Streets of Rage is very '90s, and the main characters are named Axel and Blaze, names that would make a 12-year-old whisper, "Whoa, cool," while sitting around a box with a Blockbuster. Streets of Rage 4 is the game I would imagine if those kids grew up to be talented artists and video game developers and wanted to remake something they loved as kids.

I used to play the first two "Streets of Rage" games on the Sega Genesis when I was a kid, and on rare occasions I would put a quarter each into other fighting games in arcades. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time was my favorite, but I also loved "X-Men" and Capcom's "Knights of Round. Streets of Rage 4 doesn't try to reinvent the basics of those games. You walk right at them, hit them, and sometimes throw them for a change.

Streets of Rage 4 doesn't overcomplicate this design, which feels appropriate for a sequel made 25 years after the latest in the series. Clearly, homage is the point here. And it is a beautiful homage; the artists at Lizardcube are probably the best 2D artists working in gaming today. This review could probably get to the point with a hundred screenshots of characters and stages from Streets of Rage 4, followed by the words "Don't worry, it plays fine."

The best reason to play this game is to watch the flowing attack animations of each character, to be distracted by one gorgeous background after another, and to examine the Easter eggs and cute details of each stage The second best reason is that this year's To enjoy the music, which would be a contender for the soundtrack. Several artists, including famed "Streets of Rage" composer Yuzo Koshiro, have contributed music, keeping the series' synthesized feel while incorporating elements of funk, rock, and even dubstep.

The punches and kicks of the Streets of Rage were also quite enjoyable thanks to that great animation, and there were some simple advances compared to older titles. There is a lot of depth here. Each character has a light attack and a heavy attack, and combo finishers are activated by attacking while moving forward. Vitality can be regained by hitting the enemy, but it disappears after one hit.

These moves are a departure from the classic beat-em-up game of punch-punch or jump-and-punch, and do a great job of expanding the range of actions that can be taken at any given moment. Each character plays completely differently. I was drawn to the nimble Blaze. His somersault kicks are great for knocking enemies out of the air and piling them up.

At first I struggled to avoid the attacks of slower characters like Axel and series newcomer Floyd, but as I played more and more, Floyd and his massive metal arms became my main strength. One of his special moves was a long-range grab, which I used a lot to draw in weaker enemies and throw them at other enemies to catch my breath.

Even if it is not a new innovation, "Streets of Rage 4" is playful in its stage design, with little flourishes here and there. In Chinatown, players use pole arms to keep their distance as they make their way through hordes of enemies. On another level, you'll be navigating a hallway reminiscent of "Old Boy." There is a sauna with a wet floor, and both the enemies and yourself slip and slide as you progress. One of the many bosses resurrected from the classic game is Dominatrix, who no longer faints from your hits as she literally sends her servants into a frenzy. In such an obvious genre, even something as simple as a slippery floor can set the stage apart.

There are a number of difficulty options, and if you fail a stage in story mode, "Streets of Rage 4" will help you out a bit with bonuses such as 1 to 3 more lives at the expense of your score. It's also a way to unlock characters and gain important extra lives during stages, but I didn't fully understand how it works even after a few hours. There is a combo meter to hit enemies in succession, but if you get hit in the middle of a combo, you lose all the points you had earned. Occasionally, though, you can keep your points even if you get hit. It was not clear what was going on, and the game nowhere explained the combo.

I rarely scored higher than a C in solo on difficulty normal and in co-op on difficulty hard, and even after playing Streets of Rage for several hours, I wasn't sure how to significantly increase my score. I learned to be more patient, especially when dodging boss attacks, but there are moments in most stages when you are swarmed by enemies, and it is certainly tough to maintain combos throughout those fights. It's fine for the scoring system to judge players harshly and demand excellence, but that only works if the game teaches you how to improve (or gives you the tools to learn on your own). This is where "Streets of Rage 4" could have really modernized itself.

It is also frustrating that, just as it was 30 years ago, a slight walk to the right scrolls important healing items off-screen with no option to go back. Now that we are free from the constraints of the old hardware, it feels silly not to have a little more leeway. I'm not going to backtrack through the entire level and ruin the tempo. Just let me go back three feet and get my roast chicken. The game works great as "Streets of Rage," but it's obvious that the developers have the talent to make something more complex.

Four-player co-op is a nice option, but you can't have two players on one system and play online as well. Locally the game is smooth as butter, but online with one person in California and one in the UK, the game seemed slow. There were no lag spikes, but it felt like I was wading through knee-high water the whole time.

Playing with another PC Gamer editor near me in California (I have a gigabit, he has a 200 megabit connection), the game ran perfectly at first, but intermittently became heavy again. It was still playable, but the difference was immediate. Neither of the teammates I played with said they noticed this slowdown, but they may just not know what "Streets of Rage 4" feels like after 7 hours of playing it as well as I do. In any case, "Streets of Rage 4" is definitely playable online, but in my experience, I don't think it can reliably match the smoothness of offline play.

Playing Streets of Rage 4 solo makes the limitations of the 90s design more apparent. I enjoyed the more chaotic co-op experience playing on the couch with my roommate. While some may find joy in exploring the invincibility frames of each attack or getting every level to an S rank on hard difficulty, for me, these games are at their best when I'm playing them with a lot of button mashing and a little thinking.

[11] Hard co-op gave me exactly that. It gave me three or four hours of beautifully creative stages to tour around and a soundtrack that will still dominate when the next "Streets of Rage" comes out, even if it is 25 years later.

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