>>Rafael Fernandes: The retrogamer community is quite peculiar.
Not content to reminisce and discuss the great jewels of the past,
many fans and aficionados dedicated themselves to personal projects,
which are usually made without any financial or structural support to move on.
There are hundreds of translations, hacks, patches, remixes, remasterings, anyway,
various types of tributes to the games that provided so much joy in the past.
Many of these projects end up stopping along the way,
either for lack of support, time or motivation.
And others, when you think that will not continue and almost forget that it ever existed,
here it rises from the ashes and surprises everyone with a masterful job.
It's the case of our review:
the final version of Streets of Rage Remake, for PCs.
The project, initiated in 2003 by a programmer named Bomberlink,
intended to pay homage to this franchise unjustly forgotten by Sega in time.
The idea would be recreate on PCs several classic elements of the series,
plus add some new features, in a completely new engine.
As he described it, the remake is a visual interpretation of the Mega Drive games,
being created from an entirely new programming,
that would simulate perfectly the gameplay of the original games
and would update some things to bring a better gaming experience.
The first beta version of the game was launched in the same year,
bringing a great receptivity to the project and attracting more contributors.
From time to time, new versions were posted,
but only in 2006 is that the project would launch its most complete version, called 4.0.
This version became a big hit, spread across several sites and social networks.
Of course there were still some bugs and things to be improved,
but still, the game was complete and well done.
Since that time, many people had forgotten about the game, until now…
The fifth version of the game is also the final,
as stated by Bomberlink on his own site.
And all credit must be attributed to him for having made one of the best games of all time.
The game features 105 stages, remixed songs, various characters,
enemies, a cool story, and many customization options.
It's impossible not being better with that, right?
When starting the game, the player can choose which stage to start,
which is directly related to what kind of adventure the character will play,
in other words, each of the four routes is inspired by a game in the series.
In the middle of the adventure, there is the possibility of changing the path,
in other words, if you're playing the stages of the first Streets of Rage,
you can change to the stages of the second, and so on.
Still, the design of the stages mix elements and bosses of the three games in the series,
what is something really cool, because it brings some surprises for those who played very much the original games on the Mega Drive.
And just as in version 4.0, there is the option to play with a computer-controlled sidekick,
that despite having a very agile artificial intelligence that helps a lot in times of struggle,
just gets kinda dumb in the final stages, losing many lives and continues.
But if you are a forever alone player,
you will surely need this help, because the game is quite difficult.
The graphics are sensational.
All the sprites of games in the series were reused, including those from the first Streets of Rage,
that received some finishing touches and enhancements to stay at the same level of other games.
There are several really cool visual effects, like explosions, shadows,
transparencies and even a simple reflection effect.
More enemies can appear on the screen at same time,
without any slowdowns happening or something.
All of this without requiring a lot from the machine, eh.
The new scenarios are very creative,
and even with some funny details, so to speak.
Some of these new scenarios have depth issues, in other words,
it is confusing when you have to go through them,
but we can still live with it.
It is worth remembering that with the Blood option enabled,
the game gets more violent than any other Streets of Rage has been before,
with even Galsias and Donovans mutilated flying around.
It's not a Mortal Kombat, but…
the first death always surprises!
Along with these new scenarios, new challenges have been introduced during the game,
like this one that requires quick reflexes…
or this weird stage where the character controls a speedboat.
In this case, while the idea seems to be very good,
perhaps the execution has not been that good, huh.
Anyway, this stretch of the game is still pretty fun,
and it's a totally unique surprise in this game
which is pretty much a mixture of what is best in the series.
Who played the version 4 knows the great job done with the remixes of classic productions from uncle Yuzo Koshiro.
In this case, the impossible happened:
they still managed to produce better remixes!
Almost all the songs of the series had a new version,
and there are even totally original compositions,
that owes nothing compared to the others.
It is worth mentioning the work done on the songs of Streets of Rage 3,
that despite not being the favorite soundtrack of many people,
surely the remixes managed to further improve the experimental work of uncle Koshiro,
and, somehow, these new songs have a much more organic feel than the Mega Drive originals,
while still sounding as crazy as the originals.
Note: this song may turn individuals handicapped, as we can see by the video.
The sound of the game uses the SDL audio driver,
which allows 24 channels of simultaneous audio, in addition to music.
This means that the stages now have surround sound,
various sound effects at the same time,
and better use of the stereo space.
So, I advise playing it with a hi-fi system connected at maximum volume,
to give neighbors a new meaning to the words "hard beat".
In summary, Streets of Rage Remake is a wonderful surprise,
that every lover of old games, in other words, an old gamer, should play.
The game has several alternative routes, secret modes, customization, unlockable characters
and even a supposed editor of the whole game which I couldn't at least enable yet,
but it already arouses a curiosity that generates countless hours of play due to the almost infinite replay factor.
Undoubtedly, Bomberlink and his team deserve congratulations for this excellent blend of continuation with tribute
that Sega could never do in its current state, huh.
In times where people discuss whether it's worth paying for the original Mega Drive games,
a hint: download this one because it's free!
Free download of the game bombergames.net
Produced by Rafael Fernandes
http://passagemsecreta.com