Game Discussion of the Week: Streets of Rage 3

Added and stickied.

Love it, but damn the final boss can be a POS if you can't hit him. Also love being able to play as Shiva (if you know how to get him <wink>)

Upon playing all three games in the last year, 3 has changed to my favorite official SoR title. Although not to same extent as a certain resident of ours, I just like it a little more than 2.

In terms of gameplay, Streets of Rage 3 is definitely more revolutionary than its predecessors. In fact I fail to see how SoR 1 & 2 were revolutionary at all. Streets of Rage 3 was not only the first game in the series to have a dash mechanic, but it also introduced rolling dodges, weapon special moves, and some other details. Comparing Rage 2's gameplay to Rage 3's is like comparing night and day.

I just want to say that I meant to post my thoughts on SoR 3 the day this thread was posted but because I have been battling a severe case of the flu ever since monday I haven't been able to get out of my apartment very much this past week.

Anyway, Street of Rage 3 is easily my favorite beat-em-up of all time as well as one of my favorite games of all time PERIOD. Cervantes do NOT listen to the negative crap people say about this game! If you admire ambitious beat-em-ups like Guardian Heroes then you should definitely try SoR 3 again, because it was easily the most ambitious beat-em-up for its time.

If I had to sum up Streets of Rage 3's gameplay in four words, it would be this:

DEEPER
FASTER
HARDER
BETTER

Sega really went above and beyond in improving the series' gameplay in every single way imaginable with 3, to the point where it was completely perfected. I have absolutely no complaints about 3's gameplay and it fixed ALL of the annoyances I had with the first two games; namely, the introduction of a dash mechanic means the gameplay is no longer slow as molasses, but it also added a number of other new mechanics as well, increasing both the game's speed and skill gap. I would argue that Streets of Rage 3 has more challenging gameplay that many fighting games out there.

The visual design also received a noticable upgrade. Character sprites received fresh animations, often more fluid/complex ones (ex: better idle animations, newly added inking effects which gives the game a more detailed, "graphic novel" look, etc.), and the character models themselves are less pixilated than 2's. In fact, I'm just going to flat out admit that Streets of Rage 3 is the most artistically impressive beat-em-up I've ever seen, maybe even surpassing Sega's other visually impressive effort from the time Comix Zone. Every aspect of the game's visuals are truly professionally executed, and the japanese box art gives you an idea of the artistic prowess that went into this game:



And I don't mean to exaggerate the game's visuals by posting this, because the in-game graphics really do represent the complexity shown above. As I already said the in-game character models are noticibley more detailed than in the previous games, and the newly added cutscenes add another layer of visual flare to an already impressive looking game, not to mention they greatly enhance the storytelling.

I think my only problem with Street's of Rage 3 isn't even with the game itself, but the fact that it didn't receive nearly as many ports as 1 or 2 did, and the original cartridges are much more costly to procure too (back in 2009 when I bought mine it was around $30, and I imagine that its price has only gone up since). Before the 7th gen, literally the only port the game received was to the japaense version of Sonic Gems Collection on the Gamecube, and a lot of the digital stores it was once available on have since been shut down (like the Wii's Virtual Console service for example). It's a similar problem that Armored Core Raven brought up about Doom 2.

Another problem I have is that modern D-pads simply don't do the game justice, due to the fact that it's an extremely demanding game to play, which is why I refuse to play the version on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. As someone who spent an enormous amount of time playing it on the Genesis with an official Sega controller, the shitty dualshock & Xbox d-pads make the game impossible to enjoy properly.

So here I am, unable to play one of my favorite games of all time without shelling out at least $100 for a Genesis and the game cartridge. Woe is me and my first world problems. But hey, at least ROMs of the game are widely available on the web, so if you want to emulate it Sega's not going to throw you in prison like Nintendo would.

Anyway, 5/5 for me, no hesitation at all. Streets of Rage 3 is one of the greatest games I've ever played, and it deserves way more love.

The main reason would probably be that I've played 2 so many times and only recently got into 3(played it some before but never put real time or effort into it). The stuff that it added(that melee already explained better than I would even if he does overhype) and the extra challenge just make it more fun for me atm. And unlike a lot of people, I do like the soundtrack.

Try to come up with a more original comment next time, Strat.