Why is Streets of Rage 3 so furiously harder than others in the series?

V

Vieo

Member
I didn't have a problem with SoR 1&2, even when they vamped up the difficulty in the later half of the game. Streets of Rage 3 reeks of Double Dragon 3 syndrome;' it's when the two beat em' ups before it in the series weren't THAT tough, but when the third in the series comes, they up the ante and you can't even make it past the 2nd level.

Speaking of Double Dragon, I'm noticing some very strange similarities between SoR3 and Double Dragon. DD2 has a pair of ass-kicking twins that are tough to take down. So does SoR3; Mona and Lisa. DD2 also has a bulldozer(somewhat) level. Guess what? So does SoR3. Who's copying who? If I can manage to make it further into the game, I'll probably find more similarities.

BTW, how many Streets of Rage games are there? I only know of three. I've never seen any in a MAME set so I'm guessing the games never hit the arcade and I'm willing to bet the series never showed up on Saturn or DC.
 
I think they pumped up the difficulty of the US version. Don't do the office building maze on the highest difficulty on a bad day :P

And there are only three (four, if you want to count the slightly different from the US counterpart Japanese version of 3)
 
someone (johntv?) posted movies of a prototype SoR game for dreamcast, complete witha first person view. maybe he could post em again, if they're still available.

there is also beats of rage, which you may want to check out. iirc, its some snk ripped sprites coupled with some from the SoR series to make a fairly decent (if not grossly unbalanced) beat em up game. its available for pc, xbox and ps2 (obviously, the consoles versions you need a chipped system).

hopefully one day sega wakes up and realizes all the great franchises they have, and starts t reinvent them. i'm not holding my breath though ;)
 
I still can't believe Sega never cashed in on this series on the current systems.

wait, yes I can believe it.
 
Vieo said:
I considered Streets of Rage 2 to be really long for a beat em' up. How long is SoR3 in comparison?
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About double length (once you get past the construction site the stages get looooong)

And didn't that DC Streets end up coming the suck-ass Fighting Force?

I still can't believe Sega never cashed in on this series on the current systems.

wait, yes I can believe it.
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Well, you can't really blame Sega for this...brawlers were pretty much dead by the Playstation era (the only ones that sell nowadays are Dynasty Warriors, and only in Japan,) so making a new one would be a cult titilation at best
 
nitewulf said:
no its not, its just loooooooong.
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Pretty much. It's awesome that you can go multiple paths and get diffrent endings. The final boss is a bitch though, especially with the time limit. Too bad the music sucked. :-/

Oh yeah, and kicking Shiva's ass on live tv was awesome. :lol
 
SOR1 and 2 had some of the best soundtracks known to man... Sword-slashing 3D action brawl games are all the rage these days (sorry for the bad pun :P), remove the sword and I could see them having a 3D SOR. But if there's no kickass house soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro, I won't play it :P
 
djtiesto said:
SOR1 and 2 had some of the best soundtracks known to man... Sword-slashing 3D action brawl games are all the rage these days (sorry for the bad pun :P), remove the sword and I could see them having a 3D SOR. But if there's no kickass house soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro, I won't play it :P
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Hell yes... man I love the music in those first two... I think I have that music around here somewhere... <breaks out MP3's...>
 
SOR3's ambient soundtrack was a definite letdown, as was the increase in difficulty (since no one else wanted to play that one over part 2 ever...). It's a freaking shame and a half there was a never a Saturn version with improved 3d... Oh well.. at least we have Guardian Heroes....
 
djtiesto said:
SOR1 and 2 had some of the best soundtracks known to man... Sword-slashing 3D action brawl games are all the rage these days (sorry for the bad pun :P), remove the sword and I could see them having a 3D SOR. But if there's no kickass house soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro, I won't play it :P
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Yeah, i remember reading an interview with Tommy Tallarico and he said he wondered how Koshiro got such great sound out of an FM chip.

Speaking of which, here's a site with recomposed versions of the the first SOR stage, as well as Shinobi (another Koshiro soundtrack) and a few others: http://www.mdstudio.de/

Edit: Just found my SOR OST. Amazing how well the music's held up.
 
SoR3 is the best in the series. It was SO improved over 2. The special meter added a lot of strategy (rather than the "ok, I'm just never going to use them then" of 2), weapons could be swung differently, running and rolling were added, and the best part: THE GAME IS ACTUALLY DIFFICULT. Part 2 was awesome the first few times, but after beating it once or twice it's just stale playing through it again. 3 added some much needed excitement.
 
I didn't really care for SOR 3. SOR 2 was gaming perfection. I can still play it and enjoy it better than 99% of games out today.

What a great game. Damn.
 
belgurdo said:
And didn't that DC Streets end up coming the suck-ass Fighting Force?
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That was the running rumor, but there was never any truth to it. Guess the similarites were enough to make the assumption seem valid. I think Gamefan started it.
 
RE4 vs. SH4 said:
.. but it's so easy? Where's the fun without a challenge?
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The challenge is on Mania.

FortNinety said:
That was the running rumor, but there was never any truth to it. Guess the similarites were enough to make the assumption seem valid. I think Gamefan started it.
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There were four short videos of what looked like a proposal version, for lack of a better phrase, of a DC SOR on Tokyopia a while back.
 
What is this "Mania"? The uh... "copy"... of SoR2 that I have is not the original one I had in the 90's. I beat the game many times when I first got it (it was packed in with my Genny). Since acquiring the game again I haven't beaten it. I make it to the 4th or 5th level and just end up utterly bored and stop playing, so if there's something to be unlocked after beating it or something I must have forgotten about it. Do you have to beat the game?
 
Unison said:
SOR3's ambient soundtrack was a definite letdown...
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Ambient? What? SOR3 had a fairly caustic, hard soundtrack. Yuzo really let loose on that one (but that disco level theme was just laughable). Loved it otherwise.

Best game in the series in my opinion.
 
It's been a while, but i think you beat the game on Hardest and unlock the Mania mode, which is really intense since enemies move extremely fast and have large life bars. i don't think i ever beat Mania, i remember getting to the seventh (?) stage with the elevators and flying bosses and always losing somewhere there. From what a friend was telling me, if you beat Mania, you get another ending, and the music is different. It's the one BGM you never hear in-game.
 
aoi tsuki said:
The challenge is on Mania.


There were four short videos of what looked like a proposal version, for lack of a better phrase, of a DC SOR on Tokyopia a while back.
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Those videos were totally messed up, all the characters had names like "SOMEFUCKA."
 
In a perfect world, I'd agree that SOR3 was better, but most people only would play it on the easiest setting because it got so hard. I could get pretty much anyone to have a good time playing SOR2 with me though...
 
Playing through SoR2 right now...

The 1st level of 2 on Hardest is about as challenging as 3 on normal. :p Here I am, getting point-earned 1ups left and right. The enemies are doing very little damage. In 3, when a Signal throws me I get PISSED OFF because it does so much damage. In 2, it's like 1/3 of that. :lol

I'm missing the ability to run and roll. The game feels so slow. :(

Ok, I'll quit bitching.

Thanks for the vid aoi.

EDIT: But they aren't working. ;)
 
This is the kind of stuff i want on my PSP & DS

Any of the old school side-scrolers are want i want to play on the move. anything 3D is to much for me when i am on the move. I can play the 3D stuff when i am at home though on my DS and PSP so keep that stuff coming to!
 
SOR 3's music is pretty lame in comparison to the tracks in 1 and 2. Yuzo was at his prime for Revenge of Shinobi and Beyond Oasis.

You can play as the boxing gloves wearing kangaroo!
 
belgurdo said:
Well, you can't really blame Sega for this...brawlers were pretty much dead by the Playstation era (the only ones that sell nowadays are Dynasty Warriors, and only in Japan,) so making a new one would be a cult titilation at best
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Yep...I don't see anyone outside the absolute hardcore giving a shit about Spikeout, which is the closest any game has come to SOR in 3D. But as long as I'm enjoying it, it's all good.






RE4 vs. SH4 said:
SoR3 is the best in the series. It was SO improved over 2. The special meter added a lot of strategy (rather than the "ok, I'm just never going to use them then" of 2), weapons could be swung differently, running and rolling were added, and the best part: THE GAME IS ACTUALLY DIFFICULT. Part 2 was awesome the first few times, but after beating it once or twice it's just stale playing through it again. 3 added some much needed excitement.
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Agreed...SOR3 is so much better then the overly Street Fighter inspired 2 it almost makes me ill seeing people say otherwise. "OMG, THE MUSIC IS BETTER!!!11"...bleh. If that's the only reason you played the first two games, they obviously weren't that great to you to begin with.

Having said that, they are still among the finest game scores ever created. But there were some pretty good tracks in SOR3 as well. The disco track was incredibly disappointing though...could've used something similiar to the boss tunes in the first two games.

As for Fighting Force (and you're thinking of the original game for Saturn and PSX), the story is that Core went to Sega with a Saturn-only version at the time and asked for permission to badge it as a Streets of Rage title. Sega turned them down, so they threw it on PSX as well and turned it into Fighting Force.
 
Back when a good friend and I played SOR2 a whole lot, I just could not understand what in the hell the characters were saying during their moves. It sounded like:

Axle: "Rent the car!" ("Bare Knuckle")

Blaze: "Enjoy the cold cuts!" (Who the hell knows?)
 
ArcadeStickMonk said:
Back when a good friend and I played SOR2 a whole lot, I just could not understand what in the hell the characters were saying during their moves. It sounded like:

Axle: "Rent the car!" ("Bare Knuckle")

Blaze: "Enjoy the cold cuts!" (Who the hell knows?)
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Azel should say "Grand upper" as this is the name of the move
Blaze seems like "YUHUHA"

The sound chip of Genesis is just wonderful :D
 
Warm Machine said:
SOR 3's music is pretty lame in comparison to the tracks in 1 and 2. Yuzo was at his prime for Revenge of Shinobi and Beyond Oasis.

You can play as the boxing gloves wearing kangaroo!
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Eh, I thought Beyond Oasis was a bit dull in my book. This Actraiser work on the other hand is still great.

Plus he did Shenmue right? Pretty good comeback work.
 
Shinobi said:
As for Fighting Force (and you're thinking of the original game for Saturn and PSX), the story is that Core went to Sega with a Saturn-only version at the time and asked for permission to badge it as a Streets of Rage title. Sega turned them down, so they threw it on PSX as well and turned it into Fighting Force.
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Seriously, can you blame them? i remember buying that for my cousins for Christmas, playing it when we got home, and then playing Streets of Rage 2 an hour later.
 
SoR3 was tons fun, but people are right in saying it was very difficult. My favorite part of the game were the secret characters.

Now i know Sega of America got rid of Ash (the queer) out of the U.S. version, but was he playable in the japanese one? Anyway, even if he was, i'm glad they replaced dat freak with Shiva.

Overall, i would say SoR2 iz better. I find SoR3 to be a bit unbalanced, and uh, the soundtrak stunk (and the graphics were kind of muddy).

At the other end of the spectrum, SoR3 iz still a much effort than Capcom's Final Fight 3(which was TOO easy).
 
FortNinety said:
Plus he did Shenmue right? Pretty good comeback work.
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He only did a few tracks in Shenmue, though I forget which ones.






aoi tsuki said:
Seriously, can you blame them? i remember buying that for my cousins for Christmas, playing it when we got home, and then playing Streets of Rage 2 an hour later.
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:lol Yeah, Fighting Force wouldn't have done much good for the series.
 
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