Streets of Rage 4

TL;DR: The game is awesome. Fun in solo and co-op. The drawn sprites are full of detail and beautifully animated. Story takes place 10 years after the last game with the Syndicate coming back with new leadership and Axel steps up with new and old allies to kick them into shape. The highest reviews score it low do to online multiplayer not being available on launch. It is now so you might just ignore most review bombers.

If you enjoyed Battletoads, Fight'N Rage, Golden Axe, Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage, Splatterhouse 3, TMNT: The Hyperstone Heist (or Turtles in Time), X-Men (early 1990s arcade game), and similar beat 'em ups, then you'll probably appreciate this game. I've played many hours of the original trio of Streets of Rage games. Streets of Rage 4 is an exceptional addition to the series. I am very pleased with my decision to purchase this title. Some of the early reviews mentioned the lack of online play. This feature is now included in the Gog release. I hope this review is helpful to others.

SoR4 is a great looking and sounding beat 'em up, with good gameplay, a bit of a poor story (which thankfully takes extremely little screen time) and a run time that is short (finished my first playthrough in 2 hours and 20 minutes). I played SoR 1-3 in recent years, and I liked them quite a lot (with the exception of the third one, which I didn't beat, not liking how unreasonably fast the enemies move). This new entry was unexpected, but very welcome. I can say that in some aspects, it exceeds its predecessors (here when you slam an enemy to the ground, it's really satisfying, and the control scheme is much improved with the extra buttons). The game is a little too easy on "normal" (I never had to use a continue, despite dying a few times, because it's easy to score enough points to get extra lifes, and I only ever risked running out at the final boss), but it doesn't really ruin the experience. I still wish it was more challenging, but there are a few more difficulties to pick from anyway. The music is also nice (and you can play with the amazing score of the first two games anyway, if you don't like the new one). The story starts reasonably, but it gets a tad too stupid fairly quickly and it doesn't try hard enough to connect a few of the stages/scenes logically. Thankfully, it doesn't intrude too much, and the still images used look fairly good as well. The only, real problem can be the duration of a playthrough. Sure, the original ones are fairly short as well, but I would have expected a bit more (at least 1 or 2 hours more). It's not a 60 $/€ release, so it's easier to forgive, but still, I feel like the game could have had more content. At least you get the starting characters and some unlockable ones (so far, I got one new character, and a couple of retro versions), so there is some room to experiment if you enjoyed the playthrough. All in all, I had great fun, and I recommend it to anyone interested.

They nailed it. Now do Shinobi, Golden Axe and ESWAT!

To those complaining about no online co-op, just install a third party software called Parsec. With that, you can play online with others as local mp mode with 4 players, which makes the experience even better!