I've been playing Streets of Rage 4 almost since the time it was released. It's one of those games that took on the formidable challenge of continuing a successful and popular series; and it nailed the purpose: The game is definitely a worthy sequel for the SOR series.
Whenever developers of a specific IP announce that they are going to make a sequel of their beloved game, there is always the doubt and the fear of failure among the fans and probably the developers themselves! But Streets of Rage 4 showed everyone how it's done; it is absolutely one of the best sequels I've ever played in my whole life!
Streets of Rage 4 gives you the same feeling of excitement and nostalgia you're looking for, especially if you've been a fan of the series. It does so since the very first moments you enter the game: the main theme music and the art style you hear and see in the main menu and before it, is enough for you to remember all those beautiful childhood memories! But then when you enter the character select menu - as if it was not enough already - the game plays a piece of magical music that you've never heard before but feels the most familiar to your ears! (I am actually going to share a fun story about this at the end, so stay tuned!)
The gameplay is also exactly how you'd expect it to be while bringing a fresh feeling to the series at the same time. The characters, the levels, the mechanics of fighting, the combos, even the story, "almost everything" in this game manages to find a nice balance between "being loyal to the original elements of the series" and "introducing new elements". Finding that balance is extremely difficult and it's exactly what every sequel project aims for, but not every sequel succeeds to accomplish.
Being able to play as the old characters and integrating them into the gameplay is another brilliant choice the developers made. The art style and the animations of the game, especially those of the new characters, is very delicate and nice to watch: it has undergone just exactly the right amount of improvement in graphics that would make us call it an SOR game, and not something else! The story is also very simple and "good enough" for a beat'em up game! The developers have also done a fantastic job on the optimization of the game client, and it runs smoothly even on pretty old PCs.
All in all, SOR4 is an incredible sequel to the Streets of Rage series and even a great standalone game! The only thing that bugged me about the game was the fact that you can't play it as a classic 4-player online co-op game with your friends; which is quite an odd decision made by developers when you realize that there are workarounds for this issue, with which you could play it as a 4-player local game with only one of the players owning the game, and sharing their screen with others!
P.S: Alright, time for the story! One day I was listening to the Character Select music of SOR4, and suddenly my sister came into my room and said: "Hey that's Streets of Rage music!" (she had not played SOR4 before, and didn't even know it exists! However, she had only played the oldest game of the series). Knowing that, I said: "No, it's not what you think it is!" She insisted: "But I'm sure!". It was then that I realized Yuzo Koshiro is a music genius! He is able to compose music that is completely novel, but feels familiar when you hear it! I'm sure you can also say the same thing, even if you've only played the older games of the series!
Here is the track I'm talking about, enjoy!
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