Streets of rage 4

[DeathAdder]

Did DLC ever come to Switch? I haven't bought the game yet and Switch would be my preferred format, but not if it doesn't get the full experience.

If you don't mind physical, a version with the dlc included is about to come out.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B098TWJKFW?ref=ppx_pt2_mob_b_prod_image

[Cassius_Smoke]

Is there a way to block or counter attacks?

If I'm wailing on someone and another enemy attacks, I can't defend against it, like the biker chick headbutt or aerobics woman's flying kick.

Nope. You just have to either take the blow or hit and run. Always be moving.

[wheelaa]

Lots of things you can do. There are very few enemy attacks you can't best at some point in the attack animation and / or anticipate well in advance to prevent the attack in the first place. Sometimes you need to act early, sometimes late, sometimes timing doesn't really matter.

Supers.
Specials.
Throwing the enemy you're currently wailing on.
Jump attacks.
Back attacks.
Weapon throws.
Move out the way.

Usual stuff tbh.

(And 95% of my playtime is with the more move-limited SoR 1-3 characters. For some for the 4 characters, even with my very limited skill / experience of them, some enemy attacks can even be handy by offering further combo opportunites.)

Moving on to general game / thread comments / misc warblings...

I thought I'd be playing this DLC a lot more than I have been.

One quick campaign run with Shiva which was fun (although, being fair, I'm somewhat keeping the other character runs back for whenever I need an easy achievement for a reward streak or something). Got a few s ranks across the levels on the new difficulty.

Survival...mainly play the fixed weekly set, although I haven't even managed one run a week. It's fun, but not super fun. I get to mid 30's every time, it can be interesting to focus on weapon builds, or character buff builds, or both. Like the enemy variety as well as the toned down boss wannabe characters. Like the weapon variety.

It starts off too slow. First four sets of four are just dull, then it's fun for the next few, then you realise you've been playing a while, and then it's just brutal. The 'red' enemies hit very hard, any error will severely punish you, wave 33 / wave 37 sets just really kick my arse every time (brutal / boredom kicking in), and honestly cheesy Shiva 100+ waves has no appeal.

There's the occasional BS as well. Well, imo at least. Wave 3x, 6 or 7 of the Mrs Y wannabe (not red), I got tagged by one cross screen slash move. I'm in the air waiting to fall down, all the other Mrs Y wannabe insta-charge that same move and proceed to slash me one by one mid air until I die. My bad for being hit, but I still call that out as BS (like the Galsia stun gun BS).

Training mode - haven't touched it outside of the preset runs.

[QualityChimp]

It's possibly because I'm trying to use one of the new characters (the guitar one) and rather than being able to throw characters, she'll jump on their shoulders and punch them, when Blaze would have thrown them, which is ace for crowd control.

Still, it's a great game and I really enjoy it.
Trying to keep combos going as long as possible is really addictive!

[wheelaa]

Maybe it changed in an update but I thought Cherry grab head punch move was considered a throw, therefore had a long invincibility window?

Which reminds me, a lot of my above 'usual stuff' points work both as ways to go on the offensive against attacking enemies, and as defensive moves taking advantage of invincibility frames.

[QualityChimp]

Hmmm... maybe I'm thinking of when you've grabbed them and are punching them before you jump.

I'll experiment, cheers.

[dataDave]

The three of us are having a blast on this. The way the enemies react to Adam's hits feels very SoR1.

[Asura]

Following playing this some more tonight, I am enjoying it more than the first time around.

There are still some frustrating things though that I don't quite get.

Playing as Axel, on the Chinatown stage, in case that matters.

I've noticed a few things.

For instance, does anyone else find that the way the game handles picking up items is a bit weird? For some reason I keep finding that I'm pressing a button to pick up an item while holding one (like picking up a moneybag while holding a knife) and I'm dropping the weapon in the process.

Some of the enemies I don't get; like, I mean, I get them, but I don't enjoy their presence. Take the Goro guy; you have to beat him with throws, but he seems to have a lot of health. I remember now that back the first time when I played the game, I found him really annoying as he kept reversing my attacks. Because he has several anims, I thought he had different moves, and because he has so much health, even though my throws were hitting him, I thought I hadn't figured out what I was supposed to do (like I thought I'd found a way to cheese the enemy rather than the way I'm supposed to fight him), so I kept doing "wrong" things as the game didn't seem to adequately reward me for doing the "right" thing.

Another specific thing. When you go into the dojo area, and you have the naginata spear weapons; the Galsia's attack range is longer than yours, and that just narks me

This is going to sound weird, but does anyone find it a much more defensive game than most scrolling fighters? Scrolling fighters always have had a defensive aspect, i.e. using space and maintaining effective control of places onscreen, coralling the enemies to hit them and so on - but SoR4 seems to take this further. Like the enemies appear to be much more designed to dovetail with your abilities. So as Axel, for example, the Thai Kickboxer enemies; you just can't jump when they're around as their kick in the air tends to beat yours. The guys who have that leaned-back stance seem to have AI which knows to stay just outside your punch range, so you really have to employ the charge attack. I get what the game's going for here... But does it not feel a bit by-the-numbers? I think it's because the game builds encounters by throwing groups of different enemies at you, but when it does this, it's meant to be challenging to apply the right move to the right enemy, and sometimes I feel it just becomes a melee.

I haven't had time to think about so much, but... In some games, you feel like you're going up against a bunch of enemies with varying abilities, and you feel as though you're given a toolkit to fight them. You need to find the right tool for the job, and in doing so, you feel clever. In SoR4, it feels the other way around; it feels like I've been given a set of tools, then I'm being put up against a load of enemies who each know all those tools except for one. Like rather than being designed to fight the enemies, it feels like the enemies have been designed to fight me. Does that make any sense?

Total personal gripe here; part of me wishes you could block or do counters, seeing as though so many enemies can.

I only just realised that the game has no timer (or has that changed since launch?). This is an important distinction I hadn't noticed before. I was throwing myself really quickly into each enemy, because in SoR 2 or Final Fight, while the timer isn't stringent, it's not generous enough for you to dilly-dally and carefully observe the enemies. Ditto for that I don't think items disappear like in most 16-bit style games, so there's no rush to grab stuff if you break a barrel too early.

I think I got along with it better this time around. I beat the boss of this stage so will see how the next one goes.

EDIT: Wow. OK. Those "jump warnings" on the train level, the scheme for the indicator is bizarre.

Warning!
(wait)
Warning!
(wait)
(wait)
(wait)
IF YOU'RE NOT JUMPING RIGHT NOW IT'S TOO LATE SUCKA
DEATH

[dataDave]

The pick up controls can be configured in the options. It's set up this way to get around people being annoyed at picking stuff up unintentionally. That's actually one thing that slightly annoys me about every single one of the old beat 'em ups.

Goro is a piece of cake. Just walk into him from above or below for the grab and then quickly spam the attack button. He drops in no time. I wouldn't bother with trying to throw him because he seems to escape from that more often than not.

Galsia is such a twat even with a regular knife, so I think it's intentional that they gave him some imbalance with the spears. The meth here is the same though, just do a flying kick on him to disarm and claim the spear. That entire dojo section should be either spear slashes or flying kicks to obtain more spears. Nothing else.

As for groups of different enemies, you can reset the movements of each 'batch' by performing a strong attack or by throwing a body into a group. This makes the overall dispatch much more manageable and satisfying in a rinse and repeat sense. The flipside is that if you have anti-air groups and anti-ground groups all going off on their own tangents things quickly become impossible.

I don't think the game really needs a timer on top of the combo system's time-out which actively pushes you to clear stuff quickly, in fact, I can't really remember ever running out of time on a scrolling fighter ever before, even on purpose. I'm wondering what actually happens if the time runs out now!

That train jump indicator was annoying at first, but instead just use them as a warning to get into position over on the left. You should be able to clear the hurdles if you tap the button the moment they appear on the right of the screen. You definitely don't want to continue pummelling enemies over on the right side of the screen when the warnings flash because that would require inhuman timing.

[Asura]

Finished the story mode as Axel.

With the various patches etc., were there any revisions to the core gameplay? As I seemed to enjoy it more than I remembered from back when it came out.

The main thing I found was realising that it lacked a timer, and as a result, I think it rewards more methodical play. Also after what [MENTION=1482]dataDave[/MENTION] said, understanding that throwing enemies into enemies, while always a thing in SoR, seems to be a much bigger thing in 4 - there were extended sections of the last 2 levels where pretty much all I did was throw, mainly due to the very generous invulnerability frames of Axel's throw.

[dataDave]

With the various patches etc., were there any revisions to the core gameplay? As I seemed to enjoy it more than I remembered from back when it came out.

I've no idea precisely what happened, but it felt like an entirely different game to me the second time.

Try some other characters. Although I said earlier that I like them all equally I probably like Axel the least on second thoughts. He's a bit of a slug compared to the rest, especially Adam.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Adam is the best. Just constantly double tap to dodge and it's easy streets.

[Asura]

Incidentally, if you want to try and not-so-great-but-interesting scroller, The TakeOver is presently £4 on the eShop.

It's not great. But it's interesting to see another developer imitate Streets of Rage with a different take on the visual approach; it's done with forced perspective 3D and a very snappy animation style. Also makes you value a bit more how well-made SoR4 is.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Version 0.8 coming soon. Been ages since the last update.
Seems to be a big balance overhaul for all characters and enemies. As well as some extras.

[Yakumo]

Version 0.8 coming soon. Been ages since the last update.
Seems to be a big balance overhaul for all characters and enemies. As well as some extras.

Nice. I wonder what the extras will be?