Streets of Rage 3
Wrongly Forgotten Sequel #2
Type of Game
In the hope of surpassing its predecessors, a title that goes everything, everywhere and all at once.
Release date on our machines
July 1994, or June, but I suppose I could also put October and no one would mind.
Developer
SEGA AM7 R&D Division. Yeah, it's a good thing you changed your name in 2000.
Publisher
SEGA Enterprises Ltd. Now it's easier to read. Please keep it... ah too late, you've already changed it three times.
Streets of Rage 3, available on the Mega Drive Mini 2, basta, nothing else. A bit of nonsense.
Streets of Rage 1 remains a monument to nostalgia for me. I remember every game launch, with John Blazer Escalope, at whose house I also played Golden Axe, a guy who was even more of a Dragon Ball fan than I was (not too much to do with the game in question, but I'm adding lore to the mix). Once we'd reached the last level, since we couldn't understand a word of English, we'd choose “yes” or “no” when the final boss spoke, hoping we'd made the decision to face him, and not to end the adventure without a climax. And we'd start again, no matter what ending we triggered. Strangely enough, I can't remember where or when I first played the second opus; maybe my neighbors lent it to me, or maybe I played it at the house of one of my other buddies who had an MD. I liked it almost as much as the previous one, but I don't remember playing it more than four or five times. I guess I must have had a good reason.
A legend goes by
What about the third part? Never touched, for sure! I learned of its existence much later, by which time my console had long since given up the ghost. When I think back on it, it just seems inconceivable. How could I have missed out on a title whose ancestors I had adored so much? Well, I did what I did with Sonic 3. Which was to say, nothing; I just let myself be carried along by the discoveries that fell into my lap, without looking for anything on my own, or almost. Therefore enjoying a franchise immensely doesn't mean I'm going to find out about the possible existence, or even the potential success, of its descendants. I notice that I'm still acting the same way today, and that you could replace video games with my daily life and the theorem would still be true. Well, my apologies to my family, especially those who have already cut me off. Snife.
We bring almost the same ones and...
As you'd expect, Streets of Rage 3 offers the classic package: continuation of the story (just continuation, in all its unoriginal aspects), new available attacks (but still no return of the cop car, boooooooh), new enemies in addition to the already familiar kingpins, new playable characters, a few interface and feedback improvements (such as the life bar on the items you pick up). All thrown into brand-new stages! And if the graphics don't seem all that revolutionary compared to what was already on offer in SoR 2, when you play the first again, the difference sends a high kick to the eyebrows to put your mind back in place. So far, so normal. And what about the background story? The big bad Mr. X, whom we've already beaten up twice, is back AGAIN, stronger than ever! Now commanding an army of robots, on top of that (enemies now explode instead of blinking away, so much for the laws of physics).
Where it still works in a totally invented universe like Sonic's, it's a bit more annoying in the quasi-realistic world of Streets of Rage. But will we hold this against the developers? Of course not! It doesn't matter if it's bleeding or rusting, we're here just to beat the crap out of everyone, or everything. We don't care about the rest. As for the fighters ready to do battle, we find our friends Axel, the tall, good blond guy in every aspect, Blaze, the feisty young girl with a great body, male gaze caution, super hot and not even stupid, but still no Adam, who would have declined the offer to save the world, because he was too “busy”. Logical, I tell myself the same thing when I put potatoes in the oven. At the same time, he may be in therapy because of his kidnapping in the Streets of Rage 2 intro.
Fortunately, he's once again forcing his preteen son to face crime with rollerblades kicks to the legbones, instead of letting him play video games like all the other kids his age. Good parenting! Yes, I know, it's his little brother and not his son. But in a world where twenty-year-olds are already ex-cops, I don't see what the big deal is about having a twelve-year-old kid on your hands. The big wrestler has obviously retired (perhaps to go and cook a chicken of his own), and we're graced with an old man converted to a semi-cyborg instead. Why not, let's have robots everywhere, what's the most aberrant thing that can happen now? An animal? Ah yes indeed. By smashing another boss, we unlock Roo, a kangaroo equipped with boxing gloves.
Let's move on to the dark ninja, who also joins the ranks of the vigilantes, and focus on the game's big Japanese exclusive. Ash, a tall, leather-clad moustachioed man who hops around on his tiptoes, knees pointing inwards. And I'm not even talking about his ultra-exaggerated hand movements. Ooh, the discomfort, you have to see it to believe it. Maybe it was a laughing matter in the mid-90s, but obviously not that much, since in a great fit of tolerance, SEGA removed the character from the American and European versions. I don't know what's worse than imagining such a basic caricature, or censoring it instead of making Ash less insulting to the gay community. What could be more embarrassing ? Blaze the pretty chick starting to piss people off when she's on her period?
Ah, well, you got it, since her identity card tells us that she lost her job as a cop because of her temper tantrums. Nothing to throw away there, is there? Today, we're talking a lot about the huge differences between Bare Knuckle III (the original Japanese version) and our own Streets of Rage 3. It comes to us without Ash, with extra bits of clothing for certain female enemies, a scenario with thirty fewer IQ points, and color-changed clothing for almost all playable characters. But above all, the difficulty has grown by leaps and bounds. But then, who knew about all these “adjustments”? We didn't have the Internet to complain, or read enraged comments about the fact that the Soozies in the PAL game wore tights, whereas in Japan you can see their legs.
Booooo! Just concentrate on the richness of the gameplay, will you? What about all these new settings? Don't they give you the dream... er, yes, okay, I admit, there's one thing that worries me too. Although... Of course, everything has lost its color and festivity, in favor of cold urban areas (even the lights in the discotheque look depressed). Admittedly, everything that made the previous two opuses so charming has disappeared in the big explosion of the intro. But in fact, it fits in well with the initial premise. We've moved into a post-apocalyptic world populated by robots intent on conquering the Earth, we're not about to drag the player into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory! That said, this may give the impression that the developers are running out of steam, as if they'd run out of inspiration (inspiration, running out of steam, wind emoji, laugh emoji).
It lacks fantasy, and feels a little too conventional for a third game in a universally acclaimed franchise like Streets of Rage. For a 16-bit game from 1994 too, for that matter. In the end, I can't form a clear opinion on the subject. If only I'd played it... Sonic 3 has more or less the same problem, I think (before it merged with Sonic & Knuckles, at least), which also struggles a little to win us over, with its hedgehog charisma crushed on the freeway. Coincidence of the number three, or the year 1994? I'm so clueless that I'm starting to look for an explanation using numerology.
What is the actua… bam bam krr krr AAAH !
I discovered the soundtrack on a great site called Greatest Game Music. And I have to admit that, for the first time in my life, I found Yuzo Koshiro's compositions a little disappointing. It's still goldsmith's work, but perhaps not accessible enough, too far ahead of its time (ahead, like, by a good century), or not adapted to the Mega Drive, which suffers a little when faced with the sounds it's asked to produce. Poor beast. The tracks take some getting used to before they stop making you cringe. It's meant to sound like good techno / gabber / trance, but I found that it all collided at once in my head, in a big electronic stew. Well, Koshiro has obviously only taken on the role of Music Producer, whatever that means. The “real” composer is Motohiro Kawashima, who had already worked on SoR2, and who recently returned to the studio to work on the brilliant Streets of Rage 4. The guys used the Ancient Music Driver to create their tracks, a special program that undoubtedly pushed all known limits. As I understand it, the driver itself generated a good base of the compositions on its own, hence the cold impression I get from them. Once again, it goes well with the game's Skynet/futurist vibe. I mean, really disgusting. I did, however, fall in love with one track in particular; the one that accompanies the “bad ending”, where the heroes join the bad guys' camp, and leave the mayor to die, or something really creepy like that. It has such power, such harmony between its rhythm and melody, without lapsing into the avalanche of sonorities of the rest of the soundtrack, that I got shivers of nostalgia without even touching the game! Seriously, I didn't think that was possible. So, for The Poets I alone, Yuzo Koshiro and his colleagues deserve my undying admiration. The guy who managed to make me feel melancholy about something I didn't experience. Gosh... as if I didn't already have enough real memories, now he's got to add virtual ones!
Strict of Rage
Now that I've torn this game apart a bit, and with no credibility whatsoever, I can ask myself the question: would the flaws I've pointed out today have had any impact on me at ten years old? No, I wouldn't have given a damn at all! For despite all my criticisms, Streets of Rage 3 remains ultra-pleasurable, ultra-punchy and superbly calibrated. The feverish pace whips us into an irrepressible frenzy, levels follow one another without a hitch, enemy corpses (well, robot carcasses) pile up like bricks in a pretty pyramid.
That's if you don't mind the game's tough difficulty. The explosive cocktail imagined in the first game still works like a charm. And the scenery and sprites are a feast for the eyes. Streets of Rage 3 doesn't achieve the status of unsurpassed legend, but only because its forebears have already achieved it. The fact that it couldn't surpass them wouldn't have stopped me from enjoying it. And yeah, Ridiculous Gay Ash would have been my favorite character, if the Official Committee of Stupid Decisions hadn't shamelessly cancelled him; I might not have liked him for the right reasons, though. Like most kids my age, we had a lot of fun with the homophobic and sexist jokes. No nostalgia for that kind of humor.
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