The Streets of Rage (SOR) series (which goes by the name of Bare Knuckle in Japan) has become one of the most well known and enjoyed of any series of games especially so among SEGA fans as probably every Mega Drive/Genesis owner played at least one of the three games.

The first game was the side-scrolling beat'em up that filled a gap of a Final Fight style game (which was considered the best of the genre at the time) in the library of the then young 16-Bit console but offered a better experience being a much longer and challenging becoming so successful that SEGA packaged it with the console for several years.

To this day it still remains an excellent blast.

Streets Of Rage European Case

"The city has been taken over by a massive crime syndicate. Three young police officers have quit the corrupt Metropolitan police force and set out to topple the organisation on their own!"

HISTORY

In 1991, the Mega Drive/Genesis was king, yet the hype of the impending SNES meant that SEGA needed to more quality games to deter people from jumping to Nintendo's new console.

A good Final Fight (FF) style game was no where in the systems library at the time. Capcom, the creators of FF currently only made conversions of their games for Nintendo at the time and a port of FF was already in the works for the SNES. FF was an incredibly popular game in the arcades and very highly regarded.

SEGA had earlier created Double Dragon, a game with similar gameplay which had proved somewhat popular in the arcades and was ported to the Master System. But this was old in comparison.

Popular Brawlers

Final Fight (Arcade)	Double Dragon (Master System)

Building on that success, SEGA created a similar game but with more emphasis on arcade style gameplay but specifically for their home console. Two player co-op modes were good selling points so it was essential this be included.

SOR was the product created by many of the individuals from Team Shinobi of Golden Axe and Revenge of Shinobi fame.

It sported arcade quality graphics that the console was geared for and to compliment the onscreen action a pumping soundtrack created by Yuzo Koshiro whom created tunes similar to the increasingly popular House music of the era.

Streets Of Rage

Whilst the gameplay was essentially the same as FF there was enough differences and new elements to make it feel unique and (avoid SEGA being sued by Capcom). Not only did it offer a plentiful and enjoyable game for single player it's 2-Player co-op mode brought a whole extra element of fun and perhaps where the game holds most appeal.

It was very well received by critics and gamers alike. Soon, SOR became one of the consoles staple titles and ultimately went on to be a core title packed with the console in 2 separate packages (in the UK) and go on to have 2 sequels; SOR 2 in 1992 being the first 16Mbit cartridge and SOR 3 in 1994 both of which surpassed in each other. The original game was also ported to SEGA's 8-Bit platforms, the Master System and Game Gear as was the second in the series.

Incidentally the much hyped SNES version of Final Fight had a significant disadvantage in that there was no 2-player co-op mode. The last hurrah was that [Final Fight] was later ported to the Mega CD (when Capcom's exclusivity deal with Nintendo ended) and regarded as the best port to a console and included the 2-Player co-op mode.

The SOR series unfortunately never made it out of the 16-Bit era despite the hopes and pleas of many SEGA fans. Throughout the Saturn years it was hoped such a game would appear. The powerful 2D abilities of the system would have been a brilliant platform for a fourth game in the series. It later emerged that several conceptual-prototypes existed for Saturn, Dreamcast and Xbox but these were never developed. In recent years mobile versions have been released for several models.

Whether SEGA is considering reviving the series is unknown at this time but it would make sense for a game one both Xbox Live Arcade or PSN so we can live in hope.

PROLOGUE

This city was once a happy, peaceful place...until one day, a powerful secret criminal organisation took over. This vicious syndicate soon had control of the government and even the police force. The city has become a centre of violence and crime where no one is safe.

Amid this turmoil, a group of determined young police officers had sworn to clean up the city. Among them are Adam Hunter, Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding. They are willing to risk anything...even their lives...on the...SOR.

GAMEPLAY

SOR is simple enough to be picked up quickly by all and is perhaps one of the reasons why it is so popular. You simply kill any enemies that appear on screen before they kill you ultimately progressing to the end of the round within the time limit.

Each round is split up into several smaller battles each becoming more difficult as the round progresses. When an area is cleared of enemies a "GO" indicator allows you to proceed. Enemies are dead when they let out a dying screen on your final blow before hitting the floor and vanishing.

Throughout each round will be enemies, bosses, special items, weapons, breakables and the odd hazard that threatens your fighter and when completed there will be bonus points for:

Clear Bonus which is 20,000 points.

Time Bonus will be 100 points for each second remaining on the timer.

Level Bonus will depend on the difficulty setting. 0 for Easy, 10,000 for normal, 20,000 for Hard and 30,000 for Hardest.

There are 3 playable characters in the game; Axel, Adam and Blaze. Each character is rounded with advantages and disadvantages over each other.

The game can be played as either a single player or 2-Player co-op which is most fun but teamwork is essential ergo one player should not steal all the special items. In this mode typically everything becomes doubled: the amount of enemies, the number of special items and the number of bosses. Your partner can be used to perform some devastatingly powerful attacks. Be aware that you can also damage your partner.

A second player can join in a single player game at any time (except in Round 8), however, they can not select a character. Their character is determined by who player 1 is controlling. The combinations are:

Streets of Rage Co-op

Player 1	Player 2
Adam	Blaze
Axel	Adam
Blaze	Axel

Displayed at all times across the top of the screen will be all your vital information in a status bar. Player 1 will be on the left side of this and Player 2 will be on the right. In here will be:

Score - Players Score.

Player's Life Gauge - When you take damage you loose health or energy. You can be damaged several ways; getting hit by enemies, falling down holes and hit by machinery. When all of your health is gone you loose a life and restored by collecting food. Health is also restored to full when a round is completed.

Lives - Remaining lives. When you die you will fall back onto the floor from the ceiling and all the enemies on the screen will fall over. Sounds weird but it actually prevents a player from falling into a repeated loop of death. Extra lives can be collected as an item and earned with points.

Special Attacks - How many special attacks you can call on. These are detailed later in this article.

Time - How much time you have to complete the round including defeating the boss. This resets if you die. Failure to do so results in a "Time Over" and instant kill.

Boss Life Gauge - This only appears when fighting an end of round boss. Sometimes their health fills more than 1 bar. Their death is near when the bar is red.

The default controls are as follows:

The D-Pad moves your character around the screen. Your character can move in all directions. Combining LEFT or RIGHT with JUMP (C) then ATTACK (B) produces different attacks such as a flying kick.

Button A calls the Special Attack which is an aerial assault from the city's police forces. These kill all smaller enemies on the screen instantaneously and inflicts major damage to bosses. Each character can use this once per life. It can be collected as a special item but is very rare.

Player 1 has a napalm bomb which when hits the ground creates a brief ring of fire. Player 2 will have a flurry rocket propelled grenades.

Button B is ATTACK. A single press will be a punch or jab. Pressing repeatedly makes your fighter do a flurry or fury attack (go through an attack sequence) which varies between characters. Typically 4 presses complete the routine. See the character moves below for more. It is possible to attack more than one enemy at once.

Button C is JUMP. Tap for small jump and press for higher jump.

START button pauses the game at any time.

When enemies are close you can grab hold of them allowing moves like a head butt or elbow to the face if you press ATTACK (B). Beware enemies can also grab hold of you which is dangerous when there is a group of them. You can escape by jump or throw. More detail follows.

Moves and Characters

These are general moves that can be performed by all characters. The buttons in brackets relate to standard button configuration.

Grab - To grab an enemy simply walk up to them. Beware that they could be attacking.

Then by pressing ATTACK (B) you can perform the following:

Close Attacks - these will be a knee, head-butt, elbow or slam and/or the following moves:

Shoulder Throw - Pressing D-Pad AWAY and ATTACK (B) throws the enemy across the screen knocking over anybody in their path. Throw enemies through breakable objects such as phone boxes.

Vault - Press JUMP (C) to leap over the enemy. Handy sometimes in avoiding oncoming enemies.

Back-Drop - When you have grabbed an enemy and vaulted over them press ATTACK (B) to pull them over your head and drive them into the floor. This is a devastatingly powerful move.

When an enemy has grabbed you from behind you can escape by performing:

Double Leg Kick - Pressing JUMP (C) will do a kick to the face of any oncoming enemies. You can perform several of these and then perform a Neck Throw/Shoulder Throw by pressing the D-Pad FORWARDS and then ATTACK (B).

or Vault (see above)

Some enemies can throw you. If thrown by an enemy press UP + JUMP (C) to land on your feet undamaged. Timing is important for success.

Unstoppable Combo - not an official move but very useful if perfected.

An unstoppable combo is when you continue to punch without the character beginning their flurry. This is simply a matter of timing. You press ATTACK (B) once or twice and then wait for just under a second before doing the same.

When perfected you will be able to defeat an enemy without them landing a punch on you as they are trapped when you punch them because the sprite shakes briefly. This is especially useful for bosses such as the Fat Flamer on Round 4 or whenever a single enemy is on screen.

Character Profiles

Characters are rated in 3 categories: power relates to their strength, jump indicates height and speed is their walking/manoeuvring speed.

Adam

Power A Jump A Speed B

Adam is a rounded character with good power and jump. Though he moves around the screen slower he does have the advantage of a brilliant round-house kick.

Single Attack: Performs a jab.

Repeated Attack: Jabs then uppercut finishing with a round-house kick.

Close Attack: Knees followed by elbow to the face.

Flying Kick: Press JUMP (C) then ATTACK (B) whilst moving in a direction using the D-Pad.

Rear Kick: Pressing ATTACK (B) + JUMP (C)

To capitalise on the round-house kick, just before the kick he performs an uppercut on the enemy, if high enough the round-house kick will knock them flying off the screen taking any enemies with them. Very useful at times when facing attacks from multiple enemies. On occasion a bug causes the graphics screw up and the enemy falls through the floor and dies which is groovy!

Axel

Power A Jump B Speed A

Axel has both power and speed but can not jump as high and therefore as far. He is probably the best character for taking down bosses quickly.

Single Attack: Punch.

Repeated Attack: Punches, then knees to the chest finishing with a head-butt.

Close Attack: Knees followed by head-butt.

Fling Knee: Press JUMP (C) then ATTACK whilst moving in a direction using the D-Pad.

Rear Punch: Pressing ATTACK (B) + JUMP (C)

Blaze

Power B Speed A Jump A

Blaze is the fastest character but can not do as much damage. Her speed and jump can be useful for evading enemies, dividing them before killing them and for evading bosses and their heavy attacks. Her overhead throw makes use of her leg sending enemies even further across the screen.

She is also the character when girlies want to play.

Single Attack: Chop to the face.

Repeated Attack: Chops to the face, kicks to the chest and then a slam on the floor.

Close Attack: Knees and then a kick and flip over.

Spinning-Flying Kick: Press JUMP (C) then ATTACK (B) whilst moving in a direction using the D-Pad.

Rear Kick: Pressing ATTACK (B) + JUMP (C)

2-Player Combination Moves

In 2-Player games you can use your partner to perform some powerful flying attacks. If timed and aimed well these can be devastating to enemies.

By grabbing your partner face to face (ooh) and performing a Shoulder Throw (D-Pad AWAY and ATTACK (B)) your partner somersaults into the enemy and likewise, if a player grabs their partner face on and then performs a vault they will launch off their partner in to the enemies.

If a player grabs their partner from behind they can vault over but not launch or the partner can do Double Leg Kicks. Beware, the player can back-drop the partner.

One player can also grab and hold an enemy allowing the other player to attack them.

Special Items

Special items are generally found by destroying things such as a phone box or air vent. To collect them simply stand over them and press ATTACK (B).

Streets of Rage Items

	Apple	Appears a few times in each round. Restores just under 1/4 of players health.
	Beef	Usually appears at least once per round before a boss. Restores a players health to full.
	Money Bag	Fairly common. Rewards 1000 points.
	Gold Bars	Less common. Rewards 5000 points.
	Police Car	Provides you with another use of the Special Attack. Only appears on Rounds 5 and 6.
	1UP/Gang Icon	1 Extra life. Found on Rounds 4 and 6.

WEAPONS

Throughout your brawl the streets will be littered with items that make nifty weapons. They can be found lying around or enemies will attack you with them which they will drop when you attack them. To collect them simply stand over them and press ATTACK (B).

Weapons have a life span. They disappear when they are dropped 2 times. You will drop a weapon if you are grabbed, take damage or swap for another.

Weapons of Streets of Rage

	Bottle	A cool weapon. You can smash it over the head of a thug and then continue to attack them with the broken end.
	Knife/Dagger	Do lots of damage by stabbing enemies. Can also be thrown at enemies from a distance.
	Lead Pipe	Does a fair amount of damage and has a long attack range.
	Baseball Bat	A nice swing will do a fair amount of damage.
	Pepper Shaker/Gas	The amusing weapon. Throw this at an enemy to temporally paralyse them in a sneezing fit.

The Enemies

As the game progresses the colours of the enemies change. Seeing a different colour version of an enemy indicates they are stronger.

Enemies of Streets of Rage

Thug 1 - Easily defeated. Will land a punch on you. Thugs can attack you with weapons. There are 2 versions of these guys that carry knives. Those that carry knives by their head will stab and throw them at you. They will drop the knife when hit. The other version carries a knife close to their waist. These guys are nasty when there are several on the screen making quick walking attacks. They do not drop their knife until they are killed.
Thug 2 - Same rules as Thug 1 but tougher and quicker to land a punch on you that will do more damage. These will also come at you with weapons and both types with knives.
Women in Bondage Gear - Did the moral decline in video games start here with women in suspenders and knee-high boots wielding whips? These females are a bit stronger than your average thug. Some of them will scream and lie of the floor for a short while when punched before getting up and attacking you again. Stronger versions of these chicks remain on the floor for only a second before getting back up again.
Punks - Generally easily defeated however they have 2 annoying methods of attack. They will be either quick to slide across the floor knocking you down or grab by neck and throw you (shoulder throw). With a quick response you can land on your feet using UP+JUMP(C). Generally do not stand still round these guys too long.
Kung-Fu Guys - These guys will leap around the screen quickly and jump in for a sly high kick (usually to your back) and then jump away. They can come back for another attack very quickly after being knocked down. These can be mega annoying when in groups so kill them quickly as in later levels they can do a bit of damage to you very quickly.
Jugglers - These are tougher than thugs and trickier to kill. There are 3 types of these: those juggling burning sticks, those juggling axes and those seemingly juggling nothing which can turn out to be either sticks or axes. They skip around and make small leaps before stopping and throwing their toys at you which they can do from a distance. Also touching either the sticks or the axes will damage you so when attacking wait for them to fall out of their hands before moving closer for a grab. You may have to punch a few times before actually landing a hit on them. Generally flying kicks do not work against them.
Bosses - Boss fights are at the end of each round. They are invariably 2 times the size you are and 3 times as strong and always supported by smaller enemies which can be useful when throwing at them. Bosses are detailed on the rounds in which they appear. Check out the links.

THE ROUNDS

You begin the game with 3 lives. You can gain extra lives by collecting the 1UP item and for every 50,000 points.

At Game Over you have 3 continue credits. In a 2-Player game each player has 4 credits. You can not earn extra continue credits and when all of your credits have gone you are shown the high-score leader board where you can input your initials.

Your mega-brawl will take you across a range of locations ultimately leading to the Syndicates HQ. There are 8 Rounds in total. More details and general hints on each round can be found on the following pages.

Click on any of the screenshot to view screenshots and info about each round.

Names for the rounds taken from the manual.

Streets of Rage Screenshots Rounds 1-8

Round 1 - City Streets
A walk down the city high streets pounding thugs and trashing telephone boxes serves as our first round. Boss: Big guy armed with boomerang. This guy can move about the screen quite fast. He attacks with a kick that takes about 70% of your health or by throwing a boomerang. The boomerang can be deflected by a kick or punch but he'll immediately kick you upon doing so. Attack him in the time you have between him throwing his boomerang and him waiting for it to return to him. Use plenty of close range attacks.
Round 2 - Inner City
Dark dingy backstreets serve as the setting for this round. An extra life is located midway under some drum barrels. Boss: Freddie Kruger Junior. Freddie can be mega tough at first. Getting slashed by those hands will be deadly. Jump attacks always fail as he shrouds himself around you and then instantly attacks. The safest method for attack is to be toward the top of the screen and then simply walk down to him and grab where you can do all sorts of things to him. There is an element of timing to this which takes practice. Kill him as quickly as possible using close range attacks and back-drops.
Round 3 - Beachfront
Plenty of guys and gals that need slaying on the beach. Boss: Wrestler. This guy performs a running punch which will take about 80% of your health away if hit. He will run on the screen from the direction where there is the most room. So move away from the centre and commit to a side of the screen and when the music changes and prepare for him. This guy is not very tough and can be defeated easily with good timing by either punching, grabbing and throwing or using the unstoppable combo technique.
Round 4 - Bridge
On this round the difficulty is upped. Beware of the holes in the floor. These can be useful for the efficient disposal of enemies but you can fall down these and be thrown down them by the punks. This will cost you a life. An Extra Life can be found midway between two holes. Just before the boss, take a position in the bottom left corner of the screen (like in shot 3). Here if you throw enemies off the screen they will fall off a hole in the floor not visible. Just before the boss will be some enemies with knives. Kill these and leave the knives on the floor ready for the boss fight if you need to throw them at the fat bastards as a last resort before losing a life. Boss: Fat Burner. These are seriously tricky to kill at times. They make a run diagonally (usually) from one corner of the screen to the other quickly and blowing fire from their mouths. You can only attack them when they are not spewing flames and they are then only from behind which is very difficult to do. You can not attack through the flames and getting hit by it will do heavy damage to you. They do not start their flame spewing until you are nearby. The trick is to get them the instant they appear on the screen which will be in the top-right hand corner for a single player game. These bosses can be particularly tricky to kill if playing with Adam due to his walking speed. Blaze is a better choice as her kick is high enough to be able to hit them even if they are blowing flames. If the moment to kill them quickly has gone, a tip for survival is if you are beating up the supporting thug and fatty makes a run at you, do a vault just before he hits. The flames will not hurt you. When attacking them do not let them move off the screen. Utilise the Unstoppable Combo technique where possible. You can grab to do close range attacks but it's not possible to throw them. They will fall on you and take about 80% of your health. Only grab them if they are towards the centre of the screen so you can begin attacking them the instant they get back up.
Round 5 - Aboard Ship
On this round at times you are attacked in mobs and have to fight up to 10 enemies at once and an extra boss is thrown in. Plenty of shoulder throws will come in handy for knocking groups of enemies over. An additional special attack item can be collected in a section where 4 of the tougher jugglers come on the screen. It may be worth using one of these attacks here. See shot 1. Midway through the round (on normal mode) you will have to defeat the wrestler boss from Round 3. Same rules apply as before, however this time just before an enemy would have dropped a pipe giving you a slight advantage. Boss: Blazes x2 The bitches are tough and practise will be needed for the efficient disposal of these. Not only are they difficult to get a hit on but their moves are deadly. They have an annoying flying-spinning kick, can throw and back-drop you from which there is no escape. The trick is to watch the shadows on the floor. If yours and theirs are going to meet then you will probably be hit. If you get thrown be quick with UP + JUMP (C) to land on your feet. There is tighter timing need to land successfully compared to punks throwing you. Landing a hit on them can be tricky but if you keep your back to them they normally perform a spinning kick. Avoid this, quickly swing around and then smack them one! or perform your characters back punch/kick move. It is also possible to grab them at this point allowing you to do some damage. Perform a throw/back-drop quickly as they can escape holds fast. Beware that the other split-arse is probably coming down at you with a spinning flying kick at this time. There is also a very brief instance for a single punch or grab when they land from an ordinary jump. This is slightly more difficult when they are landing from one of their kicks. If you manage to grab them be sure to do as much damage as possible by kneeing them twice before vaulting and then back-dropping. Throwing one at the other using the shoulder throw will help damage both of them.
Round 6 - Factory/Warehouse
Underneath the syndicate headquarters where the fight gets much tougher throwing in extra bosses. An extra life and special attack can be picked up just before the final boss. The plentiful conveyor belts can be tricky to fight on but the main hazard on this round is the pressing machinery. The machine will activate when an orange light flashes. [shot] These are triggered by standing next to it just outside the pressing area. Getting hit by this will do some damage. Enemies can also be damaged by this if under them when activated. Be sure to throw as many enemies as possible underneath the presses in the chance they will be damaged by them. In the middle of this round (on normal mode) you fight the Fat Flamer boss from Round 3. Same technique applies. Boss: x2 Freddie Kruger's These guys pose quite a challenge when in a pair. Attack using the method in Round 2, however beware of the other guy coming to attack you at the same time you are attacking. Use plenty of shoulder throws to knock them both down. This is not a round you want to play again! ^_*
Round 7 - Elevator Action
Onwards and upwards. The whole round takes place on a lift that will lead to the syndicate headquarters. You remain in the same small area for the whole of the round. Enemies either come from the left side of the screen or from above which just before they drop have a shadow appear on the floor. There are no special items and no boss to kill. The real danger here is being thrown off the side by the punks or falling off. This will result in instant death if you do. You can stand on the right-hand edge, useful for flying kicks into crowds but it's not advisable as you can easily fall to your doom. The round can be done more easily by taking position somewhere inside the bottom right-hand corner of the lift and use throws to quickly dispense of any enemies. Doing back-drops makes them fall through the floor! It does get more tricky to stay here when nearing the top as there are many enemies on screen at times.
Round 8 - Syndicate Headquarters
In this round everything will get thrown at you and a twist is thrown in too: the round scrolls in the opposite direction. As well as much tougher enemies every boss returns stronger than before and that's all before reaching the final boss Mr X! Also in Round 8 you can not call upon the special attack. The techniques for defeating bosses apply to these. Boss 1: Guy with Boomerang Boss 2: Freddy Kruger Boss 3: Wrestler Boss 4: Fat Burner Boss 5: Blaze's Running tables are an annoying adversary on this round though they do very little damage. Some have special items underneath. Mr X Before the final showdown with Mr X you have to answer a question. This scenario differs between single player and 2-Player modes. Your answer is important. Do not press any buttons until the text has finished scrolling and the choices appear. Mr X's Choice - 1 Player (Single player) Mr X "Well you found your way here. Would you consider being my right-hand man?" Selecting "yes" Mr X "You show allot of potential. Here's your reward" - You will fall through a trap door back to Round 6. Selecting "no" Mr X "You really want to die don't you...I'll be happy to oblige!" - the final fight is on and results in the good ending. Mr X's Choice - 2-Players Mr X "Well you found your way here. Would you consider being my right-hand man?" (Player 1) "yes" + "yes" (Player 2) Mr X "You show allot of potential. Here's your reward" - You will fall through a trap door back to Round 6. (Player 1) "No" + "No" (Player 2) Mr X "You really want to die don't you...I'll be happy to oblige!" - the final fight is on and results in the good ending should you be successful. (Player 1) "Yes" + "No" (Player 2) Mr X "After working as a team for so long, you part company. Now, a fight to the death! You have to battle your partner until one of you dies. (The winner) Mr X "You're no ordinary man. It would be a waste to kill you. Why don't you join my organisation?" selecting Yes Mr X "You show allot of potential. Here's your reward" - You will fall through a trap door back to Round 6. Selecting "no" Mr X "You're an evil man. I would never have expected this from you. Die traitor! You really want to die don't you...I'll be happy to oblige!" The final fight with Mr X is on but you will get the bad ending to the game and the shame of killing your partner. Fighting Mr X Timing and practice will make this final scrap much easier. In Normal Mode he is not that difficult to defeat. To assist you there is a pipe in the top-centre of the screen though you may not be able to make much use of it from being knocked out your hands. He attacks by making sudden dashes across the entire width of the screen ramming his gun into your head. He has 2 tougher thugs with him at all times to help complicate matters. They tend to be landing punches on you whenever you get to hit Mr X. Before coming at you himself he sends 4 thugs against you. Easily defeated. Immediately after, walk up to where he is sitting. He takes position here spraying the room with bullets but if you are standing here just before, he can be punched a few times then grabbed when he stands. Do as much damage as you can with knees and a back-drop. Once standing, he will then be charging across the screen and possibly off only to come back and ram you with the butt of his gun/ pistol whipped. He is a very quick mover. Sometimes he can be stopped with a flying kick/knee with good timing and this can even be done several times. You can land a punch better when he is backing away from a charge at you. It is safer to attack him when he stands still and fires his gun, you can deflect bullets with punches (you will only be in danger when the bullets are in line with you) but use flying kicks/knees to get close enough to punch or grab. Beware he will only be still for a short amount of time. When knocked to the floor beware that he will ram/pistol whip you the moment he returns to his feet. Again, throw the thugs in his direction whenever possible to interrupt his attack so you can get close enough. They will also be hit by Mr X's bullets. At the end of Round 8 you receive an extra bonus for any lives remaining and unused Special Attacks. This will depend on difficulty setting. Easy 1000, Normal 2000, Hard 3000, Hardest 4000.

Options

A few options in the game are open to the player. These are:

Sound Test - Listen to the tunes of the game. It should be played in stereo sound for the best experience.

Level: Easy, Normal, Hard or Hardest. Adjusts the games difficulty. The more difficult the game the tougher the enemies are to kill (as opposed the number of them) and more level bonus points you will receive when you complete a round.

Control - reassign the buttons.

CHEATS AND TIPS

For General hints on each of the rounds click out the links above.

Round Select and Extra Lives

This cheat requires a pad in controller port 2. At the title screen highlight options. Hold down Buttons A+B+C and RIGHT on controller 2 and press START on controller 1.

The options screen will now have 2 more settings; Round No and Players (lives).

Continue Play

Just before Player 1 is about to die press START on the second controller to continue with the other character.

Killing Bosses

Utilise the back-drop move on all bosses except the Fat Guys (Round 4) to do serious damage.

When a supporting enemy is killed another immediately replaces it so do not concentrate on them too much. Also remember that you can throw whatever supporting thug there is at them to do some damage. Pretty useful for when there are 2 bosses to fight at once.

Eating Beef

Do not instantly eat the beef when having found one unless you really need to. Enemies can not steal it nor does it disappear.

Edge of Screen

Try to resist the urge to attack an enemy that is only half on the screen at either the left or right edges. You will not be able to land a hit the majority of the time but they will get one on you.

OTHER VERSIONS AND UPDATES

The latest release sees all three Streets of Rage games released in a compilation for Xbox Live Arcade and PSN entitled SEGA Vintage Collection: Streets of Rage.

The game has been included in the recent compilations Ultimate Collection for Xbox 360 and PS3, the Japanese version of Sonic Gems Collection (going by the name of Bare Knuckle) as unlockable bonuses and in many of the clone versions of Mega Drive hardware such as the ones from Blaze which also includes SOR3 but not SOR2.

Streets of Rage in Compilation Titles

Sonic Gems Collection (Gamecube)	SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (Xbox 360)
Streets of Rage Edition Console from Blaze	Streets of Rage Edition Handheld from Blaze

All SOR games are available on Steam and Nintendo Virtual console.

It was included the Mega Games 2 (1994) and the Mega Games 6 collections both of which were packaged with the Mega Drive.

An identical version to the Mega Drive was included in both SEGA Classics 5-in-1 and 4-in-1 compilation CD's for the Mega CD. This retained its 2-Player co-op mode unlike Golden Axe in the compilation.

The only changes are some sound effects of the characters voices which were replaced with voice samples. Although much clearer they feel out of phase with the rest of the game.

An arcade version was released in 1991 on two of SEGA's arcade boards: Mega-Tech and Mega-Play which are derivatives of the Mega Drive hardware.

8-Bit Versions

SOR (this version) was also ported to the Master System and Game Gear in 1993. These versions differ from each other significantly but are generally good ports staying very faithful to the 16-Bit version.

Streets of Rage on Master System and Game Gear

Master System	Game Gear

Graphical and musical differences aside, the Master System version is single player only with the choice of all 3 characters. The Game Gear version offers only 2 playable characters but also a 2-Player mode and some game options from the title screen.

Sequels

Streets of Rage 2

SOR 2 was released in 1992 is one of the most successful and popular titles of the 16-Bit era. It surpasses the original in every way and some people regard it as the greatest arcade beat'em up of all time.

It lives up to its reputation with vastly improved graphics, new characters, new moves, bigger and harder levels, a Vs mode and another great soundtrack.

The game was double in size of the original and touted very much as being the first 16Mbit (2Mbyte) sized cartridge for the Mega Drive.

Streets of Rage 2

SOR 2 was also ported to the Master System and Game Gear.

Streets of Rage 3

The final instalment hit the Mega Drive in 1994. Whilst not the jump from the first game to the second, it offered several improvements. All the characters are huge and highly detailed with much faster gameplay. Another pumping soundtrack accompanied the action.

Streets of Rage 3

There are also distinct differences between the Jap, US and PAL versions as opposed to a name change on the title screen. A website could be done on this topic alone.

The Japanese version had a playable character Ash, which was a stereotype homosexual. He was removed from both the US and European versions but can be activated through cheats and Action Replay codes.

This game was larger still coming in a 24Mbit cartridge. It is now quite rare in especially in PAL format.

The game was never been ported to any other platforms.

Beats of Rage

Beats of Rage his probably one of the coolest homebrew projects there is. A group of programmers called Senile who no doubt grew tired of waiting for SEGA to produce a SOR 4 created a rather excellent beat'em up engine in the same vein. It allows the creating of customised SOR games essentially. One example uses characters from SNK's King of the Fighters.

Beats of Rage (Dreamcast)

The source for this is freely available and as such seen many different modifications to create themed games. Examples are Ghouls 'N' Ghosts, Megaman and Alien Vs Predator. There are many more now.

It is available for Dreamcast, PC (DOS), Linux and GP32. The official website is at http://www.senileteam.com/beatsofrage.html where you can download versions of the game for Dreamcast and other platforms. There are several other projects worth checking also.

Streets of Rage Remake

Released in 2011 by Bombergames for Windows, it is essentially a blending and upgrade of all three SOR games. It is a fan game of the highest quality and may even make you never play the originals again!

All the SOR gameplay and more importantly the feel is intact which extras such as many more playable characters (including Adam playable in SOR2 and 3 style), different routes through the multiple stages and many more tweaks such as usage of guns and exploding barrels.

Graphics are enhanced with effects and music remixed and in high quality format.

Not only that but it also comes with the means to mod and create your own SOR games.

Unfortunately, SEGA did not approve of this development and issued Bombergames with a cease-and-desist order claiming they were protecting their intellectual property though they could possibly have been embarrassed since they may not be able to make a product of similar quality these days.

Despite this, the SOR fan community continued efforts and so the game saw a patch to fix some bugs and there have been a few ports to other platforms. Version 5 is the latest.

The game can be downloaded from http://www.soronline.net.

EMULATOR COMPATIBILITY

SOR works perfectly with KEGA Fusion, Gens and Gens32. You can download these from the Mega Drive/Genesis Emulators Page.

There are also no problems playing this game via net play in KEGA Fusion.

The Mega CD Version in the SEGA Classics Collection works perfectly with KEGA Fusion.

MISC INFO

• Original Release Dates:
  USA - 12/31/90
  EUR - 1991
  JAP - 08/02/91
• To play the game as Bare Knuckle set your emulator to JAP. If you have a modified Mega Drive then flip the machine to JAP mode. Bare Knuckle and SOR are identical games. SOR 2 and 3 were later locked and prevented this and will produce a warning.
  
• In addition to floor bugs, another can be seen on Round 2 in the background. There is a moving leg (so it seems) inside some of the posters.
  
• A cheat to enable extra continue credits is fabled to exist. There are generally 2 versions:
  At the GAME OVER screen press LEFT, LEFT, B, B, B, C, C, C and then START.
  On the Title screen press LEFT, LEFT, B, B, B, C, C, C and then START.
  Neither of these has been known to work.
  
• The life indicator can not show a number above 9 even though you may have more.
• Team Shinobi were behind many great games on the Mega Drive most notably [Revenge of Shinobi] considered one of the best platformers on the system. Some of the SFX and font were re-used from that game.
• Yuzo Koshiro was well known for his work in games music. He has DJ'ed live the music from SOR 2 which can be seen on Youtube. His later projects included the music to Shenmue on the Dreamcast.
• SOR was rumoured to use a tweaked version of the engine used for Golden Axe. Interestingly loading the SEGA Classics version of SOR on my Multi-Mega causes the console to lockup whereas Golden Axe loads normally. This does not happen on other hardware combinations.
• An LCD handheld version of SOR was created by Tiger Electronics and SEGA as part of their Pocket Arcade series. All three characters were selectable and there were 6 rounds in total.
• Guardian Heroes from Treasure is generally considered the closest to Streets of Rage on the Saturn.
  
• The Double Dragon series of games continued on the Mega Drive but never had good review scores and therefore less popular in comparison.

Related

Streets of Rage in Games Of the Month Archive

Streets of Rage 2 in Games Of the Month Archive

Streets of Rage 3 in Games Of the Month Archive

Golden Axe Feature

LINKS

Streets of Rage Online

The ultimate in SOR websites. It comes highly recommended for any fan of the series. It even has footage of the SOR 4 prototypes, every secret of the Mega Drive games included deleted scenes and characters.

http://www.classicgaming.com/soronline/

A Review of SOR

http://www.sydlexia.com/streetsofrage.htm

Beats of Rage

Official website of the Beats of Rage project. Here you can download versions of the game for Dreamcast and other platforms as well as check out their other projects.

http://www.senileteam.com/beatsofrage.html

Blaze Europe

The place to buy the SOR themed consoles and handhelds.

http://www.blazeeurope.com

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