Publisher/developer Dotemu brings us the classic Streets of Rage into the modern age, preserving a 2D beat ‘em up aesthetic—all while maintaining a retro feel.

Streets of Rage 4 is a brawler that definitely deserves a play. It feels good to play, its art style is very clean, and the animation is great. Keep reading for a full review.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Feels good to play each unique character
• Great, fluid, animation
• Amazing soundtrack
• Available with XBox Game Pass

Cons

• Uneven difficulty spikes and dips

Game Feel

It feels good to play as any of the playable characters. Attacks feel responsive and quick just as a fighting game would be. Each character has unique special moves that can be used in combat. Heavy impacts, such as combo ending hits, feel satisfying with the right amount of frame freeze and screen shake.

But what really makes the game feel good is the one thing that stood out to me above all else, the game’s animation.

Animation

The animation in this game is great. Each playable character has unique animations with care put into each keyframe to make fighting feel good. The NPCs, in their design, have an extra spark of life in them, from the bobbing sagged pants of the gangsters to the flopping loose clothes they wear. There are even turning animations for each playable character! That’s an extra level of detail I always love in games that use a 2D art style.

Music

The soundtrack, produced mainly by Olivier Deriviere, fits incredibly well in each stage of the game, including the game’s main menu. We get the original themes with modern production, and new tracks that fit each stage’s flow. A mix of synths, drums, saxes, guitars, and piano bring the whole of the soundtrack into excellence.

Difficulty

There’s a difficulty selection that you can choose from, initially from Easy to Hardest. I found myself struggling with only a handful of stages in Normal mode. Once you beat the game on Story mode, you’ll unlock the actual hardest difficulty: Mania. This mode makes the AI stronger, smarter, and brings in more enemies into each screen of each stage.

Aside from the artificial difficulty selection, there’s definitely a learning curve for players to overcome. When multiple enemies are on the screen, especially different enemy types, you’ll easily get overwhelmed. Once you get a grasp of the mechanics and learn each enemy type, fighting them one-on-one is incredibly easy.

As I mentioned earlier, I played on Normal. I felt that the difficulty was pretty uneven when it comes to enemies and bosses. If a boss didn’t summon an extra ally, it would be a pretty easy encounter. For this reason, I found the final boss to be really easy. Perhaps it’s just a matter of cranking up the difficulty mode.

Completing the story will also unlock the other modes: Arcade, Boss Rush, and Battle. Arcade is the classic, play through the entire story in one go, mode. In Boss Rush mode, you’ll face off against bosses consecutively in order of appearance in the story. Lastly, you can compete against other players in Battle.

Give this game a try if you’re looking for a solid beat ‘em up experience. You may want to relieve some stress, letting out some anger, by beating up some baddies. The streets are indeed filled with rage.