I know, I know, about a month late. Apologies. :P

Since everyone’s going to have different opinions on the subject matter anyway, I’m just going to say my own straight up: Streets of Rage 2 was the best damn game I played on the Sega Genesis, period. I fried so many adapters just playing this.

To me it beat out the system’s iconic mascot Sonic – I was a young male then, and while blitzing through levels so quickly you didn’t get to play them at all was pretty amusing for a few weeks, beating up gang members on cold, neon-lit streets just could not get any better nor more satisfying, and for a longer time too. SoR 2 beat out Golden Axe, Mortal Kombat, Aladdin, Lion King, Super Shinobi II, the original Streets of Rage (which I owned the Japanese version of), Streets of Rage 3, Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker and anything else I managed to play with my grubby little hands on that magical black console. There will always be second and third placers, but SoR 2 holds first for me. It was that good.

The sequel takes place in the same city as the original, which is surprising considering how much damage you inflicted there whenever you called for police backup – rocket propelled grenades, baby. Maybe the Mayor had a lot of extra money to spare on rebuilding infrastructure or something. Whatever it was, one year after his Syndicate is destroyed, Mr. X (gotta’ love that name) comes back and now he’s kidnapped Adam, your buddy cop and one of the characters of the first game. In the name of law and order your hodge-podge team of action heroes band together to save Adam and rid the streets of danger once again, etcetera etcetera.

It wasn’t exactly an original storyline, but hey, I was 10 and couldn’t give more of a rat’s ass on the background. Plus it provided a good excuse to go around and beat people up.

This was your crew in the game… meet the cavalry.

Axel Stone – bodyguard extraordinaire. He was the staple of the series as you would expect. Also, as per character stereotypes, he was the most well-rounded character out of them all. He always wore a headband on his head because they were rad. Yeah.

Blaze Fielding – token sexy female. Adam’s partner in more ways than one, I would suspect. Blaze was also one of the staples of the series, appearing in all three games. She always wore tight red leather too. I wonder why. Blaze was fast, but kinda weak. Again with the stereotypes!

Skate Hunter – Adam’s younger brother. He’s named Skate because he’s a rollerblade fetishist. Yeah, we couldn’t figure that out from the way he looked, thanks for the tip Sega. Skate was also fast but weak, which is why I never used him – he wasn’t strong, and he was definitely not eye candy.

Max Thunder – wrestler by day, crimefighter by night. Rounding out the characters with his massive strength capable of dealing M4SSIVE D4M4GE!!! Of course, he was slow, but hey, someone had to be, or else it wouldn’t be a true and complete beat ‘em up. There always had to be that guy who moved like molasses but made up for it in brute force. Max was that guy.

Graphically speaking, everything was changed for the better. It was all larger and more up-and-in-your-face. The character and enemy sprites benefitted from increased frames of animation. Everything looked more like a side-scroller should. The color palette is where the art truly shone though. Everything was more vibrant and more… how can I say it? Sega-ish. Compare and contrast, exhibits A, B and C.

Streets of Rage – too grainy.

Streets of Rage 3 – too drab.

Streets of Rage 2 – just right.

Animation-wise, the sequel also spelled improvement. Moving your character was no longer the painfully slow affair like the first game. This time around it was snappy and fluid. Your punches, kicks, jumps and specials all moved better too, again because of the increased animation frames. Watching yourself beat up the bad guys was no longer just an objective, it was a treat. On the flipside, when you got caught in an opponent’s jab or throw, it hurt and it showed it. This was after the era of deliberately blinking character sprites to signify damage and before the coming of force feedback. Audiences then expected to see pain shown on screen, and boy did this game deliver.

In terms of gameplay, what else is there to say? You were there to kick ass, and you were (or at least your character was) good at it. Controls were tight, moves executed through the gamepad were properly transferred to the screen. There wasn’t any need for charging or 360 degree controller motions or some other complicated fighting game shit to worry about, moves were intuitive. You pressed forward or backward or up or down to move in that direction. Pressing in one direction twice combined with the attack button yielded special moves. Going towards your enemy initiated a grapple. It wasn’t hard; there wasn’t any great mystery to solve just to give beatdowns and take names, if you knew how to hold a controller, you were good to go. Simple and effective was the name of the game.

The difficulty could easily be ratcheted up if you found the first few levels a bit too easy. Try this beast on Mania difficulty and see if that’s still an easy 45 minute affair.

Music easily took the cake. The Streets of Rage series has always been known for its good music, due no doubt to Yuzo Koshiro’s brilliance. This was no different. The whole soundtrack of electronic synths and funky, club dance tunes was perfect for the seedy locales you found yourself bashing heads in. It was all about making a connection between the current level and the action that was taking place. In that light, the soundtrack was solid, successfully conveying “shut up and punch people” alongside “hey, I’m fun, play me more!”

Streets of Rage 2 enjoys the general consensus of being the best game in the trilogy. Having personally played all three of them from start to finish, I have to agree. I was lucky enough to get to play it in its prime, but you can always do that now with a bit of help, right?

P.S. Oh, and for some reason I almost always chose Max. Can’t beat killing guys with two strikes from a grab.