Released: 30 May 2012
Originally Released: 20 December 1992
Developer: M2
Original Developers: Ancient, H.I.C, MNM Software, SEGA, and Shout! Designworks
Also Available For: Arcade, Dreamcast, GameCube, Game Gear, Master System, Mega Drive, Mobile, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X

The Background:
Sidescrolling beat-‘em-ups were a popular genre in both arcades and home consoles back in the mid-nineties thanks to games like Double Dragon (Technōs Japan, 1987), Final Fight (Capcom, 1989), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (Konami, 1992). Noriyoshi Ohba and his small team of developers drew inspiration from this genre to create the first Bare Knuckle Streets of Rage (SEGA, 1991) title, which initially released exclusively on SEGA’s home consoles. Given that Streets of Rage was incredibly popular and highly praised, a sequel was released only a year later; to incorporate new features and improvements over the original release, the developers improved the Mega Drive’s cartridge specifications to allow for larger, more detailed sprites and increased enemy swarms. Ayano Koshiro designed and coded the new characters, their moves, and tweaked the gameplay experience to make things faster, more dynamic, and more capable of competing against Capcom’s brawlers on Nintendo’s consoles. All this work paid off as Streets of Rage II was one of the top five best-selling Mega Drive games upon release and was met with widespread critical acclaim; reviews praised the improvements and combat, Yuzo Koshiro’s soundtrack, and the gameplay in general was universally celebrated. After being re-released and ported numerous times over the years, all three Streets of Rage games came to the Xbox 360 as part of the SEGA Vintage Collection, with this version including additional modern quality of life elements such as save files, a replay feature, and bonus content.

The Plot:
One year after saving Wood Oak City from Mr. X’s crime syndicate, former police officers Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding join forces with professional wrestler Max Thunder and Eddie “Skate” Hunter, the younger brother of their comrade, Adam Hunter, when Mr. X makes a sudden return and kidnaps Adam!

Gameplay:
Like its predecessor, Streets of Rage II is a 2D, sidescrolling beat-‘em-up in which players pick from one of four playable characters and return to the mean streets of Wood Oak City to clear out a new batch of thugs across eight levels (now referred to as “Stages”). As before, you can choose to tackle this either alone or alongside a second player, who can jump in at any time, and can again pick from four difficulty settings (ranging from “Easy” to “Hardest”). This time around, you can manually set the amount of lives you have from the “Options” menu and, after losing all of your lives and continues (of which you have three on “Normal”), you can enter your initials on the high score board and then switch to a different character to continue playing as if you want. Each Stage is played against a generous time limit that is extended by clearing enemies from the screen, or if you lose a life. Compared to the last game, Streets of Rage II is much bigger, faster, and more responsive, with additional animations, combos, attack options and unique gameplay mechanics both shared and exclusive to the four playable characters. Once again, you have a simple three button control system that can be fully customised both in the in-game menu and using the SEGA Vintage Collection settings to allow for a rapid fire attack option. By default, A sees you attack with either a punch or a kick, B lets you jump to land one of two jumping attacks, and X lets you pull off one of two special moves to clear away groups of enemies at the cost of some health. You can switch up these buttons as you like in the main menu, and you can now pull off a rear attack by either pressing A and B together or by assigning this attack to another button (I used X) and pull off either a dash or a forward lunge attack by double tapping the directional pad and pressing attack. When you get up close to enemies, you’ll also grab them, allowing you to either pummel them, toss them behind you (and into other enemies), or slam them to the ground for big damage. Anything you can do, your enemies can do too, however, so you’ll need to make sure to avoid them grabbing and throwing you, overwhelming you from all sides, or sliding or charging at you. Although Axel, Blaze, Max, and Skate all share the same basic attacks and controls, each now has five different attributes that changes the way they play as they have more or less focus on Power, Technique, Speed, Jump, and Stamina. This means that Skate is the fastest but weakest character and Max is the most powerful but the slowest, and this extends to their attack options. For example, Axel can perform his “Grand Upper” to somewhat dash ahead, Blaze unleashes a short range fireball and Skate literally dashes ahead in a diving cannonball attack while Max does a limited shoulder charge and slide attack, so you really feel a difference when playing as each character as you trade off speed and jump height for attack power or defence.

Special attacks are much more varied this time around as well; rather than every character simply calling in backup, each one has a different health-sapping move to deal big damage to multiple enemies. One is performed by a simple press of the special attack button and the other is performed in conjunction with a directional input and, since they drain your health, you won’t have to worry about picking up specific power-ups to replenish them, though your health bar does drains down to the point where you can’t pull them off. This introduces a new layer of strategy to combat as you now must weigh the risk and reward of the abilities of your chosen character while also factoring in whether it’s better to lose a little health pulling off a special or risk losing more health by holding back and getting pummelled by enemies. As ever in these types of games, your goal is to travel from the left side of the screen and to the right and wade through enemies; however, this time around the screen occasionally scrolls diagonally downwards and upwards. Stages are also much longer and generally comprised of at least three areas, meaning when you reach the final part you’ll usually battle a sub-boss and then enter a building or a new area to take on more enemies, making each Stage (and, consequently, the game) much longer. Taking out enemies and grabbing pick-ups still awards you points, and you’re once again awarded bonus points at the end of each Stage depending on how much time and life you have left, which will eventually award you with an extra life. By default, each character is pretty durable, though some are tougher than others, and I found that raking up extra lives was much easier this time around. More enemies, and more varied combinations of enemies, fill each screen at any one time but the game feels less cheap than the last one and the new combat animations and mechanics make crowd control a lot easier. It also helps that onscreen hazards are now at a minimum; there are no death pits to fall down, no crushing weights or flames to worry about. While some enemies will toss grenades at you from the background, pop up from sewer holes, or leap in from offscreen, the only real onscreen hazard you come across are some conveyor belts. Enemies remain shy and like to linger just offscreen, which can be annoying when you’re trying to progress further, and some destructible objects do tend to explode, but these can also damage enemies as well, which is very helpful. Streets of Rage II also has not one, not two, but three elevator sections, none of which allow you to toss your foes off the side, and when you view your high scores you’ll be able to see stats like which Stage you got to and how many K.O.s you scored (which I assume is enemies beaten but it could also be the amount of lives you lost).

Graphics and Sound:
Streets of Rage II continues the tradition of the series by filling every Stage with a catchy, thumping soundtrack that really helps to make the monotonous gameplay fun since you’re just humming away as you go to town on waves of enemies. You still get a congratulatory melody after finishing a Stage, boss themes, and scream, grunt, and groan; it’s always obvious when you’ve grabbed an item or earned an extra life thanks to an audible jingle but, while many of the sounds and music are more elaborate and impressive than the first game, many are still recycled from The Revenge of Shinobi (SEGA, 1989). The overall presentation is much improved, however; the heads-up display is now no longer confined to an ugly black box at the top of the screen, meaning the locations are bigger and much more detailed; enemies now have (ridiculous) names and life bars of varying lengths (with sub-bosses and bosses having two- or three-tiered life bars), and there’s generally a lot more life in the sprites and environments.

The sprites are much bigger and more detailed than before; their idle animations still generally amount to just breathing heavily and waiting for the next punch-up, but Skate glides along on his rollerblades in a very slick way and everything just has a little more polish this time around, which is only bolstered by a few new animation frames when grabbing and beating on enemies or performing your character’s combos. The story is once again told through text but the font is much clearer and longer, still images are used to recap the ending of Streets of Rage and show the ending sequence for this game, and Stages are way more varied than before thanks to going on longer. You’ll see lampposts and chain link fences in the foreground, cars and different views of the city in the background, fog and rain effects, smash your way through a bar and an arcade (where enemies are playing Bare Knuckle machines), explore a pier and fairground (where enemies sleep on bunches, a rollercoaster can be seen, and you end up in something ripped from the mind of H. R. Giger and a pirate ship), and battle your way into the SEGA Stadium where the green becomes a descending elevator section, You’ll cross a bridge held up by huge girders, traverse conveyer belts in a factory, battle through the foyer of Mr. X’s newest elaborate skyscraper, and even end up in a gladiator pit and in the back of a moving van where enemies and audiences cheer on your foes as they try to beat the life out of you. It’s all much bigger and more visually impressive, even though many of the Stages are reminiscent of the last game; little touches like fighting along the beach from the other perspective than in Streets of Rage (so now the sea is behind you) and progressing from the interior of a rocking ship up to the deck really show how the game is taking everything that worked in the first and improving upon it for a deeper, more visually engaging and exciting gameplay experience.

Enemies and Bosses:
While you’ll recognise the vast majority of the enemies you’ll encounter throughout Streets of Rage II from the last game, they now have names and life bars and palette swapped versions of them crop up right from the first Stage, which helps to make them seem more varied than they actually are. The denim-clad thugs and yellow-jacketed punks return, still charging at you with knives, sliding at your shins, or trying to throw you across the screen but they’re now joined by bald bastards who uppercut you out of the air at the worst possible moments. While the whip-cracking dominatrixes return, the martial artists have been replaced by Muay Thai kickboxers and ninjas who can guard against your attacks, flip about the place, and toss throwing stars your way, respectively. Bikers make their first appearance here, charging and leaping at you on their motorcycles, though you can kick them off and take them out with their own exploding bikes; their grenades will also damage other enemies, and you’ll now drop whatever weapon you’re carrying when you grapple with an enemy (and ninjas can even catch ones you throw at them!)

As Stages are now longer, you’ll now have to contend with a number of sub-bosses as well as end of Stage bosses. As before, all of these reappear in later Stages as recoloured and renamed regular enemies, though slightly weaker and with some variations. The first sub-boss is Jack, a large punk with a flaming Mohawk and garbed in a ripped denim shirt and jeans. This guy’s packing knives, which he’ll stab or throw at you, but you can also pick them up and use them against him and any other enemies coming for you, which is handy when he reappears in his recoloured forms. Dominatrixes like Elektra often attack in pairs and are given extra attack range with their whips, which can also be electrified, but I found them pretty easy to take out before they could do any real damage. Hakuyo and his variants are muscular martial artists who literally drop in with flying kicks and jump attacks, while Big Ben is a returning, rotund enemy from the last game who will plod around trying to set you alight with his fire breath or try and crush you with a big belly flop (but, this time, you are able to throw and slam him without being hurt). One of the more unique sub-bosses is Vehelits, an animatronic alien head that pans across the screen to send you flying and is one of only three enemies you’ll fight just the one time in the entire game, which is fine as all the other sub-bosses and bosses crop up again in the later Stages. After running an enemy gauntlet, you’ll once again confront Mr. X; this time, rather than offer you the chance to join him, he orders his personal bodyguard, martial artist Shiva, to soften you up. Shiva is the closest you’ll get to a boss who is as versatile as you; he attacks with flying and sliding kicks, guarding against your attacks, and flying at you with flaming cartwheel kicks. While he cuts an intimidating figure, he’s actually not as hard as some of the game’s other sub-bosses, however.

After fighting through the bar and into a rainswept alley, you’ll take on Barbon, the musclebound proprietor of the establishment you just wrecked who (alongside a bevvy of regular goons) throws spinning kicks, tosses you across the screen, guards against your attacks, and kicks you out of mid-air. When he reappears later, he’s actually one of the easier enemies, especially compared to Stage 2’s boss, Jet. This jetpack-wearing asshole constantly hovers overheard, swooping down or across the screen or grabbing you and sending you crashing to the ground. It can be a little tricky to land a hit on him, much less a combo, as it’s not always easy to judge what “level” of the background he’s on, which can make him a hell of an annoyance when he reappears as a regular enemy. Still, he’s a walk in the park compared to Zamza; this Blanka-like asshole attacks with clawed talons, spinning and jumping all over the place and flying at you with a cannonball attack, swiping you out of the air with a twirling uppercut, or delivering a massive German Suplex up close. His appearance on Stage 8 as “Nail” was a particular headache for me, and actually harder than the last bosses of the game since he’s so hard to keep track of and land decent hits on. In the gladiator pit, you’ll have a rematch with hulking wrestler Abadede; this Ultimate Warrior rip-off has expanded his repertoire to include an uppercut, a lariat strike, a flying body splash, a muscle flex that can send you flying, a big back suplex, and will even strike you with a wrench when he grabs you.

After fighting your way onto the deck of Stage 5’s ship, you’ll go toe-to-toe with the bulbous Rocky Bear; this guy’s also no joke as he hops about on his tiptoes, pummelling you with punches when he grabs you and easily cancelling your combos with a lunging fist, or comes flying at you with a butt stomp! He’s also accompanied by “Balloon”, a Big Ben variant, and he can be a real pain in the ass as you have to try your luck with a leaping kick, break free of his grab with your special, and dodge out of the way to do some real damage with a combo. Things get a little lazy at the end of Stage 6, however, as you have to fight a variant of Zamza and Jet (known as “Souther” and Stealth”) rather than a unique boss battle, though Stage 7 makes up for this with the tag team combo of robots Particle and Molecule. These cycloptic automatons jump about the place to avoid your attacks, swing their retractable mace-like appendages at you, and even fire projectiles from their eyes but they’re not especially difficult to deal with even when they immediately appear as regular enemies at the start of Stage 8. After dispatching Shiva, you’ll finally face off against Mr. X; unfortunately, this is basically exactly the same as in the last game as Mr. X wanders about trying to brain you with the butt of his rifle (which, to be fair, lands as a combination of hits this time) and haphazardly spraying bullets across the screen. Goons will file in to distract you, but they can also be hurt by Mr. X’s bullets, and as long as you focus on attacking him you’ll come out on top easily enough. I’m actually surprised the developers didn’t have an alternative version of Shiva (or Shiva himself) attack you in this final bout as it’s a pretty simple final fight, and the game is actually much fairer (on “Normal”, at least) than the last one, so it’s not inconceivable that you could get through this without too much difficulty, which is surprising considering how tough and cheap Zamza can be.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
There are still plenty of destructible objects scattered around the various Stages for you to smash to uncover goodies; apples and roast dinners will restore some or all of your health, the occasional 1-up will grant you an extra life, and bags of cash and gold bars to add to your high score. This is also the main way (outside of disarming enemies) that you’ll acquire a melee weapon; interestingly, there’s only one new weapon in the game (the kunai blade dropped by the ninjas) and some (like the glass bottles) are actually missing. On the plus side, every character swings the metal pipe differently and weapons can be throw at the press of a button to become projectiles but, if you get hit and drop them enough, they still eventually disappear and you may also struggle to attack if you’re standing over a weapon as your character will try to pick it up instead of defending themselves. Since your special move is tired to your health bar, there’s no item to pick up to replenish your stock; you can perform each character’s unique special move as long as you have enough health, and there’s actually a reason to play as different characters this time since they control a little differently and have unique special attacks.

Additional Features:
There are two Achievements on offer in Streets of Rage II, and three additional Achievements as part of playing all three games in the SEGA Vintage Collection. The two specific to this game require you to defeat Zamza on Stage 3 as Skate and Abadede on Stage 4; there are no Achievements for playing with a friend, or for finishing the game as each character, which is a bit disappointing. Unlike the first game, Streets of Rage II only has one ending, further reducing the replay incentive somewhat, but it does come with a new game mode. “Duel” allows two players to go head-to-head as one of the four playable characters in a one-on-one fight; you can select a Stage to battle on, and whether or not special moves are active, but again there are no Achievements tied to this extra mode and no other characters to play as. This version of the game comes with the same customisation options as the last game, allowing you to set wallpapers, scan lines, and smoothing, listen to the soundtrack on the jukebox, switch between the Japanese, European, and North American versions of the game (which again amount only to cosmetic differences), save replays, and make use of save states to the game to make it dramatically easier. Local and online co-op als return, as do leaderboards and the “Trial” mode, which has you battling towards a high score on four different difficulty stages against a time limit or going against Zamza’s “Horror House Challenge”.

The Summary:
I concluded my review of Streets of Rage by saying that I would probably pick Final Fight over it since, while it was a great game and a good attempt at an arcade-style beat-‘em-up, it didn’t quite match up to the level of Final Fight. With Streets of Rage II, the call is much harder to make; with larger, more detailed and visually appealing graphics, new characters with unique ways of controlling and special moves, and longer and more diverse Stages, Streets of Rage II is clearly bigger and better than its predecessor in every way. The core gameplay remains the same, but everything is faster, slicker, and meatier than before; there’s so much more to see and combat is way more fun and the cheapness of the original’s difficulty curve has been toned down quite a bit. While you can argue that this makes Streets of Rage II easier, I’m okay with that; when it comes to arcade beat-‘em-ups, I want a simple pick-up-and-play experience that can be challenging but not unfair or frustrating, and Streets of Rage II was a great time from start to finish. It was a shame to see some weapons missing, some Stage themes repeated from the last game, and that there weren’t more Achievements added to this version of the game, but there’s no denying that Streets of Rage II is vastly superior to the first game in every way. It almost feels like the first game was a proof of concept for the engine and the mechanics as Streets of Rage II just refined everything into an experience that’s far closer to what one would expect from an arcade title, so I would definitely choose to pick this one over the first one and happily compare it to Final Fight in terms of quality and enjoyment.

My Rating:

Great Stuff

What did you think to Streets of Rage II? How do you think it compares to the original, its sequels, and other beat-‘em-ups? Which of the four characters was your go-to and were you a fan of the new ones introduced here? What did you think to the longer Stages and additional sub-bosses? Have you ever beaten this game on the hardest difficulty setting? Which beat-‘em-up game or franchise is your favourite and why and what is it you enjoy about the genre? To share your memories of Streets of Rage II, sign up to leave a reply below or comment on my social media and be sure to check out my other reviews of the series!