlocks the other day so I’ll probably take a bit of a break on this one.

#45

Wow, is an X360 controller really so bad? Color me completely ignorant here. As a gamepad user I barely maintain “apprentice” level skill.

#46

It has the worst d-pad of any controller in the last 20 years, so yeah it’s really bad. You should be using the d-pad too because it is the most precise control for this game and games of its type outside an actual arcade joystick.

This is the controller I was talking about…
8Bitdo M30 2.4G Wireless Gamepad for the Original Sega Genesis and Sega Mega Drive - Sega Genesis,Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HB1XFQW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_QzqZEb300XE76

That one specifically allows you to plug in the little dongle to a Sega Genesis and use it wirelessly there. They also sell a bluetooth version at Amazon if you prefer that functionality. You can use the one above with a standard Android/PS4 USB cable on PC or any other modern console.

#47

Really welcome opinion and suggestion, cheers :-)

. . . now even if I do not buy it there is a part of my mind which can write off any failures to poor tools. Everything is awesome!

#48

Finally got my Limited Run copy of this, and it’s really quite excellent, definitely as good as people say.

The soundtrack is excellent, and as I’ve replayed levels, I’ve really been picking up on new elements from all of the songs. There are references to older SoF music throughout, but none of it feels like a carbon copy at all. Just great work.

The game is fun, too! The walk speed felt really slow at first, but I guess I adjusted to it after a few levels, because it feels fine now. I played through Normal pretty easily with a handful of retries on later levels, but I’m working through Hard now and its been a legit challenge that’s making me learn the systems more. I’m actually feeling like I’m learning strategy that I might be able to take back to other older games as well. The Special Attack / Health recovery system is a game changer in terms of expressiveness of the combat though, so it might be hard to go back.

I’m impressed by the design on all the bosses. They made them feel almost on-par with the playable characters in terms of capabilities, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch of them became playable with DLC or something in the future.

#49

I’ve been continuing to play this. I’ve gotten through Arcade on Normal, which I guess counts as a 1CC, although there are 3 difficulties above it. I’ve taken a couple of stabs at individual stages on higher difficulties, but that’s pretty serious business.

I had tried learning some CPS2 beat-em-ups (i.e. Battle Circuit), but there’s some definite smoothness and quality of life things that make this way easier to sink time into. The overall excellent presentation probably helps too.

Browsing through YouTube for tips, I discovered the SoR2 speed runners, particularly a guy called anthopants, who seems to be the guy for running all SoR games. There’s clearly a community around it.

I don’t really have anything particular to say about it, but it’s very funny to see the development of that community (and SoR running in general) play out in YouTube History. Just 4 years ago, anthopants was posting videos with names like “Best Player in the World” for beating SoR2 Mania with 9 lives remaining (3-4 deaths), which then escalated to the first no-miss clears, which now seem pretty routine. It’s just funny to see how quickly it seems to have developed after there being little to no movement for like 20 years. (I’m sure there were people running before then that just didn’t have visibility prior to Twitch, but still.)

#50

Major balance patch for this dropped today on all platforms. It makes the game significantly easier, except possibly for the very end, which is marginally harder in a couple places.

Biggest changes are that enemies generally have a lot less armor, and enemies seem a little slower/ less agressive. The Garnet/Diamond jump kicking enemies are a little easier, which is a relief because they were a huge pain before. The level 7 (Skytrain) boss is significantly easier without armored attacks, and Big Ben’s no longer have armor on their firebreath, which frees up a lot of possibilities on their sections. Ms Y, Mr Y and Max are all marginally harder, but their segments don’t play significantly differently. A couple infinite combos were removed, but that doesn’t really make the game harder in general.

There seem to be a couple things that make it easier to get longer combos (notably, blocked attacks now keep your combo string going), which makes high scores a bit easier.

Previously, I was able to beat all the individual stages on Mania pretty consistently, but had never been able to string together an Arcade Mania win. Post-patch, I beat arcade Mania on my first try with 4 lives left.

I suspect that reddit will hate a lot of the changes on git gud grounds, but in general, I think it’s an improvement that tones down most of the high level annoyances.

I haven’t played Axel on the new version yet, but he had a lot of changes in the notes. He was previously the hardest character by a fair margin, so I’m excited to play with him a bit more now.

A few days ago, DotEmu also confirmed DLC will be coming “eventually”, but without any specific time frame.

#51

Three new characters in the DLC; Estel officially announced in this trailer, with speculation that Max and Shiva will be the other two based on the silhouettes.

#52

Yeah, I’d be kind of astonished if it wasn’t Max and Shiva.

There are a lot of…badges underneath the life bars in the new stages only. Wonder what those are about. Mutators for difficulty maybe? Or some kind of other additional charge / consumables mechanic.

The new supers appear to be usable on the old stages though, I wonder how different playing them will be.

No hint about release date.

#53

I know DLC is all the rage, but I think I’d rather they had made Streets of Rage 5 instead.

#54

Damn do I agree with this statement.

#55

I’m just kind of done with it.

Since I play a lot of shooters, and they’ve pretty much moved onto giving away all the “DLC” now with new maps being added for nothing to keep the players all up to date, the idea of buying extra levels feels like a waste to me. Just take the time and make a new game using that same graphic engine. I can wait.

I think the problem is companies like this can’t wait. They want to keep pushing their game back to the front page on Steam/PlayStation/Switch/Xbox stores. This is how you trick people into thinking it’s new again.

#56

In this case it took them over a year to put out DLC which felt very much planned from the get-go - I was surprised Estel wasn’t one of the character unlocks given how fleshed out she was. If they weren’t ready to strike while the iron’s hot for a game like this then I agree they should work on a sequel instead.

#57

Yeah. Like I said, I think they need some money and to push it back into people’s consciousness again to get it. It’s fine and I understand people gotta eat. I won’t get it though.

#58

While I would have appreciated more characters at launch, I’m not much of a completionist / score chaser in general, so new characters aren’t necessarily going to pull me back in. If you did a lot of co-op, I could maybe see the dynamics maybe being interesting? But this isn’t a fighting game, new characters are linear amounts of content, not exponential amounts.

While I liked the final package quite a lot, there were some parts that felt rushed. Max, Shiva, and Estelle were all set up as characters that felt like they should have been unlockable out the gate. I think they figured the retro characters were better bang for buck content-wise, but I didn’t see much value to the retro characters other than one-time novelty. Re-using some bosses is fine (I liked the Beyo / Riha remix), and honestly that feels like an old school arcade palette swap move to me, but re-using Estelle and Commish contributed to a rushed feel. I think they also stated that they tested a motorcycle section and ended up cutting it for time?

I think a lot depends on how much level content there ends up being. The VR-looking conceit is…okay, and could be used for some variety, but also feels like it could be weird.