Thoughts on Streets of Rage Remake v5

Posted: April 20, 2011 | Author: tonyx35 | Filed under: Video/Computer Gaming | Tags: Blaze Fielding, BomberGames, MS Windows, PC Gaming, Remake, Streets of Rage, Streets of Rage Remake v5 |Leave a comment »

SOR Remake v5 Title Screen

Streets of Rage Remake is a freeware, fan made project mixing (and improving) elements of the original Streets/Bare Knuckle game series. It can be played on Microsoft Windows PCs (XP, Vista, 7) The team at BomberGames has spent around 8 years of effort into this. So what are some of the key features?…

Initial Playable characters are Axel, Skate, Blaze, Zan, Adam, and Max
Improved graphics engine. Explosions, shadows, blood, cutscenes, enemies
All (initial) characters can run, perform their own signature moves and have new (star) attacks
Routes: Choose on what area to start from with various alternate paths all throughout the game
Support attacks (from SOR 1)
Remixed Soundtrack, based on the original music by Yuzo Koshiro. I prefer v4′s soundtrack a bit more though
Shop: features to unlock (enable/disable) playable characters, cheats, extras
Game takes a temporary snapshot during your finishing blow(s) during each boss battle (which you see, if you beat the game)

SOR Remake v5 Main Menu

1 Player – just as it says
2 Players (local only) – 2 human-controlled players can play through the game ( you can enabled/disable friendly damage, if you with )
CPU Friend – 1 Human player and 1 computer controlled character can fight through the game
Shop – Use the money you earn from completing the main game to unlock more game features. Blaze is the shopkeeper
Extra Modes – Access the different game modes like Survival, Boss Rush, Volleyball, 2-player Battle-mode
Editor – player profile editor
SORMaker – I haven’t unlocked this feature yet
Options – This is where you change game settings for Gameplay , Graphics, Difficulty, Sound, and controls
Ranking – in-game points leader board

SOR Remake v5 gameplay

I was playing as Blaze with Axel controlled by the computer.

SOR Remake v5 Weapons

The classic weapons are here. Pipes, bats, swords and knives. Projectile weapns (can be enabled/disabled in options menu)

v5 Character select screen (2-players)

The initial playable characters are Axel, Blaze Adam, Max, Skate, Zan. Each character has three color settings. You need to unlock a cheat in the shop to be able to play as the same character.

Streets of Rage Remake (v5) 2-player boss battle

Boss Battle with 2 players

SOR remake has 16-bit cut-scenes

Still images and text.

Shop
Here’s what you can unlock, when you earn enough points:

6 playable characters
Play as uncensored Blaze from Bare Knuckle 2
Fight two bosses instead of one
All enemies die when bosses die
Keep weapons between stages
Switch names to Bare Knuckle 3 (Heroes only)
Play as Max, BK2 beta
Defeated enemies bodies never disappear
All enemies explode when they die
All swords become lightsabers
Always have three stars ( star attacks)
Always have a full (special attack) gauge
Players can select the same character
Weapons never disappear
Infinite Ammo for guns
Become invincible against projectiles
Infinite Lives
Art Gallery
Character profiles
Survival mode – reminds me of the combat challenges found is Batman: Arkham Asylum
Volleyball mode
Unlock all SOR 1 and 2 characters
Boss Rush mode
Stage Select
View cutscenes
Event mode
Edit Enemy names

I really think the team at Bomber Games did a great job with this 5th and final version. The game is no longer available for download on the Project’s website due to the recent take down requests. I’m glad that Sega let the team finish the project before the take down, I was lucky enough to get a copy of the game before the take down went into effect. The SORR is floating around on the Internet, you can find it if you search hard enough. It was around 220 MB in a single compressed zip file. Uncompressed, it is 420 MBs in size. Nothing to install, just run it when you finish uncompressing the zip file. The memory usage was around 50 MBs. For fans of the Original games, you can purchase them on the Wii Virtual Console (1,2,3) , XBOX Live Arcade ( SOR 2 only), Steam/PC ( 1 & 2 as part of the Sega Genesis Classic Pack 4), iOS via iTunes ( 1 and 2), PS3/360 on physical discs Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis collection . Fans of the original games should play it at least once if you get the chance.