If ever there was an advertising campaign that reached me, it was "Sega does what Nintendon't." I mean I bought into that shtick hook line and sinker. Mario was for babies. Sonic had tude. I received my Sega Genesis for Christmas in 1991 and cut my teeth on so many unique experiences. I played anything I could get my hands on. And I was so instantly a Sega convert. I subscribed to Sega Visions magazine. I got a bargain bin Master System. I got a Game Gear. Eventually I got the adapter to play Master System games on Game Gear. I mean, Sega was truly it for me. I was a Sega kid.
I also got a Sega CD. And I mean I was an early adopter. My Sega CD was found under the Christmas tree in 1992. This was a mere two months after the North American launch, and there were very few games to pick from at this point. I vividly remember receiving one hundred dollars culled together from Christmas cards from relatives that year, and immediately cashing in on the only two games I could find of even passing interest at the local toy shop - Sewer Shark and Kriss Kross: Make My Video. Not the best use of $100 in hindsight. But the Sega CD had a pretty stellar pack-in bundle of games at launch. First of was Sol-Feace, the shmup by Wolf Team originally released as Sol-Deace (no idea why the name was changed). By most standards, it's a pretty poor R-Type ripoff but I honestly love that game. Then there was Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, an FMV game in which you solved crimes and even used a pack-in feelie newspaper to help you out. It was an interesting experience at any rate. There was also a music CD sampler, and a CD+G sampler with some basic computer rendered music videos. I guarantee you that your phone can generate better music videos now, but it was honestly pretty cool to see visuals accompanying Information Society songs back then. But the true gem of the launch bundle was Sega Classics Arcade Collection. Here was a single CD that contained Columns, Golden Axe, Revenge Of Shinobi and Streets Of Rage. Yes, four banger Genesis games on a single disc. As luck would have it, my Genesis collection was lacking all four of these classics, and I spent a lot of time playing them on Sega CD (along with Sewer Shark, which seemed novel at the time) until more games started making their way into stores. Now, all of these games are great. But one truly stood out: Streets Of Rage. Streets Of Rage is of course a truly seminal beat-em-up. At least on American shores, it would pretty much complete the trifecta of Tecmos' Double Dragon (1987 - itself a spin-off the of the Kunio-kun series that began with Renegade) and Capcom's Final Fight (1989). Releasing in 1991, Sega decided that they needed their own beat-em-up and did an absolutely stellar job of iterating on everything that those other two big-hitters had done so well. Given the gritty 80s VHS feel of Streets Of Rage, it's easy to call it a knock-off of Double Dragon/Final Fight, but that's unfair. It has so much personality of its own - even within the molde of those games - that it truly stands on its own. To put it another way, any sane gamer could cite Streets Of Rage as their own personal favorite beat-em-up, and nobody would blink an eye. My wife has never been a huge gamer, but she adores the original Streets Of Rage. She actually ranks it as one of her favorite games of all time, and that's completely endearing to me as a lifelong Sega kid. The only downfall there is that when we co-op any Streets Of Rage game, it means I have to let her play as Blaze. But let me rewind to that Chrismtas time playing Streets Of Rage for the first time back in 1992. The first thing that really struck me was the music. I mean, my God. The music is beyond phenomenal. Yuzu Koshiro composed the music for this one, and it's a mix of house, techno and hip hop that just screams early 90s. But not in a cheesy way. Honestly, this is absolutely timeless video game music. I could legitimately listen to this soundtrack with no tinge of irony. And I'd rank the intro track up there with any one of my favorite video game scores of yesteryear (Mega Man 3's intro, Castlevania's "Vampire Killer," etc). The playable roster consists of three characters. You've got Adam, your sort of stereotypical slick martial arts dude. You've got Blaze, the somewhat acrobatic and attractive badass. I'd also consider it rather forward thinking that Sega included a female character in a beat-em-up as I can't point to a female playable role in Double Dragon or Final Fight or the myriad releases in the genre coming before this game. And then you've got Axel who's kind of a burly tough-guy. He's got a bandana for crying out loud. Each character has their own combos and each is definitely fun to use. The special attack panic-bomb is a squad car who pulls up and launches some kind of crazy screen-clearing explosive. I think this is a reference to E-SWAT if I remember correctly. Maybe the most defining thing about Streets Of Rage is that it's not an arcade port. While Sega was well known for bringing arcade titles home in the early 90s, it's neat that they designed this beat-em-up (an arcade genre by nature) explicitly for home consoles. With that in mind, it plays within the genre, but feels balanced differently. Namely, it's not a brutal quarter muncher. With that in mind, it probably is more akin to Tecmos' River City Ransom on some level, just without all the added RPG mechanics. Early levels take place in the streets, fittingly enough. So the early game feels a lot like Double Dragon and Final Fight. But then things switch up. Before long it's Beach Of Rage. Then Boat Of Rage. And eventually Elevator Of Rage. The elevator ride up to Mr. X is really a stunning point in the game. I love this level, personally. It refines you to a small area, and it has verticality, rather than the usual "walk right" found in most beat-em-ups. It also leaves a lot of chances to knock dudes off the side of a building and instant-kill them. It's good stuff. Finally, you reach the penthouse hallway which switches things to a "walk left" dynamic. It's a small touch, but it's a welcome change of pace. It also involves a boss gauntlet which isn't unusual for the genre. While I've beaten the game in co-op with my wife, I don't think I've ever actually beaten it solo. Instead, I seem to die at the same exact time every time I play it - the room right before the final boss, in a repeat battle against those two acrobatic girls that look like pallet-swaps of Blaze. I can beat them earlier in the game with the assist of bombs. But without? They just crush me. Every. Single. Time. Since I was eleven years old. I should at least mention just how good this game looks though. I mean even all these years later, I love the gritty color pallet. I love the details. The audio, the visual, it all just comes together in such a spectacle of early 90s grime. Streets Of Rage is a top tier beat-em-up in my book. And it has been since not long after it was released. The series has remained relevant long enough to receive a fourth installment in 2020, and yet this original game is still top-notch. It is without question a fine example of why I've loved Sega for like thirty years now.
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