Man. This game is bad. Attacks feel paper thin, every enemy seems to have moves whose hitboxes extend well beyond their visual range, tons of enemies have moves that are entirely invulnerable to everything but your super… you can randomly get comboed by stuff, so even being knocked down doesn’t provide you with any sort of safety. I’ve started just mashing invulnerable moves on bosses because it seems to generally work better than actually trying to fight or approach them, since they basically all have (and frequently, frequently use) moves that are invulnerable to everything but your specials. Jump-ins don’t work like they should either, since you can’t do stuff like jump in on an enemy with a weapon and grab them to disarm them. Weapons in general seem to have awkward, clunky hitboxes and a lot of the weapons don’t extend in both directions (particularly for Blaze, who should benefit from that greatly).
It’s definitely a brawler, but it feels nothing like Streets of Rage. And honestly, the music’s a lot more subdued than I was hoping for. More cyberpunk dystopia than electric.
If I’m being honest, it feels like this game was originally designed with a guard button in mind, where you’re basically guarding against enemies and then hitting them back. But it’s not there in the final product so enemies with attacks that are just giant “fuck you” attacks feel cheap and unearned. If there’s one thing that Streets of Rage was great at it’s that the enemies (even bosses) didn’t have hyper-armor on every attack and it seems like this game decided to abandon that entirely. And what’s worse, the strategies to potentially interrupt those cheap attacks (throw breaks) also don’t work. The attacks that home in on you are also exceptionally annoying and it seems like even common enemies have these, where they move from far outside your range directly into grabbing you or jumping in on you (or slamming you, or electrocuting you…).
Playing as Axel I started out doing okay and even got the first combo trophy but I got owned after getting fatigued because you really need to work out the back attack move pretty quickly just to keep from taking unnecessary hits from behind once you start fighting more than three guys at once.
I got past the first mini boss but wasn’t able to finish the level.
Are we talking Streets of Rage 1 or 2? I haven’t played much 1, but 2 definitely has quite a few bosses that power through attacks or have invincibility.
This game feels like it wants you to back off after knocking down bosses, and Streets of Rage 2 has the same rule.
I played both, and I am referring to 2. The thing about knockdown attacks in SoR2 is that you knew both how to bait them and they only lasted a very brief moment (those invulnerable wake-ups were something you could plan around). Invulnerable attacks from certain bosses in SoR4 last an extremely long time and basically have you running around like a chicken with your head cut off because you can’t interrupt them with anything that’s not invincible (believe me, I’ve tried). If they gave us an invincible non-life taking move (e.g., a dragon punch) or a counter-type move that could beat those invulnerable moves I think that would fix it, but there’s nothing like that. So instead you just have to sit there and wait. And sitting and waiting is the worst thing you can make a player do in a brawler.
Also, maybe when I was doing it, it just wasn’t coming out, but is it possible to still use your special to interrupt being hit? I would mash when I started getting hit but it never seemed to come out.
i’m ready to say that this is indisputably better than double dragon neon.
don’t quite know if i really love it though. the decision to not have a universal run seems really bad!
good lord are the SoR1 characters busted. you lose specials but gain damage and you can just walk up to enemies and do a jab loop and blow them up
nope! if you get hit, you gotta hold that damage. I also don’t like that you can’t superjoy/desperation/MEGACRUSH your way out of stuff, especially since they refer to it as the defensive special, but, uh, I got used to it. the game very much expects you to be two or three steps ahead of the crowd all the time so you can set up score opportunities (which also means not getting hit, a thing that is generally good)
oh, well, just unlock all the SoR3 characters and your problem is solved
everyone has some kind of mobility action except for poor Axel, and even then Blaze and Floyd (my motherfucking man) have to burn health to zip around
I’ve gotten to the point where the bosses and some enemies having armor a bunch of the time doesn’t even really matter, you can easily get around it and pump damage in or just stay aggressive (yes spaced) and get in unarmored hits. maybe my brain is broken in the right way for the game
I get to work on a hardest arcade clear now that I got hard on lockdown with Floyd (I, uh, also cleared it with SoR1 Axel but that felt like cheating)
i’m up to stage 9, and the only thing i’ve disliked so far is fighting the commissioner. why put such a hard boss so early in the game? is he actually hard, or is there some obvious weakness i’m missing?
i yelled when estel called for backup
it seems like more than half of the bosses so far have been women, which is interesting. and the weather-named bikers are women now, too. good for them.
do the dev team for this game have anything to do with the mega drive vapourware project y? it just seems like the letter Y is unusually prominent
The only enemy I dislike is the shield cops. The rest of the enemies I have a cogent strategy to be aggressive against, but it feels like it’s inevitable I’ll get hit by the shield cops with Axel.
I might be patient enough to dodge in and out with one, but they often throw like 3 at a time so I just burn specials to deal with them.
so, i think the main difference with this game is that you’re expected to use your specials a lot more than in the originals. since you can regain health after doing them, it’s really the only way to go, especially against enemies who have superarmor/temporary lack of hitstun. the goal seems to be to get the player to be really aggressive in most situations, except for bosses, on occasion, where you have to wait for their attack to whiff.
i think the only part i didn’t super love is the last boss because the hurtboxes on the mech’s legs feel really finicky and hard to pinpoint.
i switched characters every other round to get a feel for them, and i think i like all of them pretty equally. Adam is maybe my current favorite?
Yeah, specials let you break the rules with invincibility or movement or extending combos, and the game definitely feels balanced around them using them pretty liberally.
I guess @talbain and I will brawl with all of you in this fight. Game is trash, it plays more like Comix Zone than SOR. If you have’t played Double Dragon IV, just go ahead and try that. It’s not a game for babies; it’s got all these little weird mechanics and it’s just light years ahead in terms of being a tasteful homage to a classic series.
