STREETS OF RAGE REMAKE
Original Release: Bombergames, 2011, PC
A fan-made remake that fuses the first three Streets of Rage games together and adds some new elements
Streets of Rage Remake (PC, Bombergames, 2011)
Where to Buy: Freeware (Internet Archive)
How to Emulate: Can be ported to assorted indie retro handhelds, Xbox and PS Vita
Review by: C. M0use
At first blush, you might assume that Streets of Rage Remake is an OpenBOR or maybe even a Mugen project. Nope - this was coded entirely from the ground up over the course of eight years, using an obscure language called Fenix that was apparently designed specifically for making 2D games. It's a true labor of love, attempting to replicate the look and feel of the original Genesis trilogy as closely as possible while also creating a new overall experience.
It should really have been called "Remix" instead of "Remake", though; instead of remaking any or all of the games, it kinda blends all their levels and characters into a new experience. Mr. X is up to dastardly shenanigans again, but you can select from the whole six-man squad now and also choose from four routes through the city; three of them mostly track to each of the first three games, and there's one new one. For bonus fun, there are split paths throughout that allow you to jump from one track to another complete with changes to the story (told with mostly-new cutscenes between levels in the style of SoR 3).
Anyway, the whole package almost outdoes Sega at their own game. There are a handful of design nitpicks, but overall it's an amazing effort and one easily worth exploring for anyone who ever got any enjoyment out of any of these games.
The one design issue I didn't really like is locking most of the bonus options and fun stuff in a Marvel vs Capcom 2-esque shop, which requires you to beat the game to earn credits to spend on stuff there. But isn't beating the game fun? Well ... playing it is fun. Beating it ... ehhh not always so much, at least not until you become deeply familiar with it (probably via a number of wasted efforts).
This is where we get into the design nitpicks, the central of which is that certain routes have some pretty cheap sequences that weren't present in the original titles. Sometimes it's shitty Battletoads-esque jumping, but mostly it's just some cranked-up boss. The game overall is harder than any of the Genesis entries, but enemies don't get unbearable until you hit certain bosses. The fidelity to the original games includes the annoying AI routine of "zoning" you to an absurd degree, to the point of hiding off the screen and launching attacks you can't see. Some of the bosses take this to an absolutely insane level.
The good news is that these problematic fights can be handled by either cranking the difficulty down to "easy" until you get used to the game, or adding an AI co-op player (and turning off the "team kill" option). However, the AI partner introduces some of its own problems. For the most part their scripts are pretty good, but they don't seem to recognize environmental traps and damage very well and certain sequences see them burning through lives at a crazy pace as they keep falling in the same hole or whatever needlessly. I had to quit one game at stage 7 because a coin somehow flew into an unreachable background layer and the dumbass AI partner wouldn't stop chasing it, thus preventing me from ever scrolling the screen forward. Almost had to quit another game at stage 6 because the doofus kept slow-walking against a conveyor belt, but they eventually figured it out after a few minutes. And if you take the SoR 1 path, better hope the AI doesn't make the wrong choice at the final battle or you could get kicked back two levels (why is it even given the option?).
The other issue with beating the game is that you have to do it in one sitting, no passwords or snap saves or what have you. Most of us that are still playing Streets of Rage at this point are oldheads, and it's kinda rare for us to have over an hour to sit at a game uninterrupted. Just sayin'.
If you persist and pay to unlock stuff, there are some cool bonus features. All sorts of crazy cheats (turn samurai swords into lightsabers and make every enemy explode when they die), some new mini-games like volleyball, but primarily the SoRMaker that lets you make your own games. The problem with SoRMaker is that there is zero included documentation of how to use it, and pretty much zero online as well. I found some advanced tutorials online but no good explanations of how to just get the most basic shit off the ground, so I had to give up on it even though I had a couple little game ideas I wanted to try out.
So though they kept some stuff in that probably should have been removed, and documentation could have been a lot better on some things, by and large this is still an awesome little paean from the heart to one of the beat-em-up genre's foundational series. All the more of a shame that the usually permissive Sega unexpectedly merked it with a C&D a week after the final version was finally released (as it turned out they were releasing mobile ports of SoR 2 and 3 later that year). It's still floating around, of course, but that put an end to any official support or future updates.
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