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Streets of Rage 2 is a beat ‘em up side scrolling game and the second one in the trilogy of the same name, bringing with it various improvements in terms of gameplay and graphics.

The game takes place one year after the events in the previous installment, and shows the three heroes recalling how they cleansed the city of the crime organization that had plagued it. However, Adam is captured and the remaining two (Axel and Blaze) team up with Adam’s brother and a professional wrestler (named Max) in order to save him and restore peace.

The gameplay of Streets of Rage 2 is largely the same, but has some tweaks and improvements. Enemies now all have health bars and names, and the four playable characters have unique moves and attacks instead of just different power or speed. Because of this, the special move from the first game (the one which calls a police car to attack all enemies on the screen) has been replaced with a unique, life depleting attack for each character. An interesting, as well as fun, addition is the fact that even enemies now have special moves instead of just throwing punches and kicks.

The graphics have greatly improved, especially regarding the size of the characters and the amount of details of the sprites. The environments are all different throughout the 8 levels and even feature weather effects, like rain or fog. The music is once again great and sets the mood, although the sound effects could have used a little more work. Still, the overall graphics and sound create a nice mood to provide better entertainment.

Although praised overall, there were some complaints regarding its controls, which required you to press too many buttons in sequence in order to perform a special move. Also, the game can seem too easy once you get used to the controls, and, as opposed to its predecessor, it does not have an alternate ending; this particular aspect hurts the game’s replay value.

All in all, Streets of Rage may have some shortcomings, but that does not mean that it cannot be enjoyed. Fans of the genre will surely miss out on a great game, should they decide to overlook it.

Streets of Rage 2 features:

Four difficulty settings and two player co-op mode
Four different characters with pros and cons, but also different moves