5/5
Streets of Rage 4 is an amazing game. I haven’t played all belt-scrollers in existence, but I can make a calculated guess and say this is the best belt-scroller ever made. There are too many games in this genre anyway, and they all pretty much play exactly the same. I am sure there was an evolution in the genre, as regards mechanics, but after three decades there’s certainly not much room to further complexify the mechanics of such a simple genre. All that was left to do was to make the best game in the genre by adding kickass graphics and music to it, and cool enemies to fight against. And that’s exactly what SoR4 did.
Now, in SoR3 you could sprint and in SoR4 you can’t. That’s pretty much the only thing missing from the game, mechanically speaking. But I wonder how much sprinting would change the pace of the game. I am not sure if the ability to sprint would ruin the game because a character like Shiva can dash forward and this makes him super fun to play with (he’s my main).
I had so much fun with this game that I ended up getting its toughest achievements, like clearing the arcade mode on Hard difficulty (and I think I also did it on Hardest), reaching level 30 in survival mode, and getting an S-rank on all missions on Hard mode. These last two achievements were the toughest. This is because survival mode quickly becomes hectic, and the opponents get stronger with each level. By the time you get to level 30 it’s very tough to survive. As for the S-ranks, mission 4 was by far the toughest mission to clear with an S-rank because the required points to do so forced the player to make a perfect run on the mission, and to take practically no damage. This is because the points you get in a mission are proportional to the amount of hits you can chain on your opponents without getting hit yourself. The hit counter resets when you get hit, which means you lose all the points you could get otherwise.
But yeah, this game is stylish. The characters, the environments, and the enemies are beautiful. Some enemies are more annoying than others, but it’s okay. The music is sometimes good, sometimes very good. Streets of Rage 4 is a fun little game that is quite possibly the pinnacle of the genre. I just don’t see any other belt-scroller as beautiful as this one.
The Stillest 
I vaguely regret falling out of the video game playing mindset years ago… I would like to include reviews of video games, like your excellent one did, at my website Dark Sport but it’s just not in the cards. I suppose I could begin playing games at the cafe but I’d rather do research or read while I’m here spending my money.
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When I was younger I played much more frequently. Nowadays, I don’t play much. But I do like to immerse myself in a good game from time to time. I’m trying to play more often, lately. I’m growing bored of scrolling X, which I’ve spent a lot of time doing this past year, and that’s why I’m slowly starting to play more. I just can’t do it for more than a couple of hours per day, for some reason.
Glad you liked the review. If you want to play SoR4 with me one of these days, be sure to hit me up. The game has multiplayer mode and is pretty fun to play with someone else. You can clear it in a couple of hours in a single sitting. I could set up a Discord server for us to communicate while we play.
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Your offer to play and talk with you is intriguing. I’ll consider it. I would have to go to the internet gaming cafe and see if they have SoR4 on their list of games. Offhand, I don’t think they do, but I haven’t checked out all their games and they have a lot. Let me think on it.
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Your offer to play and talk with you is intriguing. I’ll consider it. I would have to go to the internet gaming cafe and see if they have SoR4 on their list of games. Offhand, I don’t think they do, but I haven’t checked out all their games and they have a lot. Let me think on it.
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