Battle of the Ports

[Nu-Eclipse]

It’s not just one of the best beat ‘em ups of all time, it’s one of the best games.

I genuinely think that it doesn't get anywhere near any of those. Or, at the very least it struggles to.

Best belt scrollers of all-time? I'm not even sure that it's top-ten on that list. It definitely doesn't better the majority of what Capcom and/or Konami were making for arcades in the 90s.

Best games of all-time? Definitely nowhere near the top-ten IMO.

I just feel that SoR2, while a good console scrolller, gets massively, massively overhyped. I genuinely wonder if people would feel the same about it minus Yuzo Koshiro's soundtrack for it.

[Yakumo]

I genuinely think that it doesn't get anywhere near any of those. Or, at the very least it struggles to.

Best belt scrollers of all-time? I'm not even sure that it's top-ten on that list. It definitely doesn't better the majority of what Capcom and/or Konami were making for arcades in the 90s.

Best games of all-time? Definitely nowhere near the top-ten IMO.

I just feel that SoR2, while a good console scrolller, gets massively, massively overhyped. I genuinely wonder if people would feel the same about it minus Yuzo Koshiro's soundtrack for it.

Each to their own I guess. I personally think Super Mario World, Zelda link to the past and Metroid are all pants. I'm definitely in the minority there though.
Bare Knuckle 2 is a very good belt scroller but it's not the best IMO. Maybe near the top of the console belt scrollers.

[dataDave]

I genuinely think that it doesn't get anywhere near any of those. Or, at the very least it struggles to.

Best belt scrollers of all-time? I'm not even sure that it's top-ten on that list. It definitely doesn't better the majority of what Capcom and/or Konami were making for arcades in the 90s.

Best games of all-time? Definitely nowhere near the top-ten IMO.

I just feel that SoR2, while a good console scrolller, gets massively, massively overhyped. I genuinely wonder if people would feel the same about it minus Yuzo Koshiro's soundtrack for it.

I've always got your back on this one. It was certainly a showcase for the MegaDrive at the time, but it has aged poorly. 2P mode still carries some charm when playing it with kids/family, but that's about it. It's a very shallow affair.

SoR IV (genuinely a top-10 scrolling fighter) renders it utterly redundant in every conceivable way, and that really shouldn't be the case for what's considered an "all-time classic". I don't know... I suppose I can drag myself through a run of it from time to time, but I'm hardly having much fun in doing so.

[Hirst]

I love the second game, I have a bit more nostalgia for the first one (I know it isn't technically or mechanically superior on any level - more to do with my own memories).

The third one is a bit more troublesome to me. It's a very good game, don't get me wrong! As mentioned in the video, the music being too experimental doesn't help at all. But I think also that in many ways it is slightly lesser to the second one. First of all I think the stages aren't as good - there's a few bits that are nice, like the nightclub. But there's a lot of drab and unmemorable ones too, like they'd used all the best ideas on the second game so there's now dull underground railways and plain corridors. I think replacing Max with Zan was a mistake, though that might just come down to preference. I'm also really not keen on the new mechanic for special moves where you can use them without losing life via a charge meter, I think it breaks the game slightly as there's more incentive to wait around for it to charge up rather than using special moves sparingly or as a desperate measure. Finally - and it's probably a petty complaint - I really just don't like the addition of the story bits as I think the games are self-explanatory enough and they don't really add anything to it.

That's without getting into bloody Sega of America and their needless meddling, who do they think they are? Nintendo of America?

[Nu-Eclipse]

Each to their own I guess. I personally think Super Mario World, Zelda link to the past and Metroid are all pants. I'm definitely in the minority there though.

You got that right!

[dataDave]

Quite the contrary, I think SoR1 is vastly superior to the second game. The movement might not be as fluid, and there aren’t really any specials outside of the nuke, but the enemy patterns can still be quite taxing at times. It’ll still keep you on your toes.

The music is better as well.

[Yakumo]

Just how bad is this game?

[Hirst]

Absolute honker of a game that one, used to sit right near the bottom of the Beep Megadrive user score chart all the way to the end. Can't remember if it was the worst-rated MD game but it was definitely consistently in the bottom five. Well-deserved too, unplayable pile of rubbish. Should never have been released.

[Yakumo]

Absolute honker of a game that one, used to sit right near the bottom of the Beep Megadrive user score chart all the way to the end. Can't remember if it was the worst-rated MD game but it was definitely consistently in the bottom five. Well-deserved too, unplayable pile of rubbish. Should never have been released.

Absolutely. It's bloody awful. How on earth did the developers think they'd made something of value?

[Nu-Eclipse]

SoR IV (genuinely a top-10 scrolling fighter) renders it utterly redundant in every conceivable way, and that really shouldn't be the case for what's considered an "all-time classic". I don't know... I suppose I can drag myself through a run of it from time to time, but I'm hardly having much fun in doing so.

I don't even think SoR IV is top-10 either, tbh.

Yes, I get and appreciate the labour of love shown by the devs who are clearly massive fans of the franchise. But IV just smacks of the same style-over-substance vibes of the other three games, only this time with far more nasty cheapness thrown into the mix, like CPU character who can seemingly just switch on invincibility frames/guards whenever they want to.

[Protocol Penguin]

Sword of Sodan feels like it was designed to look great in static screenshots in magazines and on the packaging, but just falls apart when you see it moving with its abysmal frame rate. Sadly that was common with the flashier Amiga games of the ‘80s…

[Yakumo]

Sword of Sodan feels like it was designed to look great in static screenshots in magazines and on the packaging, but just falls apart when you see it moving with its abysmal frame rate. Sadly that was common with the flashier Amiga games of the ‘80s…

So very true. Amiga games could look great in stills but then the start moving and.....

[BigDeadFreak]

I've always got your back on this one. It was certainly a showcase for the MegaDrive at the time, but it has aged poorly. 2P mode still carries some charm when playing it with kids/family, but that's about it. It's a very shallow affair.

SoR IV (genuinely a top-10 scrolling fighter) renders it utterly redundant in every conceivable way, and that really shouldn't be the case for what's considered an "all-time classic". I don't know... I suppose I can drag myself through a run of it from time to time, but I'm hardly having much fun in doing so.

I'm genuinely curious as to why the Capcom and Konami beat 'em-ups are rated so much higher than SoR2 by so many people? I like Final Fight for the first couple of stages due to the graphics and soundtrack but after that I just lose interest. As for the comic book inspired games that Capcom made, they've never interested me at all.

I've just started getting into Streets of Rage Remake and I honestly feel that the part based on SoR2 is one of the best games I've ever played. The gameplay, graphics and music all combine to create pretty much the perfect game in that genre.

I know we all have different tastes but it seems like a lot of people feel that the Capcom games are objectively superior and I've never figured out why.

[Nu-Eclipse]

*snip*

Not being funny, but I can pose the exact same questions about SoR2. I don't even think it's the best Beat-em-up that Sega have done. What about it is so special? Again, I don't think anybody cares about it or the franchise in general if Yuzo Koshiro doesn't do the music.

Most of the great 80s/90s coin-op scrollers are superior to SoR2 in terms of graphics and gameplay IMO - things that still hold up today. A lot of them are difficult but never feel super-cheap and unfair the way SoR games (especially 4) do.

Each to their own for sure, but gimme Knights of The Round, Captain Commando, Battle Circuit, TMNT Arcade, Turtles In Time, Final Fight, The Simpsons, Alien Storm, Golden Axe, Alien vs. Predator ahead of any of the SoR games anyday.

[Hirst]

Without wanting to poke the fire here, I personally think the reasons that Streets of Rage 2 endures for a lot of people is that it has good balance and the level variety stays interesting as it goes on. I love a lot of arcade fighting sidescrollers, but even most of my favourites are guilty of becoming unfair coin munchers with a harsh and immediate difficulty spike once you get past a certain point, usually around the time the levels are along the lines of "box storage facility" or "warehouse corridor".