They bring you the grapes of wrath... Let's Play Streets of Rage (2)!

Remember these guys made consoles back in the day!



One year ago, when three punks pulled an old guy off of his chair...



Well, that's good to hear!



...oh.



"Come back to life"? So they didn't just arrest the guy, they just murdered him?



A trap! Well, our heroes are too smart to fall for THAT one, aren't they?



No, no they are not. (And they brought the dude's kid brother with them? How many child safety laws does that break?)



If there's one thing that crime lords fear, it's determination.





If they fear two more things, they're friendship-induced burning rage, and fades to black.



Now, finally, the title of our game!

Streets of Rage 2 came out for the Sega Genesis in 1992, and (for reasons that are probably 80% nostalgia) is my favorite game in the series, if not the entire 2D beat-'em-up genre. The game just feels grittier and heftier than Final Fight (which it probably was very "inspired" by, if Axel's similarity to Cody reveals anything), and the soundtrack is pretty bitchin too.



I'll be playing single player, because it would be too much to ask of my meager mental faculties to figure out how to LP AND figure out netplay at the same time.



Hardest difficulty with default life stock because THAT IS THE WAY GOD INTENDED. And also because I used to beat it at this level in college, and I'll be damned if I'm going to admit my college self was better in any way. There's actually a hidden even-harder-than-hardest difficulty called "Mania" though... but let's keep that a secret for now

In single-player, you get two continues, each with the same number of lives you set in the option screen here.

Now let's see our four friends!



Cody Axel - noticing his whiteness would impair his jumping ability, he decided to concentrate on technique instead.

This is probably the character I can use the best, although because I am dumb I will not be using him for this run.



Blaze - jack of all trades, master of none. Also demonstrates that the tube top and miniskirt is the best crimefighting outfit of all time.



Skate - the token minority, AND the only character who can run. I'm sure there's no relation.



Max - really took the nickname "Thunder Thighs" to heart judging by his outfit.

Max is, IMO, the most fun character to play because if you get in a good groove, you just throw the shit out of everyone. The problem is getting into a good groove in the first place, because he's just so damned slow. In any case, due to an outside opinion, he'll be who I'm taking through the game.

Because it's a more action-oriented game, I'll be doing this thingamabob through video. Stay tuned for my inaugural ass-whooping in stage 1!

Video List:

Max path - Stage 1

Hoopz Skate path - Stage 1
Skate path - Stage 2
Skate path - Stage 3
Skate path - Stage 4

Wahey! SoR 2 is indeed probably the best of the bunch and the music is great. I usually play with Skate, because cheesing everything with running attacks is so easy.

That's not Skate!!

That's CLEARLY Hoopz Barkley!

I think this makes our character of choice plain.

this is the first game i ever saw that called out the composer of the soundtrack on the front screen.

it's also the best OST of the 16 bit generation.

Alright. I officially vote that this LP be officially changed to Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden: Episode 2 of the Hoopz Barkley Saga.

You are hereby required to use Skate Hoopz for EVERYTHING.

If he's Hoopz then where are his guns?

Why is Hoopz only a child?! These are not safe Streets to be Raging in!

THERE IS NO LAW IN THE STREETS OF RAGE
I think like 85% of my posts are capslock now.
THERE IS ONLY RAGE

Fixed it for you. And after his Training with Cyberdwarf, he no longer needs gun's.

The best beating-them-up.

Nostalgia nothin'. I only got to start actually playing Streets of Rage with 3, and I currently play an MMO beat-em-up,* and SoR2 is still damn near the finest of the genre.
*-Disappointingly, emphasis on the "MMO".

Also, HUNDAAAH**
**-That is my vote for character as well

Originally, on BEAT's advice, I was planning to do this playthrough (one of many? or just the one?) with Max, which would have worked out because he's one of the two characters I know how to play (the other being Axel). I enlisted BEAT as guest commentator, since I got the feeling that I would be terrible at commentating. My fears were not unjustified, and the help was much appreciated, and this was the result (first recording take):

Max path - Stage 1

BUT, it appears popular demand has been swinging Skate's way! So to appease Talking Time's streetness, I pulled BEAT in for commentary for stage 1 - part deux. We actually manage to talk about the game this time. For 10 seconds, maybe.

Hoopz Skate path - Stage 1

Note: because I had NO IDEA how to use Skate, I actually had to play through the first level 3 or 4 times just to get a video where I didn't end up dying on Stage 1. Generally I have to lose no lives on the first two stages, and 0-1 life on Stage 3 for me to have a chance to actually finish the game, so the extra runs were necessary (although perhaps less necessary since I'm save stating instead of doing single segment runs like I usually did back in high school/college).

The pain I go through... for YOU!

Also I'm terribad at LPing I'm so sorry guys

I am BEAT and I approve this carnage

BEATs of Rage?

It is a LP tradition to make the host do things they hate for the entertainment of the masses.

It's true! Why do you think I'm on so many videos!

Man, trash can food makes you healthier? Who knew?

You're holding one button more than you need to! Up + jump is enough to tech out of throws.

Of course, for the longest time I thought it was tap the button combination upon landing, so about half of all my tech attempts failed.

I find this social analysis of the Streets of Rage intriguing and look forward to further developments.
Where have you been living? Every competent doctor recommends at least three trash can turkeys a day!

You didn't pick up the 1up at the beginning!

I want to play this game now.

Is there a hidden 1up in each stage? I used to know more of them, but as of now I think I only know of 2 and I'm going to try to refrain for looking online for the rest of them until I finish this LP.

Also, what's the crowd consensus on the path I should continue on? Max or Hoopz Skate?

Hoopz forever.

I'm not very familiar with this game beyond Go Straight, so I wouldn't mind rotating through all four characters somehow.

Anything's good, though. I enjoyed Stage 1 both times!

What Kishi said.

Does it let you change characters after each stage? I'm pretty sure it doesn't let you do that.

I stumbled onto a TAS of this game that uses Double Max hijinks. Lots of piledriving one guy onto another guy, whee!

By the way, what's the difference between the difficulty modes? The TAS plays on Mania or whatever and it seems like it has more guys, but I'm not sure.

I don't know if there's one in each stage, but there's one in the bottom left at the beginning of Stage 1.

Mania is a "secret" difficulty level (it's not selectable unless you hold some buttons on controller 2 when you first load the game up, I believe). It's quite a bit harder than "Hardest"; more guys and they move a bunch faster.

Edit: If I were a better player I'd be doing a Mania run for this instead of a Hardest run, for sure. More enemies = more mayhem = more fun times

I don't think anyone is going to begrudge you playing on Hardest.

By the way: Interactive Transcript is a wonderful thing

WHERE
All I can find is the current TASVideos fastest, which is (fittingly, for this LP) Max and Skate.

And the thing you forgot to mention about Mania's increased enemy speed, Cali, is that it makes the game balls-bustingly near-impossibly hard.