When Streets of Rage 4 was first released, long-time fans were treated to a love letter to Sega’s classic brawler series that decided to also try new things. The game had a great story mode that included excellent new characters, as well as some additional modes that appealed to long-time players. Now the developers have added new content in the form of the Mr. X Nightmare DLC, and what was already a great game has undergone some changes.
Mr. X Nightmare brings new modes and new characters to Streets of Rage 4, including the police officer Estel, as well as a returning Max and Shiva from their portrayal in this game. All three characters play differently, and each brings something unique to the game, with Shiva being a great all-around fighter but unable to use weapons, Max is a great grappler and Estel an all-around brawler. Each character can be used in story mode or the other existing modes, but the first thing to do is use them in some of the newly introduced modes.
Training mode will let players use any of the characters and get used to them before playing the main game, such as by taking on enemies, but the real meat is the survival mode. Survival mode sees players going through a set of levels on one life while defeating enemies in shifting arenas. There are two main ways to play survival mode, the weekly sim, which has a set pattern for a week, or the random sim, in which every playthrough is different.
These arenas will constantly change up and can create some unique environments to fight in, and playing through the sims will unlock more features, such as more enemies in training mode, and new move sets for the character being used. Along the way, each stage in the sim will end with a choice for an upgrade that will affect the performance during the rest of the run, such as weapons lasting longer attacks and blitz moves having special attributes. This effectively turns the game into a roguelike brawler, with enough content to keep players coming back for more.
Going by how well is done in each run, each character can gain a new blitz attack and special abilities, as well as new star moves. These new moves will then be usable in every other mode in the game and this gives a good sense of replayability. This gives an incentive to not only play the survival mode but also replay the main stages afterwards to see how the game can be played differently.
There are also some other additions as well, including a secret character that can be unlocked through the use of a familiar code, but what must be talked here about is the music. The new music is provided by artist Tee Lopes and fits perfectly into the game, for both the modern and retro stages and is of the highest quality. Also included are a new tougher difficulty setting and new colour options for the characters.
Now the question, is the Mr. X Nightmare DLC worth getting? If you like Streets of Rage and would like to experience a roguelike version of it with the survival mode, then by all means get it. The new characters are great, but there is no new story element here, which may disappoint some. Still, with addictive gameplay that keeps players coming back for more and new treats for old fans, this is hard to say no to.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided