When it comes to classic beat em ups, the two series that come to mind first are Final Fight and Streets of Rage. Both series set the standard for how the genre should play, especially on consoles, are well loved to this day and changed the way the genre would go from then on.
Streets of Rage was a product of the 90’s, as evident in atmosphere, environment and game design, yet have an endearing charm to them. The three games in the series vary in quality, with the second being considered the best. I happen to be one of the few who feels Streets of Rage 3 was a great game on par with the others, and where I once agreed that the 2nd game is the best in the series, I no longer do. The third game has worse music but the overall gameplay is just better in my opinion.
Being designed for consoles, the trilogy has a lot more in them that appealed to home gamers such as hidden bonuses, multiple endings and so on. These gave us several reasons to keep playing and try to discover everything . Streets of Rage 2 in particular had a unique feeling that made us not want to stop playing, which isn’t odd considering the gameplay was bigger than the first and the game felt rewarding in a way that was unusual for a beat em up. Streets of Rage 2 felt like a brawler on par with the arcade heavy hitters and 3 was far and away the best of the genre of Genesis.
What is especially notable about the series is that every subsequent beat em up by Sega followed the format set by these games, such as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers the Movie on Genesis.There is a simple reason for that as well, as Streets of Rage 2 set up perfect guidelines for how a beat em up should play while the third game perfected any flaws in the actual gameplay department.
The best part of this retrospective however, is noting that while the series was dead for a long time, a new entry has recently been announced. Whether or not it will live up to the originals remains to be seen. But the original trilogy remains a favourite for me.