Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega

Genre: Beat-‘em-up

Year released: 1989 (Arcade), 1990 (Genesis, Sega CD), 1992 (Game Gear)

Number of Players: 1-2 simultaneously

Streets of Rage (known as Bare Knuckle in Japan) is the first of the classic beat-‘em-up trilogy. In SOR, the evil Mr. X and his cronies has taken over the city, and it’s up to the team of Axel, Blaze, and Adam to stop Mr. X and his henchmen to bring peace to the city.

Visuals: (83%)
The graphics look fairly nice, but the character sprites and the levels in SOR look rather small, at least when compared to SOR’s better looking two sequels.

Sounds: (93%)
SOR’s soundtrack owns. In fact, the whole series’ music owns. The music in the SOR games is a mix of well-fitting electronica and techno. Yuzo Koshiro composed the music in all three games.

Gameplay: (86%)
SOR uses the classic beat-‘em-up formula: beat the crap outta all the baddies onscreen, which will let you advance more into the stage. Fight more enemies and keep advancing until you face the boss, many of whom are really cheap. The formula may seem repetitive, and it kind of is, but you’ll be having so much fun beating up everyone that you probably won’t notice. One of my main complaints with the game is that enemies are cheap. Enemies can repeatedly attack you repeatedly and quickly before you even realize that you’re about to lose a life. Also, the heroes’ movesets are fairly limited, restricted to simple punches, kicks, and throws. Each character can call a police car of some sort to fire bombs on all the baddies on-screen (!), but you can only do that a limited amount of times.

Replayability: (83%)
SOR has less replay value than its two sequels. However, SOR is a blast when played with another friend. The Streets of Rage are no place to wander alone.

Personal Score: (88%)

Bottom Line:
Fun, but overshadowed by its two sequels (well, at least definitely SOR2; the better of SOR and SOR3 is arguable).

Final Score: (87%) B+

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