Streets of Rage 4

[Hero-of-Time]

Looks like Limited Run Games have finally lifted their scummy embargo. The game is now available to preorder from Signature Edition Games who are based in the UK. They are offering a standard and special edition of the game.

LINK

 

[S.C.G]

I'm glad to hear that Streets of Rage 4 is getting a more standardised release, but also gutted that Limited Run Games had to embargo this information to garner more sales.

Oh well, I've ordered the Signature Switch edition (mostly for the soundtrack) and the standard PS4 edition, at least I know these will be versions which should be completely fine for compability with any future dlc which may be coming out... the LRG versions should be as well but I think I'll just be keeping those sealed for now at this point.

It's a bit annoying because I really thought up until recently that Limited Run Games would be the only place which would be selling physical versions, just Switch and PS4 at that, now that I've downloaded the Xbox version, there isn't much point to buying that again and I may well just not keep the LRG versions in the end.

This is a good thing though, the game being more easily available physically, I just don't like the way thet Limited Run Games have gone about this, they won't be getting as much business from me as they used to, because while they are great for physical versions of games which would have otherwise only been available digitally such as Celeste... when it comes to a game like Streets of Rage 4 they clearly wanted to really milk it for all it was worth and while I don't blame them for it, there will be a bit of backlash from it inevitably but then again... Panzer Dragoon has a physical release from them and that is the only way you can get a physical version of that game... for now.

Anyway, not to take anything away from the game itself, which is amazing, I've been playing it every other night, spending several hours on it each time and I can easily say that it's one of my favourite games of the moment, the whole of 2020 and in quite a long time because I can't remember the last time I enjoyed playing a game so much.

[Ike]

Yeah, pretty scummy especially since they are US(?) based and Signature Edition are UK based. Glad I didn't order from LRG, though I wanted Shantae so I'm having second thoughts on getting it from them now.

I take it SE take money upfront?

[Hero-of-Time]

LRG have been a scummy business for a while now. I've been following their shenanigans in a couple of different places and they have a habit of screwing European customers over, have awful customer service, announcing other editions after taking preorders for standard ones and have used these kind of silence tactics before with other games. It's why they've not got any money from me. 

[S.C.G]

I'll still use them but only for those exclusive releases which I can't get anywhere else, especially if we're talking about games which are around £25 - £30 on the eShop anyway, it makes sense to pay a little bit more for them (to me) so that most of the game is on the game card (as much as possible) saving on SD card space and there's that relative security that you can still play the game if for whatever reason the digital version becomes unavailable.

But even I'm thinking twice about buying from a lot of these places now.

13 minutes ago, Ike said:

I take it SE take money upfront?

Yep, they all take money upfront, prepare to pay at least six pounds for postage as well, but if you're ordering a signature edition or two versions this isn't too bad, not compared to LRG's shipping charges, which don't result in import charges (thankfully) possibly because it's already factored into the delivery charge which is usually £12 or more... so it makes sense to combine two releases if they are coming out on the same day but this is not always possible.

Streets of Rage 4 is one of those games which derserves to have a wide-spread physical version though, like Sonic Mania did with the Plus version, as many people will surely still want to play it years down the line and these consoles which we're playing on now, although the account system is better than the previous generation, it's only good enough for as long as all these services stay active; it makes me wonder for the future of games really... I'm sure you'll still be able to play them offline with your account in a basic form but it's not as simple as it was back in the day, as I can still play the original Streets of Rage trilogy thanks to owning the original cartridges.

[Sméagol]

Postponing my decision to pre-order this game seems to have payed off then, as I'll likely wait for the merge version. I prefer the default cover on the LRG version, but the merge version seems to have a cool reversible cover, though I haven't seen a good image of it. Plus I want my gold coins.

[Hero-of-Time]

Looks like the game is getting a proper release in the UK. The likes of Simply Games and Base have it for preorder.

[Ike]

Thanks for the heads up, ordered from Base. Will avoid LRG now.

[nekunando]

Let's face it.. we're all expecting me to come in here and hammer Streets of Rage 4 for failing to live up to the classic Mega Drive games, scoff at the art direction and berate the soundtrack for not replicating the magic of Yuzo Koshiro's work in the 90s.

Heck, Barbon doesn't even say "COME ON!"..

..but I'm not going to complain!

I've only got as far as the end of Stage 5 so far but I absolutely love it

Edited May 10, 2020 by nekunando

[Aneres11]

Myself and @Mike1988uk completed this in coop earlier. 
I played the original on the mega drive but it’s not a game / series that i hold in memory as an absolute classic. 
As such, I went into this as a way to break up my Animal Crossing play tome and nothing too much more.  
 

We struggled a bit with it in parts. And only played on normal. But having replayed the first level again on manic we didn’t do too badly, so we must have improved as the game went on. 
 

Overall it was good. We both said we didn’t think it’d be particularly memorable in 6 months time, but was nice to play as a freebie with game pass.  

[Ike]

On 10/05/2020 at 8:22 PM, Aneres11 said:

Myself and @Mike1988uk completed this in coop earlier. 
I played the original on the mega drive but it’s not a game / series that i hold in memory as an absolute classic. 
As such, I went into this as a way to break up my Animal Crossing play tome and nothing too much more.  
 

We struggled a bit with it in parts. And only played on normal. But having replayed the first level again on manic we didn’t do too badly, so we must have improved as the game went on. 
 

Overall it was good. We both said we didn’t think it’d be particularly memorable in 6 months time, but was nice to play as a freebie with game pass.  

Been playing it on normal and been finding quite difficult at parts. I've only really played the first one so keep forgetting about the special attacks.

Also the physical versions are up on Shopto as well.

[Grazza]

I've now completed it on Normal with every character and Hard with Blaze.  I liked all the characters but found Cherry the most difficult to use as her dash attack goes into a jump, which is easily countered by some of the enemies.  After a week playing this game, I think it is a 10/10.  I simply cannot find a single fault with it.  I don't consider myself a particularly skilled player, so it's extremely rare for me to want to play a game on harder difficulties, but I'm doing so with this.  I have to really love a game to enjoy mastering it, but this is such a game.

[nekunando]

 

[S.C.G]

    Streets   of Rage   4  

  n-europe review  

  Written by    Anil Parmar & Sam C Gittins  

[Grazza]

A great review that really understands the series.  Completely agree with the score too.  To have made a new game that feels authentically Streets of Rage and plays better than any previous game in the series is amazing.  I went back to Final Fight the other day (my previous favourite) and as cool as it is, even that feels unfair compared to the perfect gameplay in this.

 

I particularly liked @Goron_3's point about Sega struggling to adapt their 2D games into 3D during the 32-bit era.  Now personally I absolutely loved a couple of the System 32 coin-ops - Golden Axe and Spider-Man - but the timing was very awkward as they couldn't port those to the Mega Drive, and by the time the Saturn was released there was a feel that most franchises should become 3D.  To know that Streets of Rage has finally been improved since its Mega Drive days is very satisfying, and I sure hope these developers do the same with Golden Axe.

[S.C.G]

Steets of Rage 4 is currently 15% off in the latest indie sale... not a huge discount, but it's £19.11 until 30/08/2020

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Streets-of-Rage-4-1695263.html

Also, I don't know who has the game on the Switch or other platforms but I now have the game on Switch, Xbox One and PS4

When the game first came out, I bought the Xbox One version digitally, but I've since obtained physical versions for the other consoles.

If anyone wants a game of Streets of Rage 4 then let me know, if you just want to run through the game, or get through a certain stage on a harder difficulty.

Though I've only reliably played through the game on Easy, Normal and Hard... Very Hard and Mania are quite brutal in terms of the amount of enemies and their attack frequency.

[S.C.G]

Streets of Rage 4 new balancing patch now available

Dotemu have just released a sizeable patch for Streets of Rage 4.

Check the article for the full patch notes.

[S.C.G]

Well played Dotemu...

I just tried the game out again, following the recent patch, and sure enough, the gameplay has been significantly improved across the board.

Although, I will say... if you thought that the last stage was tough to begin with, then you'll likely have fun trying to beat it all over again, because it's significantly more challenging.

The spike ball from the Gourmand room is now gone, replaced by? More enemies, so you can't just watch them roll into the spike ball any more.

Both the Ms. Y fight and Mr. Y fight are significantly harder, I didn't even make it to the final part of the last battle, so it looks like I'll be going back to the game more often.

Online seems smoother, but it's hard to tell when people keep quitting, also, I noticed that out of all the patch improvements, there still isn't an option to give you the power to change whether friendly hits are On or Off when you join an online game; this would have been helpful, because the amount of times I've joined a game and people leave the option On is far too frequent, and while I understand that you could damage the other player in the original games, here it's more of an issue as you'll end up hitting the other characer you're playing with, even when you're trying not to... plus you'll always get that one player online who will combo you for no good reason.

Overall, the changes definitely make the game feel even further improved, but that last stage is going to take some getting used to.

[S.C.G]

9 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

@S.C.G I've not played SoR4 since the release period. What changes did they make to the final boss battle? Have they made it harder?

In an attempt to get the discussion going in the Streets of Rage 4 thread, I thought it best to quote you here, and refer you to the post I made above at the time, which I'm aware that you probably wouldn't have seen, but everything in that post still rings true, although I haven't checked the game in recent months to see if the game has been changed since in any way.

I still haven't beaten the final stage of the game since the update though, and I've run through the game countless times before, I just think that changing the A.I of the final boss characters, really doesn't help the game, but nearly every other change which was made, improved the game overall, it's a bit of a shame because it has partly killed a lot of the enthusiasm I once had for the game, and unless it has been tweaked again since, or until i go back to it and relearn the attack patterns, which I suspect won't help because of just how much has been changed, I can't see myself wanting to go back to it, aside from the odd multiplayer game.

Edited December 2, 2020 by S.C.G

[Nicktendo]

New paid DLC and free content update
 

Publisher and developer Dotemu, and developers Lizardcube and Guard Crush Games have announced Streets of Rage 4 paid downloadable content “Mr. X Nightmare,” which will add three new playable characters and a special “Survival” game mode when it launches later in 2021. A separate free update will launch alongside the downloadable content with additional content. The game has also surpassed 2.5 million downloads across all platforms.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Nicktendo

[S.C.G]

Streets of Rage 4 gets Mr. X Nightmare paid DLC, plus a free update

Now up on the main page.

Check the article for the press release and trailer.

- - - - -

[Sméagol]

 

[nekunando]

5 hours ago, Sméagol said:

 

A perfect opportunity for you to make amends and pick up one of the greatest beat 'em ups of all time

 

[Hero-of-Time]

After Sega announced all of those new games the other week I've been itching to play this again. I decided to do just that this evening, after ordering the Mr. X Nightmare version of the game that has all the DLC. I had a look at my old save data and strangely it's almost 3 years to the day when I last played this.

Back when I originally played this I never did get the platinum as I figured it was beyond my skill level. That may still be the case but I did earn a trophy that I had trouble getting 3 years ago.

I didn't think I'd ever get able to clear arcade on hard difficulty (you get 0 continues) but I managed to pull it off and had 4 lives to spare. Go me.

I also dabbled with the DLC content. I never realised it was a roguelike. It's very fun, if a little brutal at later stages. After each battle you get to pick from a selection of power ups to take with you to the next fight. These range from things like your hits dealing elemental damage, to having AI partner spawn at the start of each round to help you out. In the runs I've tried I've always gone for the elemental damage powers if they show up. The amount of enemies that died from my poison attacks was nuts. Its a great addition to the main game and one that I'll be revisiting.

[darksnowman]

6 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

After Sega announced all of those new games the other week I've been itching to play this again. I decided to do just that this evening

Yeah, but, it's no coinkydink they waited until after SoR4 came out to add Rival Turf! to NSO.