Streets of Rage 2 memories

A few weeks back I bought the Mega Drive collection for the Playstation 4, although I am an avid fan of the console I was originally intending to wait until it was a bit cheaper. I had already played most of the noteworthy titles that were included in the package, so I thought I could wait. But I caved in to the temptation and bought it, and it was for one reason only, to play Streets of Rage 2.

Before I get into why Streets of Rage 2 is so good, I'd like to first talk a little bit about classic games and why I think nostalgia blinds us to how good they actually were. The collection has some great games that stand the test of time, such as Sonic 1 and 2, the Streets of Rage series, Golden Axe 2, and the action packed Gunstar Heroes. Unfortunately I'll only play most of the other games just the once or twice with no intention of going back, due to sheer frustration or the lack of fun that they give me.

When you go back to old games you forget just how unreasonable they were, this is expected due to the technical limitations of the time. But time is still the best way to judge how good something holds up, and Streets of Rage 2 is one such game that holds up very well.

I first played Streets of Rage 2 around the age of eight or nine, it was somewhere in the mid 90s. It was not something that was bought for me, and in all honestly I don't think it's a game I actually owned a personal copy of (unless I never returned it to the rental store I got it from). And it was a rental store close to where I lived in Wood Green that I first got the game from. I remember the moment I walked through the front door, partly because there was a big cardboard cut out of the forgotten Bill Murray movie 'Larger than Life', it's the one with the elephant on the poster.

Ever since that day I have gone back to Streets of Rage 2 at various points in the last two decades, and it's always just as much fun each time I play it.

To those who don't know, the game is a 2D side scrolling beat em up game. It isn't a one v one with the computer, instead you go through levels like a normal platform game of its time, as you go from point A to point B, fighting your way through hordes of enemies until you reach the end level boss. It wasn't an entirely original game, there were plenty similar to it at the time, from the top of my head I can think of Double Dragon, Final Fight, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games on the SNES, as well as others.

The beauty of the game is its simplicity, the range of attacks is fun to pull off but fairly limited, even for the time. But it's just so extremely satisfying to go from level to level beating up different enemy types as the music fizzles in the background. The grapple and throw function is one of the best additions to the game that wasn't in the first one. To pull it off all you had to do was walk into an enemy and you'd instantly grab hold of them, you didn't have to press another button to lock onto them, it was all seamless.

The presentation of the game is top notch, it still holds up to this day, the levels are crisp and varied. The settings are all pretty much in realist environments, as you go from your average city streets to motorways, to a theme park, and a boat, amongst others.

And let's not forget the co-op play that adds so much to the game, especially if you crank up the difficulty, it really is tons of fun, and it still is as I play it now with my brother who is nearly two decades younger than me.

Along with the original Sonic releases, Streets of Rage 2 is one of the few Mega Drive games that really stands the test of time, and encapsulates the best of what video games can do, and that's pure, entertaining escapism.