Genesis trilogies 2: Streets of Rage 1, 2 and 3

Also known as Bare Knuckle (ベア・ナックル) in Japan — BONUS ONE: Streets of Rage 4!!!

This the second-of-three of “Genesis Trilogies” on Medium, as I want to change this theme to beat’em up. Shinkansen Retrogaming is still stuck in a Sega vibe, possibly to celebrate the company’s 60th anniversary.

GRAND UPPA~!

This city was once a happy, peaceful place… until one day, a powerful secret criminal organization took over. This vicious syndicate soon had control of the government and even the police force. The city has become the center of violence and crime where no one is safe.

Amid this turmoil, a group of determined young police officers has sworn to clean up the city. Among them are Adam Hunter, Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding. They are willing to risk anything… even their lives… on the… Streets of Rage.

The once peaceful city has been taken over by a criminal syndicate, including factions of the police. Mass violence is now common and no one is safe. The first game has Adam Hunter (an accomplished boxer), Axel Stone (skilled martial artist), and Blaze Fielding (judo expert), three vicenarian ex-police officers who have quit the force to fight back against the syndicate.

Depending on whether the game is played as one-player or a two-player co-op, and whether the player accepts or rejects Mr. X’s offer to join his henchmen, there is a possibility for an alternate ending where the player becomes the new head of the crime syndicate.

The second game brings in two new characters; Max Thunder, a slow-moving but powerful wrestler, and Eddie “Skate” Hunter (Sammy Hunter in the Japanese version), the brother of previous game’s Adam Hunter (and the uncle of Streets of Rage 4’s Cherry Hunter) who can move around quickly with his rollerblades. In addition to standard attacks, which have been expanded from the previous game, each character can perform a unique Blitz Attack by double-tapping a direction before attacking. Replacing the police car attack from the previous game, each character can perform Special Attacks which can deal extra damage or attack enemies from all directions at the cost of the player’s health. Along with the main campaign, two players can also fight against each other in the game’s Duel mode.

Unlike the other two games in the series, Streets of Rage 2 has only one ending, where Mr. X is defeated and Adam is rescued, after which the heroes leave in a helicopter.

The third game (which is the last game of the original trilogy) brings back three of the playable characters from former games return in the sequel: Axel Stone, Blaze Fielding, and Eddie “Skate” Hunter, each of which have their respective strengths and weaknesses. Dr. Zan replaces Max from the second game, with any weapon he picks up turning into a ball of energy. Adam from the first game makes a story cameo, and Max only makes a cameo appearance in the game’s “good” ending.

The Western release of the game features altered graphics and sound effects and increased difficulty compared to the Japanese version, and does not feature Ash as a playable character. Like the previous game, a Battle mode lets two players fight against each other. The clothing of the three returning heroes (Axel, Blaze, and Sammy) was altered from their original colors seen in previous Streets of Rage games, the female enemy characters wore less-revealing outfits, and a sub-boss named “Ash”, a gay stereotype, was removed from the English version (though he is still accessible in Streets of Rage 3 as a playable character via cheating and/or hacking). The voice-effects were also changed, with most noticeably Axel’s catchphrase of “Grand Upper” for his blitz move being replaced with “Bare Knuckle”.

Axel Stone appears in the second Project X Zone game (who is voiced by Tomokazu Sugita).

Until we get… wait for it…

…STREETS OF RAGE 4!!! Which took 26 years after the original trilogy. Ten years after the events of Streets of Rage 3, in which the criminal mastermind Mr. X was defeated, Wood Oak City falls under the control of a new crime syndicate led by Mr. X’s children, the Y Twins (named “Mr. Y” and “Ms. Y”), who plan to brainwash its citizens with hypnotic music. Blaze Fielding calls in some old favors to take the twins down. Joining Blaze are her old friends Axel Stone (who now has a beard) and Adam Hunter, Adam’s daughter Cherry Hunter (who is the niece of Streets of Rage 2 veteran Eddie “Skate” Hunter), and Floyd Iraia, a cybernetically enhanced apprentice of Dr. Zan. The game is developed by DotEmu, Lizardcube, and Guard Crush Games, and the fourth game brings back Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima, two SOR veterans who composed the music on the original trilogy.

The reason why Skate was not in the fourth game (aside from his unlockable SOR2/SOR3 appearances) is that this was a conscious decision since due to the time skip between the original trilogy and the fourth game Skate would now be in his early/mid-twenties and thus redesigning him to reflect this would make him look too different from his older design, according to DotEmu, Lizardcube, and Guard Crush Games, the fourth game’s developers. It is possible that Skate left the city to study in Europe.