Game Discussion of the Week: Streets of Rage 3

Just watched this one yesterday and WOW what a shit review. Here's the summery of his analysis: "Streets of Rage 3 is the worst SoR just because it has the worst soundtrack in the series". He also failed to mention the fact that all of the playable character sprites were (to my knowledge) totally redrawn, enhanced with new frame-specific details, had new frames of animation added (i.e. smoother idle animations, running animations, etc.), and most importantly I don't remember him mentioning the fact that the game now features dashing? Maybe he did, I'm just going off my memory of what I watched yesterday.

He should just stick to reviewing music. People like him have no business reviewing video games, with a bias like that. I have absolutely no idea why you and Cervantes keep advertising this Sega Lord X chap because clearly he ain't worth jack. He's just another example of why I hate the Streets of Rage fandom.

His review isn't negative, and he actually says that SoR3 might be the best, at least in the gameplay area (although he indeed criticizes some things, like the music and the changes introduced by Sega of America). At 9:50, he literally says "I think the improvements to SoR3 gameplay are very nice: it's faster, there are more moves and it makes for a better playing and feeling experience. Pound for pound, it's the best playing of the original 16-bit trilogy by a mile", then he goes on to praise the multiple endings and how they are dependant on difficulty and player's performance. Also, at 4:18, he talks about how good the game looks, including "enhancements to the animation", new enemies, new moves and especially "stage variety", also enemy and character detail (which he says is incredible), although he does notice that the game features little in the way of graphical effects like parallax and line scrolling. EDIT: Looking at gameplay videos right now, SoR2 indeed had more parallax and line scrolling in its levels, so they do look a bit better in motion.

All the good things you pointed out, like "playable character sprites were (to my knowledge) totally redrawn, enhanced with new frame-specific details, had new frames of animation added", are discussed in his review. Really, I think his only pet peeves are the music and localization, which are divisive. I don't know how you got the impression that he thought SoR3 was the worst, or even a bad game, as he praises it a lot - again, in the gameplay section, he outright says it's the best of the three by a mile.

EDIT 2: About the dash, at 2:20 he calls it "A big upgrade that really speeds up the gameplay. There are also some new attacks based on running."

Fascinating.

GROUND Upper, I can't believe we got that wrong all this time!

Ground upper?. I just call it Hartsertsetfrueket!.