During the 16-bit era much of what Sega did seemed reactive to what was happening at Nintendo. Examples include Sonic the Hedgehog being born to compete with Mario, Eternal Champions created when Street Fighter II was exclusive to the SNES, Sonic 3D Blast using digitized graphics because of Donkey Kong Country, releasing a six button controller, and more. The Super Nintendo released during a time when the beat ’em up genre was just becoming popular. The system’s launch even featured a port of Capcom’s popular arcade hit Final Fight. Not to be outdone by competition right out of the gates Sega set to work on a beat ’em up title of their own. This release launched at nearly the same time as Final Fight, and was called Streets of Rage. While the original is still highly revered by classic Sega fans I found it to be quite disappointing to be honest. A true classic the original Streets of Rage is surely not.
The story takes place in a nameless City somewhere in the United States. The opening sequence details how this once peaceful metropolis has become a war zone after a crime syndicate led by a shady character named Mr. X has taken over. Even the police are on the payroll. It’s up to three former police officers Adam Hunter, Blaze Fielding, and Axel Stone to fight their way to the top and put an end to this reign of terror. In typical fashion you get to choose from any of the three characters to play as. Each of them has their strengths and weaknesses; Adam is the toughest of the trio but also the slowest, Blaze is fast but weak, and Axel excels in no one area but also has no weaknesses. Streets of Rage is a very basic beat ’em up title. You can walk up, down, left, right and diagonal but the terrain is linear with small arenas and paths. Generally you cannot move further in the stage until you have cleared all of the incoming enemies by draining their health with punches and kicks at which point you move forward and then rinse, lather, and repeat. Your life bar is located at the top of the screen and once depleted you lose a life. Lose all of them and it’s game over. The mechanics are extremely traditional by genre standards, but Streets of Rage does score points for having a screen filling attack that targets all enemies at the same time.
As far as I’m concerned the co-op mode is the only way to play. This is where beat ’em ups thrive, and Streets of Rage is no exception. What’s especially interesting is the fact that the developers even the odds out a little. In other games you can gang up against boss characters thus making these encounters easier, but here the experience scales itself. In some circumstances you’ll face two identical boss characters instead of one. Personally I like this feature. In typical fashion you’ll find a myriad of different weapons to aid you in battle. These include knives, lead pipes, glass bottles, etc. They break after they’ve been used a certain amount, and can also be dropped when an enemy knocks your character back. For the most part the stages are linear experiences, but the developers did have spurs of creativity. For example, one area takes place atop a balcony and you can throw the enemies off which causes an instant death for them. Other locales feature machinery that comes down at specific time intervals and can crush you or the enemies should you be unable to get out of the way. These sections are especially hectic with a friend.
First let’s start off with the good points. Streets of Rage has a distinct advantage against the Super Nintendo version of Final Fight because it actually features two player co-op. That is the saving grace of this title. Furthermore the screen clearing super move is a neat idea by beat ’em up standards. Now it’s time to cover the bad stuff. While Streets of Rage includes all of the basic features of your typical beat ’em up it does so with very little finesse. The game follows the genre standards so closely that it has absolutely no identity of its own. If you were to take Final Fight and remove all of the memorable characters/locations you would have Streets of Rage. It has a darker atmosphere than most beat ’em ups, but that’s easy to overlook when the stages are so generic. It feels like the developers were just going through the motions here with little passion. The bland atmosphere and generic design makes Streets of Rage feel even more like a copycat release. Had this been released a few years later it likely would have been lost in the shuffle.
Unfortunately the graphics also suffer. The characters are represented with very small sprites, and they aren’t particularly detailed. The animations are also very poor even when compared to releases from this era. Each character seems to have less than ten different frames of animation, and that number compares to that of many late term NES titles. The art style is also extremely forgettable. As I’ve already said the characters and scenery are immediately forgettable. The artists’ hearts clearly were not in this project. With that said Streets of Rage is surprisingly colorful for a Genesis title. The outdoor night scenes are especially impressive with deep blues that perfectly convey the atmosphere. The soundtrack is surprisingly decent. The composers took advantage of the distinct audio hardware and were able to create some pulse pounding hits. A lot of it sounds like early 90s techno pop, but I actually liked this. Despite the hardware limitations this soundtrack easily qualifies as a classic, much unlike the game itself.
Streets of Rage is bland, and though I didn’t play it at the time of release I can’t imagine this case being much different even back then. The game fails to carve out its own identity, and even with a two player co-op mode it’s just barely better than the SNES port of the original Final Fight. That’s just sad. While the Streets of Rage sequels fare significantly better (and are legitimately some of the best beat ’em up titles ever released) this first one is ultimately forgettable. Don’t feel bad if you skipped it; you didn’t miss much.
