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Characters Introduced In Streets of Rage 1:
Playable Characters
Axel Stone
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The Japanese intro to the 3rd game shows Axel's back as he ties his bandanna on, just before he spins around and punches the screen, cracking it.
- Calling Your Attacks: "Ground Upper!"
- Closet Geek: His listed hobby in 1 is Video Games but this never comes up in the games proper.
- Crossover: Appears as an Assist Character in Project × Zone 2. He joins the party in Chapter 11, having caught wind that following the Syndicate's defeat in Streets of Rage 3, M. Bison has appropriated their Mecha-Mooks to his troops and is planning to blow up the SS Queen Zenobia with their leftover bombs.
- Divergent Character Evolution: Axel and Final Fight's Cody started out as pretty much the same character. By 4, Axel had grown a beard and added a flannel shirt tied around his waist to his wardrobe. Meanwhile, Cody ended up on the wrong side of the law as of Street Fighter Alpha 3 and swapped his jeans and white t-shirt for prison stripes. Though by Street Fighter V (which is a prequel to III, but takes place after IV), Cody goes straight and becomes the mayor of Metro City.
- Eagleland: He's the spitting image of the classic American hero stereotype. Somewhat subverted in SoR4 where his design is more rugged.
- Elemental Punch: Of the fire variety with Axel's Dragon Wing and Ground Upper, but they don't burn, oddly enough.
- Expy:
- Axel is the blond haired, jeans-and-white-shirt-wearing all-American jack of all stats team leader — just like Cody was when Final Fight came out two years earlier.
- His desire to improve his fighting skills, as well a few of his attacks in the sequels along with as his headband and hairstyle also give him shades of Ryu, though Axel just lives in the wilderness instead of wandering the world.
- Flat Character: Character development? He has pretty much none, before 4 anyway. Tropes Are Not Bad, however, as this series pretty much focuses on how much Axel and his company can kick butt, and he more than delivers.
- The Hero: Is this for the whole series, but Streets of Rage 3 storywise implies that he's The Lancer to Blaze.
- Jack of All Stats: In the first game, his stats are even and average straight across the board.
- Manly Facial Hair: In between 3 and 4, he retired to the wilderness and grew a shaggy lumberjack's beard.
- Martial Arts Headband: He's worn a blue martial arts headband in every appearance he's made, both in Streets of Rage and cameo appearances in other games.
- Mountain Man: While not necessarily the Rocky Mountain Wilderness per se, by the events of SoR4, he's taken to meditating, studying, and training in the wilderness, growing a beard and adding a denim vest, flannel shirt waist wrap, and rugged beard to his look.
- Not So Above It All: While we're used to seeing his serious if friendly personality, a few of the win and lose quotes from both him and other characters in the battle mode of Bare Knuckle III show that he can sometimes be a tad bit cocky, arrogant, prideful, and even somewhat of a pervert. Upon losing to Blaze, one of her win quotes have her "supposedly" tease him and call him (and potentially the player) a pervert, claiming he lost because he was distracted by "weird places", even though he denies it.
- Playing with Fire: His Dragon Wing and Ground Upper has his fists covered in flame.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Axel's Dragon Smash special is this, which ends with a Shoryuken.
- Shoryuken: Doing a series of punches in at least one of the Genesis titles has him finish the combo with this.
- Three-Point Landing: After making his star move in SoR4, Axel lands like this.
- Use Your Head: Can headbutt opponents while grappling with them.
- Vigilante Man: After turning in his badge. He briefly returned to the force in the third game, but eventually turned his badge in again to pursue his desire of becoming stronger.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Axel's back throw has him lift his opponent over his head and slam them down onto the pavement, and his front throw in 2 is an overhead belly-to-belly suplex.
Adam Hunter
- Action Dad: Old enough to have an aspiring teenage rock star daughter, but not too old to kick ass alongside her.
- Advertised Extra: He's a fully playable character with a new moveset and sprites in 4, but only appears in a single cutscene before its ending, with very little bearing on its plot other than to bail out Axel's group once and arrest the Y twins in the credits.
- Badass in Distress: The objective in 2 is to rescue him from Mr. X's clutches. He's a backup in 3, but is quite the Deus ex Machina. He's back in 4 and he's Still Got It.
- Badass Normal: With none of Axel or Blaze's fiery attacks, Zan's cybernetics, or even the Charles Atlas Superpowers of Max or his young brother Skate, Adam holds his own against Mr. X's cyborgs, robots, self-cloning samurai ninjas, and kangaroos. At least until 4, that is.
- Big Damn Heroes: He stops the police from taking in Axel's group early in 4's story mode with a dramatic ground pound.
- The Bus Came Back: Returns in a canonical playable capacity in 4.
- Cool Shades: Wears them as of 4.
- Cowboy Cop: Still something of a loose cannon even if he's returned to law enforcement as of 4. His intro in the game's story has him smashing several police officers alone.
- Cultured Warrior: In the first game, bonsai trees are his hobby.
- Electric Black Guy: Has electric powers like his daughter as of 4.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Up until 4 where he was granted electric powers, Adam didn't have any special abilities.
- Friend on the Force: After 2, Adam was the only one who got reinstated to the police force while Axel willingly went on a journey to hone his martial arts skills and Blaze became a private detective while teaching lambada in spare time. This is how he got into the radar to be captured by Mr. X in 2, able to execute a Big Damn Heroes with a helicopter in 3, and can talk out and stall Estel in 4.
- Ground Pound: Has a special move that resembles a more elaborate, electric Power Geyser in 4.
- Hero of Another Story: In 3, he's a little busy and thus unable to help Axel and Blaze in the beginning. Turns out, he's working on something behind the scenes leading to helping out the heroes like a Deus ex Machina and went through the bad end route (exposing the phony General Petrov) if the other characters are on the good end route.He might be this again in 4, since he doesn't appear much in the story until the very end.
- Hurricane Kick: Gains one in 4 as one of his Blitzes.
- The Lancer: To Axel in the first game.
- Large Ham: Everyone gets at least one typically cheesy one-liner before you select them in 4. Adam, appropriately, has at least 4, each as goofy as the last.Let's call you a time traveler, 'cause I'm slapping you into the middle of next week!
- Mighty Glacier: In the first game — he has the slowest speed and the highest power. 4 seems to move him back towards the Glacier role he originally had, although he can dash.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In 3, if the route to the good ending is taken, Adam is heavily implied to have beaten Shiva (who was posing as General Petrov), and arrested him, finally getting some overdue revenge on the man who kidnapped him.
- Older Than They Look: Come 4, he barely looks any older than his original appearance.
- Out of Focus: His importance in the series decreased, needing to be saved in 2 and then relegated to support in 3. He returns to the main series with 4.
- Papa Wolf: His introduction trailer for 4 has him smashing a small legion of mooks descending on his daughter.
- Secret Character: Adam isn't available from the start of 4 and you must unlock him by playing the story through stage 4.
- Vigilante Man: After turning in his badge. He returned to law enforcement in 2 and is working with an organization called the Special Investigation Forces as of 4.
Blaze Fielding
- '80s Hair: Her big hairstyle in 4 is reminiscent of 80s and 90s hairstyles.
- Action Girl: Kicks ass like the boys.
- Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: Wears an outfit showing her stomach in the fourth game.
- Bowdlerize: In Bare Knuckle II, one of Blaze's kicks exposed her panties. This was edited out of Streets of Rage 2. An early version of Bare Knuckle III intended to have the same panty-revealing kick as the previous game, but it was completely cut out in the final version in all regions.
- Cowboy Cop: Quits the force in 1 due to general corruption in the force, and uses unconventional methods of investigation in 3.
- Dance Battler: While dance might not be part of her moveset, Blaze was stated to temporarily become a dance teacher before the events of 2, which could explain why she makes use of various She-Fu from 2 and onwards. Also, her bio in 1 mentions that her hobby is a form of dance: Lambada.
- Fanservice Pack: Blaze's character design and fighting style are altered noticeably throughout the series.
- Fragile Speedster: In the first game. Faster than the boys, but can't take as much damage. But in 2 and 3, her damage, speed, and reach are average.
- Gender-Blender Name: "Blaze" isn't really a girl's name, but here she is. She wouldn't be Sega's last female Blaze either.
- Gratuitous Japanese: Most of her moves have Japanese names when no other playable character can claim the same. 4 even doubles down on this despite having a French studio behind it with her new technique, the Tamashi Age.
- The Hero: In Streets of Rage 3, Blaze is the main character, instead of Axel; she is listed second on the cast list in the manual, right after the main villain, and she's the one stated to assemble the task force that ends up going after Mr. X in that game. Apparently Axel was taking a break from leadership duties.
- Hotter and Sexier: Blaze was always known for her legs, but her design in 4 shows off a lot more cleavage than she (or any other woman in the series) ever did before as well as exposing her midriff.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: At the meta level, as no one in-universe ever comments on her sex appeal.
- Jack of All Stats: Has equally average stats across the board in 2 and 3.
- Ki Manipulation: Blaze's Kikosho special.
- Martial Arts Headband: She wore one in the first game only.
- Minidress of Power: She's been wearing a red miniskirt and showing off her legs with kicks ever since the first game.
- Ms. Fanservice: Aside from a thigh-length skirt, she is actually pretty moderately dressed in the first game. Starting in 2, however, she lost her jacket and dons nothing more than a bra and a slightly shorter skirt (complete with Panty Shots; the sprites were edited from Bare Knuckle II to some versions of Streets of Rage 2 to prevent this). She's also seen in a swimsuit in the good ending of Streets Of Rage 3. Her ending picture in Streets of Rage 4 shows her in a torn shirt, red bra, and red panties.
- Older Than They Look: She's in her mid-thirties as of 4, but still looks like her 22-year-old self, unlike Axel.
- Panty Shot: In 'Bare Knuckle I, some of her highest kicks showed off her panties. This was edited out of Streets of Rage 1'' and never readded.
- Reverse Grip: How Blaze holds her knife in 4, along with other similar weapons like sais and broken bottles.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: 4 gives some context into what exactly drove her to leave the police. She punched the commissioner in the face over ethical matters, then refused to participate in anger management, resulting in a dishonorable discharge. Given that the commissioner is at best turning a blind eye to the corruption around him, the one with poor ethics wasn't Blaze.
- She-Fu: Lots of flipping in her moveset (even since 1, since she likes vaulting herself off the enemy).note
- The Smurfette Principle: Is the only starting playable female character in the original trilogy.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Her throw while grabbing opponents from behind is a German suplex.
- Vigilante Man: After turning in her badge. While she returned to the force in BK3, she was eventually discharged for knocking out the commissioner over ethics.
Syndicate Mooks
Galsia/Garcia
- Evil Redhead: Basic Galsia/Garcia have orange hair and are violent punks.
- Helpful Mook: Of the accidental kind. In the first game, they can grab you from behind and restrain you to let their allies wail on you. You can kick your legs up to knock down your attackers as well as throw the guy over your head to free yourself. Future iterations of this enemy would drop this trait and would be given to the Zack and Goldie mooks in the third game.
- The Goomba: The basic syndicate mook, though there are more powerful palette swap versions of him.
- Mook Promotion: In all games, they can pick up knives, which makes them significantly more dangerous as they strafe around and try to impale the player. The "Knife-dashing" Galsia variation can speedily knock you down quickly, but goes down as quickly as a regular mook when hit.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain:
- They are normally the Goomba, but when they get their hands on a knife, they become a speedy foe that can take out a lot of your health with a mere collision.
- Getting whipped by Nora in the 4th game boosts their power and endurance considerably and makes them Immune to Flinching, though grapples are still effective. Also it changes their name to 'GALCIAAAAAA'.
- In 4, they are capable of picking up Naginatas, which makes them extremely dangerous.
- Spell My Name With An S: His name is supposed to be Garcia, but it's written Galsia due to the L/R problem. The third game's English translation finally gets it right, only for the fourth to regress back.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Most enemies in 4 will take damage if they get in the way of many bosses' attacks, or ignore it outright. Nora's attacks, on the other hand, will cause their hair to turn gold and make them much harder to kill and Immune to Flinching.
- Took a Level in Badass: Granted it's only from 'weakest mook' to 'second or third weakest mook', but in 3 he now gains a jumping elbow drop (which was dropped in 4).
Y.Signal
- Badass Longcoat: All of the Signal palette-swaps wear longcoats, and their names are usually based on the color of the long coat — e.g. Y.Signal wears a yellow coat, B.Signal wears a blue one, G.Signal wears a green one...
- Delinquent Hair: A Mohawk, to be precise.
- Expy: Their fighting style and appearance is very different from J and Two P of Final Fight, but when it comes right down to it, they're both evasive mooks with a punk theme.
- Fluffy Fashion Feathers: There are messy looking feathers on the collar of his coat.
- Forehead of Doom: It's even noted in the concept art.
- Fragile Speedster: Described as scrawny and tends to have less health than the standard Garcias. This is then subverted in the sequel game, where the health bars for Y.Signal mooks are significantly larger than those for Garcias and even Donovans.
- Palette Swap: Yellow Signal, Red Signal, and Green Signal make sense, but then you also have Blue Signal and Purple Signal.
- The Quincy Punk: Not to the extent of Jack, but with the Mohawk, pierced ear, and spiky wristbands, his fashion screams 80s/90s punk.
- Race Lift: They were Black in 1, 2, and 3. Then in 4, they were suddenly White.
- Slide Attack: Their most annoying attack is a slide move that knocks you down.
- Throw the Mook at Them: Inverted. The Signal mooks will commonly grab and throw you when they're not sliding into you.
- Skeleton Motif: Has an image of a skull and crossbones with wings on the back of his jacket.
Nora
- Battle Theme Music: "Nora" by Keiji Yamagishi in 4.
- Benevolent Boss: In this context, anyway. What would be Bad Boss tendencies anywhere else are to the benefit of the men assisting her.
- Combat Sadomasochist: She seems more turned on than anything else at being defeated in 4.Nora: Oh my... Now that hurts!
- Degraded Boss: After her stint as a major level boss in 4, three palette swaps of her with electrified whips show up guarding the cockpit of Mr. Y's luxury jet.
- Demoted to Extra: Specifically to being one of Electra's palette swaps in the sequels.
- Dominatrix: The Japanese manual mentions they work in questionable "Members only" clubs. This is seen in game in 4 with her BDSM dungeon-like boss room, and how she buffs the Galsia assisting her by whipping them.
- Expy: Female mook with a surprisingly large health bar, military officer's hat on top of an outfit that isn't military, and Whip of Dominance tendencies, who prefers to attack from a distance with a flying kick? Sounds like Poison and Roxy, albeit Poison and Roxy didn't use their riding crops in Final Fight. Also, the concept of the whip wielding dominatrix female mook brings to mind Linda from Double Dragon.
- Eyes Out of Sight: In 4, her eyes are normally hidden under her bangs. Her respective stage's ending cutscene is the only time where her eyes are visible.
- Healing Shiv: Every time she whips a Galsia in 4, she extends his health bar, or replenishes it if it was already extended.
- Flunky Boss: Relies more on her generic mooks than other bosses in 4 since she can power them up.
- I Surrender, Suckers: In later stages of the game, they will pull this off if you punch them. Turn away and stand there and they will whip you.
- Kiai: They let out a nice martial arts yelp when pulling off their dropkicks.
- Mook Promotion: Returns in the 4th game as the boss of Stage 3.
- Putting on the Reich: Nora and her palatte swaps wear what looks like a Nazi officer's hat on top of dominatrix gear.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Ironically after being subjected to being substituted after Electra's introduction in 2, the Degraded Boss versions of Nora end up substituting for Electra since they wield electrified whips like her. One of them even has blonde hair like Electra.
- Taking You with Me: After defeating her in 4, she crashes the ship she's in charge of in an attempt to kill you off.
- Took a Level in Badass: By the 4th game, she's strong enough to serve as the boss fight of a level. Even her weaker palette swaps act as a collective mini-boss.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Despite being a boss in 4, Nora's moveset is actually less complex in the 4th game than it was back when she was just a common mook on the street, as her flying kick and possum tactics have been removed and only her basic whip attack remains. To compensate, the one attack she does possess hits hard, heals any mooks it contacts, and buffs them, making every attack she makes dangerous on potentially multiple fronts.
- Weapon Specialization: Nora exclusively uses whips to attack.
- Whip of Dominance: She wields a whip in battle to complement her "Dominatrix officer" motif. 4 actually gives Nora whip a mechanic overhaul to make her more of a Flunky Boss & Mook Lieutenant, as she can actually buff and heal other Mooks by hitting on them with her whip.
Hakuyo
- Dynamic Entry: When spawned in elevators, they drop in from above, kicking you on the way down if you're too close.
- Ki Manipulation: In the second game, Hakuyo can shoot a short range Ki blast from his open palm.
- Spell My Name With An S: The Japanese manual for the Game Gear port calls him "Shirotaka" for some reason, which is written with the same kanji. Also, despite it supposedly being the same character, 1 spells his name Haku-oh and 2 spells it Hakuyo.
- Stone Wall: His attacks don't do a ton of damage, but he's a pain to deal with for a number of reasons. He has a large life bar, he blocks a lot, he has two long range attacks (the ki blast and a jumping kick), and an anti-air kick. On his own he's still not terribly difficult, but if he appears with a bunch of Galsias and Donovans, he'll cheese you with his long range attacks while you try to fight through them to get to him, and he's tough to approach when you're busy dodging weaker mooks.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: In 2, they wear no shirts.
- You Don't Look Like You: He changed his outfit drastically and also grew quite a bit bigger in between 1 and 2.
Jack (SOR1)
- Fighting Clown: They're clowns, and as the manual states "despite being funny for a living, he is quite strong".
- Incendiary Exponent: The elite Jacks juggle torches.
- Theme Naming: His palette swaps are named things like "Buffoon" and "Payaso"note .
- Weapons of Their Trade: The Jacks, being jugglers, use weapons that can be juggled - so axes for the weaker Jacks and torches for the stronger ones.
Syndicate Bosses
Antonio
- Awesome Aussie: If you take the boomerang he fights with as evidence that he's an Aussie. Either way, he's a big vicious thug who managed to become a high-ranking member of a criminal syndicate powerful enough to rule a city, which is 'awesome' by a certain definition.
- Battle Boomerang: Antonio mainly attacks with a boomerang. It always returns to him, can hit you on the release and return, and never hurts his hand when he catches it.
- Top-Heavy Guy: He has a big torso and disproportionately huge shoulders and arms. Plus he's a big guy already. He's also got skinny little legs.
- Sinister Shades: He wears a pair small round lens Lennon specs, although they're a bit hard to see in 1.
Souther
- Anti-Air: Attempting to cheese him to death with jump kicks will... well, it pushes his Berserk Button.
- Broken Record: Jukes back and forth across the screen, waiting for a chance to get close and deliver a one-two slash. This is all he does, but he makes it tricky to get close.
- Counter-Attack: Trying to jump kick him will have him mini-teleport around that small area and slash claws at you.
- Recurring Boss: In Round 6. Only this time, you fight 2 of them.
- Shout-Out: Between the striped jumper, the claw gloves. and the mangled face, Souther was clearly inspired by Freddy Kreuger. He also shares his name with a major villain from Fist of the North Star.
- Took a Level in Badass: Souther appeared in II as a palette swap of Zamza and a recurring boss — unless you consider Zamza so different from Souther that they're different characters.
- Wolverine Claws: He wears gloves with blades on the finger tips.
Abadede
- Ambiguously Brown: Dark brown with a slight reddish tint, along with long curly hair — it's hard to say exactly what he might be.
- The Brute: SOR1 Abadede's brilliant moveset: charge at you, punch you to the ground, back up. Repeat.
- The Cameo: A secret area in 4 allows you to fight him in exactly the same arena (and with the same graphics) as 2.
- Degraded Boss: In SOR1, he reappears in Round 5 and in Round 8. In 2, a palette swap named Z.Kusano appears at the end of the elevator sequence in Stage 8.
- Expy: Like Final Fight's Abigail, he's a high ranking boss in a criminal syndicate who utilizes a strength-based pro wrestling style fighting style. The long black hair can also bring to mind Hugo and the rest of the Andore family frome the same game.
- Facial Markings: Has face paint around his eyes.
- Lightning Bruiser: Large, fast, and really strong. In 22, he has the single strongest attack of any enemynote
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Looks very, very similar to the Ultimate Warrior, although the facepaint and big metal boots are reminiscent of The Road Warriors.
- No-Sell: Starting in II, he gains a move where he'll abruptly go invulnerable and roar at the heavens. If you're too close to him when he does it, you take damage. He can even break out of grapple moves with this.
- Optional Boss: Can be fought in 4 by tasing the arcade cabinet in the bar in Stage 5.
- Took a Level in Badass: In I, his predictable moveset made him not anywhere near as tough as he looks. In II, he added some new moves to counter his previous exploitable weaknesses.
- Wrestler in All of Us: His moveset in II includes a flying body splash, a back drop, and a clothesline.
Bongo
- Bald of Evil: Given his affiliation with the X Syndicate and his attempts to kill you, the evil is implied. He is also entirely bald, with a skin tone that implies he may have been badly burned in the past.
- Breath Weapon: Bongo breathes fire.
- Broken Record: Runs back and forth across the screen in a cross pattern, hoping you get caught in his fire breath.
- Degraded Boss: In SOR1, he reappears in Round 6 and in Round 8.
- Demoted to Extra: If they count as the same character, then yes at best. He and Big Ben from II share some moves, but they're so different in appearance that they probably shouldn't be considered the same character. Otherwise, the Bongo name appears as a regular enemy.
- Fat Bastard: Not exactly an agile enemy, but you better not try and take advantage of that by throwing or slamming them — in 1 you'll take damage if you try, unless you're Max or using Blaze's front throw.
Onihime and Yasha (Mona and Lisa)
- Amazonian Beauty: The third game buffed them up. This is particularly noticeable when they kneel down for their ground spark move — their backs and shoulders are ripped.
- Divergent Character Evolution: Were nothing more but a pair of palette swaps of Blaze with green clothes instead of orange in I. When they reappear in III, they've changed their look completely with new clothes and different-colored hair along with a new unique ranged attack. Just about the only element of their physical design retained is their head bands though the shade of green is different. This is in contrast to Blaze who still resembles her original look in later games but with her headband noticeably absent.
- Dual Boss: Always.
- Dub Name Change: At least in the third game.
- Hurricane Kick: As a combination attack.
- Martial Arts Headband: They wear them — in I the headbands are the same color as the rest of their outfits, and in III they're neon green.
- Meaningful Name: If you need an idea of how unpleasant they are, "Onihime" literally translates into "ogre princess". "Yasha" is a term for a certain type of minor deity, but in modern usage (see Inuyasha) it just means "demon".
- Mirror Match: In I, if you're Blaze.
- Palette Swap: Of Blaze in the first game. No longer the case as of the third game.
- Sexy Backless Outfit: In the third game, they wear backless leotards.
- Sensual Spandex: In 3 and 4.
- Shock and Awe: In III, they gain the ability to send an electrical bolt along the ground.
- The Bus Came Back: They return as bosses in SOR4's survival mode in their SOR3 form.
- You Don't Look Like You: Their redesigns in SOR3 barely resemble how they originally looked.
- Wrestler in All of Us: The slower twin in SOR1 prefers to throw you, so if she catches you with your back turned, she feeds you a German Suplex for free.
Mr. X
- Antagonist Abilities: He wields tommy gun in a beat 'em up; the innate advantage this gives him over the other characters suits him as the Final Boss of the first two games.
- Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: He wields a Thompson submachine gun (as opposed to an era-appropriate MP5), an outdated firearm by several decades, that highly contrast with the game's modern setting.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: A dangerous foe never seen without a suit and tie.
- Bad Boss: Is more than happy (and in fact looks delighted) to shower the screen in ammunition with his tommy gun, even with his underlings in the way.
- Big Bad: He leads the syndicate and is the Final Boss in all appearances.
- Bottomless Magazines: Unfortunately for you, Mr. X never runs out of ammo.
- Came Back Wrong: The Japanese version of 3 glosses over it, but it's implied that the heroes' severe beatdown on him to rescue Adam in 2 effectively rendered his living body dead, rather than repeating the non-lethal KO and arrest of the first game.
- Combat Pragmatist: He makes up for his lack in martial arts training with a tommy gun and an army of mooks.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Mr. X appears to be the head of some sort of company, as he's always fought in a very formal building.
- Dead All Along: The true ending of 3 confirms he died from his injuries at the end of 2 and was reduced to a Brain in a Jar.
- Deader than Dead: He always survives every beating he gets at the hands of the heroes, so he's only disposed of by the time of 3. Even then, his body had been reduced into a brain and his secret base had to be completely destroyed for his permanent death.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: He enjoys a cigar while observing your fight with Shiva in Bare Knuckle II. In the western release and his cameo in 4 it's edited out.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Expresses disgust to the surviving player if they kill the other player and then decline Mr. X's offer to join him in SOR1, which is rather hypocritical of him considering that Mr. X was setting up anyone to join him for a fall if they had agreed to join him.
- Evil Laugh: He has a distinct, loud, laughter that is unique to him."DAHAHAHAHAHA!"
- Faux Affably Evil: Offers a false offer for joining him in the first game only to try to kill you anyway, and by the third he's seemingly rather mellowed out and cordial, but doesn't even attempt to hide his criminal activities nor his intent to nuke an entire nation just to create a war he'll supply for endless profit.
- Final Boss: In all of the first three games. In 3, he serves as this only in the non-"worst ending" path, as a Brain in a Jar controlling a robot.
- The Gunslinger: Type B — The Vaporizer.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Doesn't bother trying to aim at the player.
- Killed Off for Real: Dies for good at the end of 3. He tries to revive the Syndicate in Project X Zone 2 after Bison's death as a ghost inhabiting Break/Robot Axel, but that fails as well.
- Large and in Charge: Towers above the rest of the cast at 213 cm (nearly 7 feet)!
- Laughing Mad: Whenever he knocks you down in SOR2.
- Lightning Bruiser: He hits like a truck, and can zoom around the room faster than any of the playable characters.
- Mister Big: His name in the Japanese version is literally Mr. Big, but he's an aversion, see Large and in Charge.
- Optional Boss: He's an optional encounter in a retro scene in the fourth game, based on his SOR2 incarnation.
- Pistol-Whipping: Mr. X is quite skilled at using his gun as a bludgeoning tool.
- Predecessor Villain: As of SOR4, he became this.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: Mr. X is simply a man in a business suit, yet he's the strongest of the Syndicate bosses, even without his tommy gun.
- Schmuck Bait: In SOR1, he'll ask you if you want to join him. Say "yes" and he boots you back to Stage 6. Say "yes" in a 2-player game while the other player says "no", or vice versa, and you and the other player will fight to the death, with the victor being asked the same question again.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Mr. X has no fancy martial arts moves. Mind you, he doesn't really need any to put up a challenge with his strength, speed, and tommy gun.
- Vengeful Ghost: In Project X Zone 2, his ghost resides in Break/Robot Axel to try and revive his organization after Bison's death, though he's stopped before he could do so.
- Villainous Legacy: By the time of 4, he is very, very dead, but he left behind two children who are now out to avenge him and continue what he started.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Famously averted, in a series where most of the entire cast plays it to the letter.
Characters Introduced In Streets of Rage 2 (SPOILERS FOR 4!):
Playable Characters
Sammy/Eddie "Skate" Hunter
- Artistic License – Physics: He really shouldn't be able to throw his enemies, or breakdance or do gymnastics on rollerblades, but who cares? The third game's manual Hand Waves this by saying he wields the Chi of Fire, which allows him to defy physics as he does.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The only hero whose present-day whereabouts in Streets of Rage 4 are not stated at all. Retro pixel versions of him from 2 and 3 are playable, however.
- Dance Battler: Skate’s crowd control move is a windmill breakdance.
- Dub Name Change: From Sammy to Eddie, though in gameplay all that really changed is that the UI uses his international nickname "Skate" outside Japan.
- Fragile Speedster: He's the only character in 2 with a dash ability, and is very mobile all around, but he can't hit for or absorb as much damage as his comrades.
- Kid-Appeal Character: He's a preteen, and so, undoubtedly, are many players.
- Kid Hero: Partly because his big brother got captured and he wants to help bring him back. It clearly runs in the family anyway.
- Pintsized Powerhouse: Granted, he uses his entire body for leverage, but even so, it's impressive how he, a twiggy preteen, can throw the fat mooks just as easily as Max does. Even moreso in 3, where all the adult characters (in the latter, save for Max) are unable to accomplish that feat.
- Rollerblade Good: A vital part of his attacks.
- Use Your Head: His charging attack is a flying headbutt followed by a roll.
Max Thunder
- Adaptation Name Change: He goes by Max Hatchet in the UK comic adaptation.
- Battle Theme Music: "Maximum" by Scattle in 4, while he's brainwashed.
- The Big Guy: The largest playable character in 2 who relies on his huge muscles to devastate enemies with his wrestling techniques.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: He is mind controlled by the Syndicate in 4. You have to face him as a boss.
- The Cameo: He's not playable in 3, but in the last shot of the good ending, he's seen hanging out with Axel and friends.
- Covered in Scars: He's gotten quite a bit of scar tissue by the time of 4, most likely from fighting the Syndicate.
- Disease Bleach: In 4, he's got a white stripe in his previously black hair, along with a lot of new scars all over his body. The implication is that he was tortured while Mr. and Ms. Y were perfecting their brainwashing technology.
- The Grappler: He is a bulky professional wrestler that utilizes several extremely powerful grapple variations against foes.
- Heroic Resolve: His alternate Star Move in 4 is this on command — for a few seconds, Max becomes entirely Immune to Flinching as in his boss fight, he can't be killed, any damage he takes will be recoverable as if he'd just been spamming Blitz Attacks, and his combo won't drop so long as he's still wailing on enemies.
- Immune to Flinching: As a boss. You will almost never be able to put him into hit stun, so you need to stay mobile as he can cut through virtually any attack with his own. The only ways to knock him down is when you perform a super move or finally defeat him.
- Lightning Bruiser: His boss appearance in 4 has him be as powerful and tanky as you'd expect, with immunity to most attacks' knockback for good measure...and he can close gaps with relative ease too.
- Mighty Glacier: He's slow as molasses and cannot jump to the enemy's back for the back throw. But God have mercy if he ever caught an enemy from the back, any of his slams takes out a HUGE chunk of damage. Amplified as a boss in 4, where he cannot be stunned, but his attacks take several seconds to launch... at least until he Turns Red.
- Mirror Match: It's easy to see this guy as a good counterpart to Abadede. Or an unwilling evil one to Floyd in 4.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: He appears sporting such in the title screen of the 4th game. It's a Foreshadowing that he's been Brainwashed and Crazy by the twins' music.
- Shock and Awe: No doubt inspired by his name, 4 gives him electric powers.
- Shout-Out: Max is pretty much nothing like Tiger Mask, but his tights are modeled after Tiger Mask's.
- Suplex Finisher: Has a front suplex for his away throw and a German Suplex for his back throw. 4 has the German Suplex replaced with a Jackhammer-like throw.note
- The Bus Came Back: Finally returns in 4 as a boss. His past self from 2 can be unlocked as a Secret Character. Confirmed to return fully playable in 4's Mr. X Nightmare DLC.
- Turns Red: After he loses enough health in 4, he starts attacking continuously, with no pauses between his attacks save their windup. Said windup is the only safe chance to hit him.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: His wrestling outfit is a pair of pants, boots, and absolutely nothing to cover his upper body, although he is seen in the ending of 3 wearing a leather jacket (with no shirt on under it).
- Walking Spoiler: In 4. Big time. Him being in the game but not as a playable character serves as Foreshadowing that he ends up as a boss near the end of the game, and reveals the existence of the masterminds behind the new Syndicate.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: After his appearance as a boss in 4, he has one scene at the end of the level and is immediately forgotten about by the next level. He doesn't even appear in the ending credits. The "Mr. X Nightmare" DLC pack promotes him to playable, giving a little closure to his earlier appearance.
- Wrestler in All of Us: He's a professional, and his Atomic Drop is particularly devastating.
Syndicate Mooks
Donovan
- Ambiguously Brown: Donovan himself has an African-American skin tone, but some of the swaps are a bit paler.
- Anti-Air: Jumping in on Donovan tends to not end well, especially in 3 when he can jump up to make it a bit more effective.
- Bald of Evil: Hasn't got a hair on his head and is one of Mr. X's cronies.
- Bare-Handed Blade Block: His stronger palatte swaps in 4, Gudden and Z, can catch any thrown weapon, including swords and knives.
- Butt-Monkey: In Bare Knuckle III, he is knocked cold by debris after crashing his bulldozer into a support. See Drives Like Crazy below. His slapstick mishaps in an otherwise serious game have branded him as comic relief in many a Fan Fic.
- Catch and Return: Gudden and Z (the red and yellow slacks variants) in 4 are able to catch the weapons the player throws at them and will then throw the weapon back to the player.
- Combat Pragmatist: In 4 they are capable of picking up almost any weapon, be it knives, bats, katanas, meat cleavers, sledgehammers, maces, etc and some are able to throw these weapons at you.
- Gangbanger: In 4, to go along with their African American skin tones, they also rock baggy, sagging pants, shades, and bling, to pull off this aesthetic.
- Pipe Pain: Will pick up a pipe if there is one around.
- Scary Black Man: Maybe, depending on palette.
- Shoryuken: Only in 3rd game, and in harder difficulty.
- Sinister Shades: All his palette swaps wear shades.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: In 4, the stronger variants Gudden and Z are capable of throwing their weapons at you.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Never wears a shirt of any description.
Jack (SOR2)
- Elite Mook: He is your introduction to this concept in II, appearing after you've been fighting nothing but waves of Galsias, Y.Signals, and Donovans.
- Evil Laugh: Lets out a sinister laugh when he hits you.
- Hammerspace: The Jacks in 2 can pull an infinite amount of knifes out of their jacket to fight with.
- Optional Boss: In 4, tasing the arcade cabinet in Stage 2 takes you to a fight with him.
- The Quincy Punk: Jack and his palatte swaps in II wear ripped jeans, studded jackets, motorcycle boots, wield knives and sport mohawks that they occasionally dye neon colors.
- Theme Naming: Names for his palette swaps have a bean motif. Soya (Soy Bean), Beano (Bean). For that matter, Jack himself (Jack and the Beanstalk).
- You Don't Look Like You: He's debatably supposed to be the same guy who appeared in SOR1, but they have absolutely nothing in common with each other.
Electra
- Amazonian Beauty: She was muscled up in III like Mona and Lisa were.
- Artificial Limbs: Her hand is a stump with a metal whip she can electrify. On first meeting her when she’s singing, she drops her fake hand to reveal her whip. Electra and other variants lose this come the sequel.
- Dominatrix: Thigh high boots, fishnet stockings, whips it good...
- Dynamic Entry: When spawning in elevators, one of the few enemies that does this.
- Karaoke: When first encountered she is singing on a microphone.
- Kiai: When delivering a jumpkick.
- Lightning Lash: Unlike Nora, Electra's whip is electrified.
- I Surrender, Suckers: In the 3rd game, some of them do this as a Call-Back to Nora in the first game.
- Punny Name: One of her swaps in II is named Sug Rnote .
- Shock and Awe: Her whip is electrified.
- Stripperiffic: More so by the third game where she gains more cleavage and loses those fishnets, which was bowdlerised in the US release.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Nora from the first game. Subverted in that one of Electra's palette swaps is named Nora, but Electra is treated as the main version of the character.
- Whip of Dominance: Like Nore, she wields a whip in combat to complement her Dominatrix motif. She has a more stereotypical dominatrix outfit than Nora, and her whip is actually a Lightning Lash.
Fog
- Badass Biker: They are pretty badass.
- Dynamic Entry: Their specialty really, they just show up out of nowhere when you are running and run you over with their bikes.
- Faceless Goons: They hide their face behind a motorcycle helmet with only their red, glowing eyes being visible on their visors.
- Palette Swap: They come in neon yellow, neon green, neon orange, neon purple...
- Pipe Pain: Like Donovan-types, Fog-types are happy to grab pipes and introduce them to your cranium.
- Put on a Bus: Zig-Zagged. While they do appear in 3, their on-foot variants (where they either jump-off motorcycles or show up without it) are completely absent. As a result, all of the Fog's that you fight are always on their dirtbikes.
- Theme Naming: All of the Fog-type enemies are named after weather.
- Shoulders of Doom: They wear spike shoulderpads.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: They do have those shoulderpads, but they wear no shirts.
Hanzo
- Dynamic Entry: Probably the most annoying kind, they often do this even when not in elevators, usually with their Spin Attack using kunai and swords.
- Gratuitous Ninja: Well, why else would the game have ninjas (besides that the games were made by a Japanese company)?
- Highly-Visible Ninja: All these ninjas wear bright uniforms.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Their first appearance in the second game is in a Pirate ship theme park. This was long before the Pirate versus Ninja thing comes around.
- Shout-Out: Their SOR 3 names are (Toshiro) Mifune, (Sho) Kosugi, and (Sonny) Chiba.
- Spin Attack: Thankfully only when he has a sword or kunai.
Big-Ben
- Acrofatic: He leaps around the screen trying to hit you with a bellyflop (that does quite a bit of damage), and he can move really fast when doing his fire breath.
- Breath Weapon: He'll sometimes start breathing fire and bolt across the screen trying to run you over.
- Crippling Overspecialisation: In 4, outside of their slap attack and recovery roll, all the variants of Big Ben will only have one type of other attack they'll use — Big Ben breathes fire, Gourmand does a belly flop, and Anry/Heart rolls about the room. This makes their attack patterns a lot more predictable than their previous outings.
- Dope Slap: Big-Ben's first appearance in 4 is delivering a dope slap to a Galsia.
- Evil Laugh: "HUHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!"
- Fastball Special: He throws the Garcia enemies at you in 3, while they drop in with an elbow attack mid air.
- Fat Bastard: Big Ben's sinister laugh after he hits the player suggests he enjoys causing pain. Also, like Bongo, in 3 most characters will take damage if they try to throw him. The manual for 2 warns that this will happen, but it doesn't.
- Immune to Flinching: In 4, all the Big-Ben palatte swaps gain a brief flinch immunity when they first stand up, and Anry and Heart are flinch-immune when performing their rolling attack.
- Kevlard: They're obese and have considerably more health than most other mooks, with one full health bar being the mininum.
- Kung Fu-Proof Mook: In 3, trying to throw Big-Ben will cause him to land on you and damage you. In the fourth game, they can be thrown, although there is a delay in the throwing animation compared to throwing other enemies.
- Slasher Smile: He'll just stand there laughing and smiling.
- Theme Naming: Aside from Big-Ben himself, they mostly have names related to either size, eating, or both, e.g. Gourmand, Buffet, Titan.
Raven
- Amazing Technicolor Population: In 4, Pheasant's skin tone is a neon dark-orangey-red kind of color.
- Elite Mook: The toughest of the mooks in 2 that never appear as a miniboss, they only start appearing in level 6 and usually have at least one full bar of health.
- Extremity Extremist: Despite their upper body strength, they only use kicks. They only use their arms when blocking blows.
- Lightning Bruiser: He moves fast and kicks like a mule.
- Lean and Mean: The same height as Max, and not much thicker in build than Skate.
- Martial Arts Headband: Wears a traditional Mongkhon, or Muay Thai headband.
- Muay Thai: Their martial art, complete with flying knees, devastatingly fast kicks, and similar uniform.
- Playing with Fire: The Sparrow and Pheasant palettes gain an armored, fiery, flying knee in 4.
- Shonen Hair: Shocked up and a bit spiky.
- Theme Naming: All of the Raven-type enemies are named after birds.
Particle
- Degraded Boss: They're first fought at the end of Stage 7 in a 2 on 1 (or 4 on 2) boss fight, but a few of them appear in Stage 8 as well.
- Dual Boss: Which will even further turn into Quad Boss in a 2-player game.
- Energy Weapon: They can sometimes crouch down and shoot a laser.
- Epic Flail: Their main attack is a spiked metal ball on a chain attacked to their bodies — they can shoot it out and reel it back in for a quick jab, or spin it in a wide circle for a more damaging attack.
- Hopping Machine: For some strange reason, they're incapable of walking.
- Mecha-Mooks: Well, they're robots. And mooks.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: When "knocked out", their bodies will explode, damaging you if you're too close. Make sure you DO NOT kill them with a slam. And if you're playing on higher difficulties, beware, as they can skip the "needs to be knocked out" requirement and just explode completely at random with no warning or tells if their health is low enough.
- Shock and Awe: They'll juice you if you're not quick enough with your grab-attacks.
- Theme Naming: Particle-types all have names relating to chemistry, e.g. Molecule, Oxygen.
Syndicate Bosses
Barbon
- Anti-Air: In the 4th game, attempting to attack him from the air may have him counter with a high kick.
- Badass Biker: The new leather jacket he wears in 4, the fact that he's introduced leaning against a motorcycle and the way the other bikers may assist him in battle suggest he's the current boss of the Red Demons MC
- Battle Theme Music: The first enemy with the honor to brawl to 2's "Never Return Alive" by Yuzo Koshiro in the 2nd game. He gets his own song, "Barbon", by Motohiro Kawashima, in 4.
- Bring It: Shouts "Come on!" as he rips off his vest in 2.
- The Bartender: Of two different Bad Guy Bars in 2 and 4 respectively.
- Discard and Draw: Loses the ability to block and throw characters in 4, but his roundhouse kicks reach further, he can move while doing so, and he's able to chain them for successive strikes.
- Degraded Boss: A Palette Swap of him, Wayne, is fought later on in level 5, and a second one, Vulture, in level 8.
- Manly Facial Hair: Knows martial arts and has a mustache.
- Spell My Name With An S: His name is meant to be spelled as 'Bourbon' given that he is a bartender. Either that or it's an intentional Portmanteau of 'Barman' and 'Bourbon' in the localization.
- 'Wayne' may have evolved from a mistransliteration of 'wine.'
- Took a Level in Badass: In 4. Despite losing some of his moves from 2, he more than makes up for it in speed, strength, durability, and tenacity. Watch out for those long range kicks!
- Turns Red: In 4, at about half health, he starts using his sweeping kick more often, and can hit with it up to five times in a row — and if the first hit lands, they all land.
- Waistcoat of Style: He rips this off before the fight starts off in 2. In 4, he wears a leather jacket that he simply takes off.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: In 2. He doesn't hit as hard as Abadede and R.Bear, but he's a good introduction to the way most bosses in the game are going to be immune to the tactics that generally work on mooks. He can throw you, has an anti-air counter, can block your attacks, and hits too hard and fast for you to stand in front of him and slug it out.
Jet
- Bald of Evil: Only in 3, though it might actually just be someone else with a jetpack using the same name.
- Cyborg: In 3, though it's unclear if it's even the same guy.
- Degraded Boss: His palette swaps shows up as mooks in later boss fights. In harder difficulties, more of them appear.
- Fragile Speedster: He usually has a very small life bar for a boss — in some cases smaller than the mooks accompanying him. However, with the way he hovers out of reach most of the time and has to be intercepted with dropkicks during his attacks, he takes damage very slowly. And all that aside, there are a few Jets with boss-sized lifebars, especially on higher difficulties.
- Kill It with Fire: Don't try to grapple Jet from behind — you'll get burned by his jetpack for significant damage.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: Jet hovers out of range of even jumpkicks most of the time. You have to bait him into attacking you and then perfectly time a jump kick.
- Jet Pack: He flies with one, making it much harder to hit him.
- Took a Level in Badass: In 3. He is much more difficult to fight than he was in 2. Made worse that palette swaps of his 2 version appear in multiples as Rocket, so defeating one will make them reappear again.
Zamza
- Expy: He is basically a non-green skin version of Blanka. He even has the same barrel attack.
- Diving Kick: Has a dive kick that's difficult to predict.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: Not quite to the extent of Jet, but he can leap all over the screen, and most of his attacks are relatively weak but either long range, fast, or both. He'll spend a lot of time knocking you down and bouncing out of attack range before you stand up.
- Malevolent Masked Men: He wears a mask that fully conceal his face.
- Slide Attack: Has an annoying slide kick that knocks you down.
- Spin Attack: Starts spinning, extends his claws, and jets across the screen.
- Wild Hair: He has long unkempt hair.
- Wolverine Claws: Similar to Souther, his gauntlets have three blades on them.
- Wrestler in All of Us: He uses a German suplex as a grapple, although compared to most wrestling moves in fighting games, it doesn't do all that much damage.
R.Bear
- Acrofatic: His weight doesn't slow him down nor keep him from performing acrobatic uppercuts in the slightest.
- Ass Kicks You: He leaps in the air and tries to land ass first on you.
- Bald of Evil: R. Bear's head is entirely shaved.
- Bears Are Bad News: Not literally. But as his name implies, he definitely lives up to it.
- Beware the Silly Ones: This guy just looks plain goofy with his giant belly, old fashioned swimsuit looking outfit, and fighting stance where it looks like he's dancing on his tiptoes. Chances are the first time you saw him, you laughed. Then he attacks, and suddenly it's not funny anymore.
- Boxing Battler: A big burly dude who fights with boxing gloves and a lot of powerful punches. His fancy steps emphasize boxing's importance on footwork, though his striped shirt and coveralls bring to mind early 20th century pugilism.
- Expy: Big bald guy with ambiguously Middle Eastern skin tone and facial features with a mustache who boxes? Sounds a lot like Bald Bull.
- Last-Name Basis: He goes by R. Bear. At one point in development he was named Rocky, and it's presumed that the R stands for Rocky — although if you didn't know this bit of trivia, you might assume the R stood for Red, since his outfit is red.
- Lightning Bruiser: He's incredibly fast on his feet for someone so big, and then there's his too-quick-to-avoid lunging jabs (that do a ton of damage), flying butt slams (that do even more damage) and diagonal dashes that he alternately uses to evade or to grab you for his headbutt rush (tied for most damaging attack in the game with Abadede's backdrop).
- Overlord Jr.: After defeating R. Bear at the end of Level 5, a green palatte swap named Bear Jr. shows up at the beginning of Level 8.
- Red Boxing Gloves: Though the outfit and the stance certainly hint at it, the boxing gloves he wears fully establish his skill as a Boxing Battler.
- Shoryuken: Quite amazing that a fat guy can do this — and annoying, since he uses them to counter air attacks.
- Stout Strength: He's got quite the belly on him, but he can hit hard.
- Use Your Head: His combo ender is a headbutt.
Shiva
- Artistic License – Martial Arts: His playable incarnation in 4 has him slam his opponent to the pavement with his foot during a frontal grapple.
- Ambiguous Situation: While Shiva was implied to have been sent to jail after 3 (in the good ending route, Adam beat and arrested the phony General Petrov, who was implied to be Shiva), and had an eventual change of heart, it's unknown if he escaped prison, or served his time prior to 4.
- Badass Boast: By way of his playable DLC reveal in 4:Shiva: "I don't need weapons. I am the weapon!"
- Bare-Fisted Monk: See the quote from above. He refuses to hold on to a weapon. The best he will do is strike it and send the weapon flying to whoever is in the way.
- Blood Knight: In 4, although he has given up his violent and criminal ways, he attacks you on sight simply because he wanted a good opponent, bringing him closer to Spirited Competitor.
- Brought Down to Badass: In 3 he was made slower and weaker than in 2, lost several moves and his Final Crash has less invincibility frames. He's still horribly overpowered and probably the best character in the game. In 4 he was given a glass jaw, and his Final Crash lost even more I frames, had his infinite combo removed, took a few post realese nerfs AND everyone else is more powerful than before. He's STILL the best character in the game (ranked at the top of S on most tiers), just less egeriously than SOR3.
- Calling Your Attacks: "Final Crash!"
- Dark Is Evil: He wears a black gi, his hair is black, and he's Mr. X's right-hand man so he's got to be pretty evil. Becomes Dark Is Not Evil in 4, as he is not affiliated with the Y Syndicate and has cut all ties with everyone from Mr. X's old organization.
- Doppleganger Attack: In 4, he creates ki-powered clones of himself rather than calling mooks to assist him like other bosses do. The playable version from the Mr. X's Nightmare DLC has alternate special and star attacks that do the same thing.
- The Dragon: To Mr. X.
- Elemental Punch: Has the kicking version of this with fire. Originally he shared the same red flames as Axel, but in 4 his flames now glow a spiritual blue from his enlightenment and further training to contrast Axel.
- Even Evil Has Standards: It says a lot that he was completely unwilling to work with the Y twins; to the point where he not only referred to them as spoiled brats, but also fully cut ties with the Syndicate. Remember, he was Mr. X's Number Two for years, and wasn't above kidnapping and/or killing to get the job done; but mind control was a step too far from him. This was cemented by both his Buddhist enlightenment and the twins' attempts to ruin his legitimate business; leading him to reveal their plans and location to Axel and co. when they confronted him at his dojo.
- Evil Counterpart: Particularly to Axel. While Axel has flaming punches, Shiva has flaming kicks. Taken to the next step in 4, where his flames are now an ethereal shade of blue to contrast Axel's red. However, he's no longer evil by that point.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: In 4, his shirt only cover the left portion of his upper-body, leaving the other side exposed.
- Fighting Spirit: Can summon spirit duplicates during his boss fight in 4.
- Final Boss Preview: A strange case in the bad ending route in SOR3 (if you fail to save the chief/general). He is also stage 1's boss, albeit heavily toned down. If you succeed in saving the chief/general, you don't get to fight Shiva again, subverting this.
- Friend to All Living Things: Downplayed, but present in 4. Shiva's last straw with the new Syndicate was the reports of animal abuse going on in the organization, to the point that he's willing to get his hands dirty and take them on himself. Justified, since he's a reformed Buddhist in 4, and Buddhism is strictly against animal abuse.
- Glass Cannon:
- To a certain extent in 2. He may be able to block which in turn makes him harder to hit, but his health bar is quite a bit smaller than Abadede's and R. Bear's.
- His playable modern incarnation in 4 is an absolute monster, with insane speed, strength, and combos. But he'll take more damage than most of the main cast to compensate for his many perks.
- Heel–Face Turn: In 4, Shiva is a returning boss, but he's no longer involved with the Syndicate, merely running a dojo in Chinatown, because the current Syndicate leaders disgust him with their approach on mind-controlling music. He ends up revealing their location and gives a respectful bow to Axel and friends as they left. His bio takes this further, explaining that he became enlightened after Mr. X's death, and became a Buddhist, even going as far as to promote its teachings at his dojo. Unfortunately, all of his students spurned him to join the Y Syndicate, further souring his opinion of the Y twins.
- Hero Killer: Between the fact that he is Mr. X's bodyguard and is nearly as formidable as the player characters in a straight fight (albeit with relentless AI), he has major overtones of this.
- Kiai: "SHAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
- Leitmotif: "Max Man" in 2, a boss theme he gets all to himself. "Shiva" by Yoko Shimomura in 4, another boss theme exclusive to him.
- Lightning Bruiser: Moves very fast, hits very hard.
- Lone Wolf Boss: In 4, he's the only boss to have no association with the Syndicate or the police.
- Master of All: In 3, despite being nerfed from his boss self in SOR2, he's faster AND stronger than the two all-rounders and has better moves, one of which can be used to form an infinite combo. Players who engage him a second time in the bad ending of 3 are also in for a nasty surprise, as he will come at the player with all of his techniques from 2. Come his joining the playable roster in Streets of Rage 4 via DLC, he's still the most powerful character among the cast and has new moves that put his 3 incarnation to shame, despite being given a glass jaw, losing his infinite, and at least a dozen post-release nerfs in an attempt to balance him.
- Mechanically Unusual Fighter: In 4, he can't use weapons (trying to pick them up causes him to kick them into the air and then do a palm strike to launch them at foes) and he's able to perform air combos.
- The Mentor: As of 4, he's gone straight, and runs his own kempo dojo. Unfortunately, most of his students left him to join up with the Y Syndicate; the Goros you encounter are implied to be his former pupils.
- Mythology Gag: His refusal to use weapons in 4 was likely inspired by his inability to do so in 3 due to his buggy, incomplete state there.
- Older Than They Look: While his exact age is never given in the series, Shiva aged very little in the ten years between the third and fourth games.
- Promoted to Playable: Can be played as in SOR3 through a cheat code, albeit in a buggy, incomplete state with a limited moveset. 4 features him alongside the rest of the cast of 3 as an unlockable. The Mr. X Nightmare DLC for 4 goes one further and makes his SOR4 version playable as well.
- Red Baron: As of 4, he's known as both "The Living Weapon" (referencing his now-canon refusal to use conventional weapons) and "The Grandmaster of Chinatown" (as his dojo is located there).
- Redemption Demotion: While still a blatantly overpowered characther in 3, he can't do all the stuff he could as a boss in 2, and doesn't have as much health. In 4, he can do most of the things he can do as a boss, but he has a lot less health, as well as being a Glass Cannon on top of that, and his shadow clone move needs be unlocked in Survival Mode.
- The Rival: In 4, he personally addresses to Axel in respect, so this appears to have become canon.
- Spirited Competitor: Downplayed in 4. Although he has given up his violent and criminal ways, he attacks you on sight simply because he wanted a good opponent.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: After you take him down in the first stage in 3, Jet arrives and carries him away.
- You Will Not Evade Me: The aforementioned Final Crash, which is more or less his blitz attack; he usually does it if you try to open up too much space from him.
Characters Introduced In Streets of Rage 3:
Playable Characters
Dr. Gilbert Zan
- The Atoner: Had an unwitting role in the Syndicate's plans in SOR3 and joins the vigilantes in an effort to make good of it.
What role that is differs a bit depending on region. - Badass Longcoat: Wears one in the end credits of SOR3.
- The Cameo: In Streets of Rage 4, only a retro pixel SOR3 version of Zan is playable, but in the credits, present-day Zan is seen working maintenance on Floyd's arms.
- Captain Ersatz: Of Cyborg Grandpa G.
- Cool Old Guy: Easily the oldest of the playable characters and can fight as well as the others.
- Cyborg: He's an electric cyborg.
- Genius Bruiser: He's an electric cyborg who's also a doctor.
- Lightning Bruiser: Literally. (see below)
- Ramming Always Works: Zan's blitz attack works like this in SOR3.
- Shock and Awe: He's an electric cyborg, of course he has electrical attacks.
- You Will Not Evade Me: Most of his attacks have exceptionally long reach, at the expense of being worse at crowd control.
Roo (Victy)
- Ascended to Carnivorism: Unlike real-life kangaroos, Roo will eat turkeys to restore his health.
- Boxing Kangaroo: He doesn't wear those boxing gloves and boxing trunks to do karate.
- The Cameo: In 4, Roo is a bartender in Stage 5.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Subverted. Knock him out and he never comes back. Knock out his trainer and you can select him starting from your next continue.
- Demoted to Extra: He only appears in a cameo in the 4th game, manning a bar. However, since the release of the Mr. X Nightmare DLC, his original 3 incarnation has been added as a secret playable character.
- Dub Name Change: From Victy in Japan to Roo in North America and Europe.
- Fragile Speedster: He's very fast, but has a low defense rating.
- No Item Use for You: His boxing gloves prevent him from picking up weapons in 3. In 4, due to recycling sprites from the canonical 3rd game, he once again is unable to use weapons.
- Lethal Joke Character: In 4, his combos can effectively stunlock enemies and deal a ton of damage. His star move in the game has him summon his trainer as a backup ally, which may seem underwhelming at first, but using multiple stars in a row can summon multiple copies of him and doing so earns an achievement.
- No Item Use for You: His boxing gloves prevent him from picking up weapons in 3. In 4, due to recycling sprites from the canonical 3rd game, he once again is unable to use weapons.
- Secret Character: He's a part of the Mr. X's Nightmare DLC pack, but requires a button combination to unlock. Highlight the story option in the main menu and hold Up + Attack.
- Video Game Caring Potential: Taking out his trainer Bruce but sparing him causes him to run off, now that he has no trainer to order him around. If you continue at any point after, you can pick him as a playable character, suggesting that he's offering to fight alongside the heroes as a thank you to them.
- Vocal Dissonance: Despite being otherwise almost completely finished in 3 compared to the other secret playable characters, he uses Skate's vocal samples if you unlock him.
Syndicate Mooks
Vice/Zack
- Badasses Wear Bandanas: They all wear one.
- The Goomba: The starting enemies alongside Slums.
- Helpful Mook: Of the accidental kind. If they grab you from behind, they'll hold you in place so other mooks can attack you. You can still kick your legs up to attack and also toss the Vice that held you right over your head.
- Use Your Head: If they grab you from the front, they'll headbutt you.
Slum/Goldie
- The Goomba: While the Galsia's are still early level opponents, the latter are encountered much later in the first stage. They're by no means pushovers though as they can grapple you from behind, and launch a front kick as a stronger attack.
- Helpful Mook: They are only capable of restraining you from behind, though like Vice, you can repeatedly kick your legs until you can throw them over your shoulder.
- Sinister Shades: Their sunglasses makes them look a bit more menacing.
- Stone Wall: Will sometimes block your attacks. The stronger variants will have higher health as well.
Soozie/Ruby
- Amazing Technicolor Population: In 4, one of her palette swaps, Pyrop, has magenta skin.
- Amazonian Beauty: Not to the extent of Electra, but her character artwork for 3 shows her to be quite well toned, and in 4 she's got some distinct biceps. In both versions she's showing a lot of skin.
- Bowdlerize: The US release of 3 added leggings and a t-shirt to Soozie's model. It also changed her hands-on-hips pose to having her hands raised to fight. 4 kept the more realistic fighting stance.
- Death by a Thousand Cuts: In 3, her main attack is a rapidfire repeating slap. The individual slaps only do scratch damage and the slap combo can be interrupted with a Rage, but if she connects with every slap in the combo, the total damage approaches Abadede clothesline/R. Bear uppercut levels. This got nerfed in 4, as Soozie will only do a single slap, and rely on her jump kick more often.
- Delinquent Hair: Along with the various colors they dye their hair with, they all sport a mohawk.
- Diving Kick: They'll do this if you're too far from them. The ones in the fourth game use this as their main method of attack.
- My Nayme Is: In 3, Soozie is an unusual spelling of Susie/Suzy, and Rubby may by either an unusual spelling for Ruby or a typo. In 4, there's Saphyr (instead of Sapphire), but the others, including Ruby this time, spell their name normally.
- Odd Name Out: In 4, all versions of her have gemstone themed names except for Pyrop.
- Stripperiffic: Wears a miniskirt and tube top. Averted in the American version of 3, which added a t-shirt under the crop top and tights under the skirt. The fourth game goes back to the tube top and switches the miniskirt with equally short shorts.
- Theme Naming: In 3, most of Soozie's palette swaps have gemstone themed names - Garnet, Diamond, Rubby. In 4, Ruby became the 'default' version of the mook's name.
Tiger/Fabio
- Dynamic Entry: Another enemy that just loves to do this, even when not in elevators.
- Evil Redhead: With dreadlocks, no less.
- Extremity Extremist: Like Raven's, they never use punches despite their muscular body. They originally have a palm strike that went unused.
- Fake Ultimate Mook: This guy is big, jacked, and really looks like he could be at least a miniboss, but he's generally not very strong.
- Kiai: When he does a jumpkick.
- Stone Wall: He rarely has a huge amount of health, but he blocks a lot.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Hakuyo from the 2nd game, even possessing very similar movements (minus their palm strike).
- Walking Shirtless Scene: All his palette swaps are shirtless.
McBride
- Bald of Evil: Some of his palette swaps are chrome domed, some have a severely receding hairline. Only one has a full head of hair. They are always bald in 4.
- Dodge the Bullet: In 3, their bullets travel slow enough to simply walk away from it. Averted in 4 where the bullets travel near instantly, and coupled with the removal of evasive rolls make them near impossible to dodge once they fire.
- Guns Are Worthless: They carry handguns and can pull the trigger with it, but they don't do any more damage than normal attacks. The real danger comes from their expertise in hand-to-hand combat.
- Long-Range Fighter: In 4, they strictly use their guns, preferring to pelt you from a distance and actively attempt to keep their distance away from melee range.
- The Men in Black: They look and fight like government agents/hitmen. Less so in 4 as their Palette Swaps give them the look of a bodyguard.
- Nerf: Lost their hand-to-hand capabilities in 4, rendering them less dangerous in close combat.
- Scary Black Man: Unlike their leaner incarnation in 3, in 4 they are always dark skinned and are bigger and taller than Axel.
- Sinister Shades: Some of their variants sport these. In 4, they always wear shades.
- Theme Naming: Many of them have government-agent-sounding names like McLeod and Johnson. Others are named after valuable metals — Bronze, Copper, Silver, and Gold.
Rocket
- Airborne Mooks: Which makes them painful due to your limited anti-air options.
- Jet Pack: Their main mode of locomotion.
- Palette Swap: Of the second game's Jet. They have the same ability too, though they can't perform Jet's body slam and double kick.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Jet from the 2nd game, except they're (more) common enemies this time around.
Mark 2 (Robot)
- Energy Weapon: They’ll launch lasers if you’re too far away from them.
- Hopping Machine: Much like Particle, although it can skate through ground to ram their opponents.
- Mecha-Mooks: Following in the footsteps of Particle, they're robots controlled by the Syndicate.
- Mythology Gag: To the Particle robots in the second game where they also hopped around a lot.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: When their health is low, they may activate one of these in hopes of damaging you with the explosion.
- Weaponized Exhaust: If you grab one from behind, they might activate their thrusters to force you off of them.
Syndicate Bosses
Ash
- Adapted Out: He does not appear in the worldwide release of the game.
- Camp Gay: Below the waist, he wears stockings and women's panties.
- The Cameo: Nora has a poster of him in her room on the Cargo Ship in 4.
- Leatherman: From the waist up, he wears a leather vest and traditional leatherman hat.
- Leitmotif: "Kamadecoco", a bizarre, irreverent little number.
- Lethal Joke Character: By virtue of being mostly unfinished in the original Streets of Rage 3, in which he had a rapid fire attack that could deplete foes' health in seconds.
- Vocal Dissonance: Despite his appearance, he shares voice clips with the female enemies.
Danch/Bruce
- The Bus Came Back: He returns in 4 as summonable ally through Roo's star move.
- Dirty Coward: He'd rather hide behind Roo than fight himself.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: Prefers to keep his distance from the players and let Roo do his dirty work.
- Mini-Boss: Fought midway through round 2.
- Monster Clown: In a way. He is an abusive kangaroo trainer.
Break/"Axel"
- The Bus Came Back: Returns in 4 as a holographic copy in Survival Mode.
- Climax Boss: In the localized versions, his fight becomes a bigger deal, as he ties into Mr. X's scheme to replace the police with robotic duplicates. Note that his fight takes place only 3/8 into the game.
- Crossover: Reappears appear as a boss unit in Project × Zone 2 with him being brainwashed by Bison's Psycho Power, until his last appearance in Chapter 40 in which Mr. X's ghost possesses him to try and revive the Syndicate.
- Dub Name Change: He gets renamed to "Robot Axel" in the localized versions, in order to tie into the "evil robotic fakes" plot invented for the localization.
- Evil Knockoff: Of Axel.
- Frame-Up: Does this to Axel.
- Mirror Boss: If you play as Axel.
- Secret A.I. Moves: Sort of. He can perform the tag team initiated forward somersault by himself. He also has a limited ability to guard against attacks (he will still take the same amount of damage and get knocked down, but only after all the attacks have connected, thus depriving the player an opportunity to open some space between them). Also, if Break manages to grab the player character by the back, he will perform Axel's BK1/SOR1 suplex instead of the bodyslam.
- Turns Red: Literally. May in fact be a Shout-Out to Shinobi, whose bosses frequently do this (and the two series shared some of the same staff).
Yamato
- Doppelgänger Attack: Creates two copies to fight the player character before his Boss Fight.
- Mook Chivalry: He displays it along with his copies, no less.
- Samurai Shinobi: He is a trained shinobi decked in samurai armor and a katana holstered on his waist.
- Shout-Out: Performs the Mijin technique upon his defeat. Luckily, it doesn't instant kill you. Also, his theme song is said to be a literal reversed version of "Revenge of Shinobi"'s stage 1 BGM.
Robot X
- Actually a Doombot: Initially appears with human skin. Then he burns his fake skin off...
- Arm Cannon: He doesn't need his Tommy Gun to fight, but rather, his arm-mounted machine gun.
- Degraded Boss: Suffers greatly from this upon fighting copies of him inside the factory where they act more as a stage-hazard rather than a proper enemy: He will only skate from one area to another, only attack you if you are in their way, has low HP, and lack his boss version's grapple counter. It is possible to simply let them pass without ever being attacked by them. The Robot Xes become a proper enemy during the events of Project X Zone 2, however, where they have to be defeated like all the other enemies in the game's Chapters.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Seems to be the Final Boss of the game due to the fight taking place in Mr. X's headquarters, until his fake skin comes off, revealing that he's a robotic fake of Mr. X. Averted if playing on Easy in the Western versions, in which case he is the final boss.
- Evil Laugh: Bizzarely re-used from Big Ben's rather than his own laugh upon his Robotic Reveal.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: He's the Final Boss (in stage 5) if you're playing Easy mode. Enforced painfully in the US/EU versions, where every setting above Easy is unnecessarily Nintendo Hard.
- Final Boss: If playing on Easy in the localized versions. Otherwise he's merely the Disc-One Final Boss.
- Shock and Awe: His counter if you don't immediately slam/throw him while grappled.
- Surprisingly Creepy Moment: He gets style points for burning his fake skin off while laughing like a maniac!
Dr.Zero/Dr.Dahm
- Dub Name Change: Zero in Japan, Dahm in America.
- Easily Forgiven: Used in the English version of the game for the good ending where he tells the police where the robot duplicates are so that they can dispatch them and get the real officials in their place. In exchange, he's granted asylum.
- Mad Scientist: In the localized story, he’s the one who built the robot duplicates of city officials for Mr. X’s plan, whereas in the original, he only shows up as a mini-boss with no backstory to speak of.
- Non-Action Guy: Befitting for a scientist, he is not a fighter and controls a claw like mechanism when attacking you.
Neo. X/Robot-Y
- Brain in a Jar: Quite how Mr. X was reduced to this is not clarified in any version of the game's story. It could be from the years of sustaining damage from the beatings at the hands of the heroes having managed to take their toll on his body.
- Final Boss: Of the good ending route. His weird circular movement pattern and crappy collision detection make him awfully hard to hit. You also have 3 minutes to kill him, or else said good ending turns into It's a Wonderful Failure.
- Macross Missile Massacre
- Powered Armor: Controlled by remote, though.
Characters Introduced In Streets of Rage 4:
Playable Characters
Cherry Hunter
- Amazonian Beauty: Very understated as the only skin she shows is her arms — and they happen to be ripped.
- Calling Your Attacks: The only one of the 5 modern characters that doesn't. She does yell out "Rock on!" when using her neutral special, though.
- Electric Black Guy: Most of her ki attacks are electric.
- Fiery Redhead: Dyed fiery redhead at that — she has brown hair but has added cherry-red die to it.
- Fragile Speedster: Cherry is the only character in Streets of Rage 4 that can sprint, along with having quick attacks and being able to use enemies as a Goomba Springboard. She has the best mobility of the playable characters, but she also has one of the lowest health bars of the game's roster.
- Hand Wraps Of Awesome: Keeps her hands wrapped up in bandages, which helps with all the punching she has to do.
- Improvised Weapon: Overlaps with Instrument of Murder when she uses her guitar to bash opponents.
- Instrument of Murder: She wields a guitar which blasts enemies away when she strums a hard riff, as well as generally bashing people with it.
- Little Miss Badass: Cherry is still in her teens, and yet she kicks the Syndicate's ass like her father and the other heroes.
- Made of Indestructium: No matter how much physical abuse her guitar has gone through in the game, it always stays in perfect condition.
- Metal Scream: Belts out an impressive one during her star move.
- Missing Mom: Nothing is ever stated about her mother.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Much like her uncle Skate, she kicks a lot of ass for a teenager shorter than most of the adult cast.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Her grab attack consists of hopping onto her opponent's shoulders, then dropping lightning-fast punches on their faces before flipping them onto their head.
- Spin-Offspring: She's Adam's daughter, which also makes Skate her uncle.
- Stripperiffic: In the final version, she isn't — she wears jeans and a loose yellow sleeveless shirt over a relatively modest sports bra. As the concept art showed, though, her original design just wore the yellow shirt and showed a lot of cleavage. Then they added a somewhat less modest sports bra in the second iteration.
- Vague Age: Though explicitly a teenager, Cherry isn't given a definitive age.
Floyd Iraia
- Artificial Limbs: Courtesy of Dr. Zan, after Floyd lost his flesh and blood arms in a workplace accident.
- Composite Character: Floyd takes on both Max's grappler role while enhanced with Zan's cybernetics.
- Electric Black Guy: Technically not, as depsite his dark skin tone he's Polynesian. However, he was originally designed as an older Black man named Floyd Harper.
- Energy Weapon: He whips out a huge laser cannon for his star move.
- Expy: His cybernetic arms and "Gotcha!" phrase when he grabs people brings to mind Jax Briggs from the Mortal Kombat franchise.
- Extendable Arms: He can use them both to grab guys and strike foes with surprising range.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Can pick up two mooks at once and slam them into each other.
- Ground Pound: One that gives him a sort of double — or more, if you're willing to spend the health — jump, to hit foes off the ground, move quicker, or armor through aerial attacks.
- Meaningful Name: Iraia is a Maori name meaning "God Wrestler", or "One Who Wrestles with God", fitting his Polynesian ethnicity and grappling playstyle.
- Mighty Glacier: Slow but has both power and reach.
- Neck Lift: His standard grappling technique. Given his massive size and cybornetic arms, it's easy for him to do and he can walk and even jump while holding an enemy, unlike the other characters.
- Offhand Backhand: Floyd doesn't even turn around to do his back attack, he simply sticks his fist out behind him and keeps his gaze trained forward.
- Put Their Heads Together: If Floyd walks into an enemy while holding another one, he'll automatically smash their heads together, inflicting heavy damage on both of them.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: His alternate blitz attack is the aptly-named "Gatling Punches", where Floyd punches his opponents again and again before sending them flying backwards.
- Shock and Awe: He can electrocute enemies he's holding on to and create bursts of electricity by smashing his fists together.
- Shout-Out: Yells "Gotcha!" when he manages to grab someone from afar, like a certain other dark skinned cybernetically armed man adept at grappling.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Grapples and brawls without much finesse, but gets the job done since he's cybernetically enhanced on top of simply being huge.
- Weaponized Exhaust: While his star move shoots a huge laser cannon to damage enemies in front of him, the blowback can also hit enemies behind him.
- Wild Samoan: A bit more reserved than most examples, but he is a big and powerful Polynesian man with tribal tattoos. His neutral special has him smashing his fists together with an exaggerated tongue-out expression similar to a Haka dance move.
- Slap-on-the-Wrist Nuke: His star move is a giant laser cannon that hits about as hard as one of his normal combos.
- Wrestler in All of Us: An ironic subversion, despite his name and visual inspiration. Floyd largely lacks traditional wrestling moves and mostly brawls and snatches guys out of the air without much flash.
Estel Aguirre
- Amazonian Beauty: Taller than most of the male characters in the game? Check. Pretty face? Check. Muscular build? Check. Outfit consisting of a tactical vest that shows off her ridiculously sculpted biceps? CHECK.
- Badass Normal: She lacks ki attacks and even the lengthy armor frames most other bosses have, relying instead on weaponry, backup from lower-ranking cops, and her own mundane martial skill. This is Averted when used as a playable character; her blitz technique has her kick enveloped with red ki.
- Badass Driver: Not her, but her backup that provides fire support. In a vein to SoR1's police backup, a Murphy will show up in a squad car, armed with a rocket launcher, to rain down missiles even in areas that are normally impossible to reach, such as a freighter, a sewer, inside a building, an underground airport, inside an airplane itself, and a castle located far away from the city.
- Battle Theme Music:
- "Estel: Round 1 and 2", for the first and second encounters with her respectively, both by Harumi Fujita.
- In Retro music mode, "Back To The Industry" from Streets Of Rage 2 is her theme.
- Big Damn Heroes: In the cutscene at the end of the Y Tower level, she shows up just in time to smash the speakers broadcasting the mind control music at the heroes, freeing them before they can be brainwashed.
- But Not Too Foreign: Swedish-Colombian, according to her profile.
- Call-Back: In her first fight, she calls her Friend on the Force to provide raining rings of napalm fire from the background, just like the special attacks from the first game (specifically Player 1's). It's also her Star Move when playing as her, much like the SoR1 special attack.
- Death by a Thousand Cuts: Her alternate super attack, which involves her brandishing a knife and quickly performing a stylish flurry of rapid slashes to the nearest enemy.
- Downloadable Content: Estel is unlocked via purchasing the "Mr. X Nightmare" DLC.
- Dual Boss: In the second fight against her, she'll summon the Commissioner to back her up. In harder difficulties, 2 of them.
- Everyone Has Standards: Estel is willing to fight the heroes because the heroes are breaking the law, despite the police she works for being corrupt. But she is serious about her police duties and will not harm civilians; this is why she uses grenades with small areas-of-impact in her second fight instead of her napalm from the first. So when Mr. Y orders a napalm strike on the train just to try to kill the heroes, despite Estel protesting that there are still people on the train and the strike might kill them, this is what finally convinces Estel that she's working for the wrong people.
- Inspector Javert: She's fighting for the law and attacks the heroes for breaking the law, despite the heroes trying to tell her about the Syndicate's plans. The first hint that she's not irredemably stupid is that she refrains from calling in napalm strikes in the second fight, opting instead to use grenades and call in backup as there are civilians on the train. Mr.Y ordering such a strike on the train is enough to finally get her to listen, and from then on she assists the heroes.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Literally — if you're quick you can pick up the grenades she throws and hurl them back at her for significant damage.
- Never Hurt an Innocent: She is willing to fight lawbreakers, even if said lawbreakers are fighting corrupt cops. But she will not endanger innocent civilians to do it. Mr. Y, however, turns out to have no such qualms and orders a napalm strike on a train full of innocent people just to take out the heroes, ignoring Estel's protests. This finally convinces Estel to work with the heroes instead.
- Promoted to Playable: After being well-received by the players and long-requested, she finally joins the playable cast with the release of the Mr. X Nightmare DLC.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: She is the Police Chief and is the toughest one of them all.
- Statuesque Stunner: She is taller than most male characters in the game.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: She uses grenades extensively in her boss battles. Though she's of the careful and controlled type, as evidenced by her refusal to risk innocents. She retains the ability as a playable character, using grenades for her defensive and aerial special attacks.
Y Syndicate Mooks
Dylan
- Anti-Air: Like fellow shirtless syndicate goon Donovan, he'll jump up and kick attempts to jump towards him.
- Cowardly Mooks: Tends to back off, either to dash in and attack when you're preoccupied, or to use their flying kicks if they're one of stronger palettes.
- Expy: They resemble the generic Chrys/Max/Dean enemies from The Punisher (Capcom) with similar but upgraded attacks.
- Extremity Extremist: They refuse to remove their hands from their pockets, so they only attack with kicks and the occasional headbutt.
- Japanese Delinquents: Originally conceived as this (complete with a pompadour and school uniform, or a leather jacket in one version) before they were redesigned to fit the setting.
- Shout-Out: Their design and demeanor evoke Orange Cassidy — although it's probably coincidental since SOR4 was released several months before Cassidy became popular. Their main attack is also a frame-for-frame copy of Sean Matsuda's Tatsumaki.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Perpetually shirtless.
Goro
- Boss in Mook Clothing: Has health comparable to a boss's in his first appearance. Counter-attacks are his primary troubles to worry about.
- Counter-Attack: Rushing this enemy will lead to a counter throw or counter punch. Proceed with caution.
- Logical Weakness: They are experts in counter-attacks that attempting to bull rush them is ill-advised. They happen to be vulnerable to grapples which is the only effective way of ever fighting them effectively (though they can quickly escape grapples once they are in a hold).
- Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Can parry weapons thrown at him. If he parries a weapon, it will break and disappear.
- No-Sell: His defense is so high, he can actually parry character respawns, of all things, and can parry star moves without even taking chip damage. Not even Max, who is otherwise unflinchable, has that kind of defense.
- Punched Across the Room: His punches will send your character flying across the screen, and on areas like the elevator, it can easily ring you out.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: The Dokuja palette will counter with a Zanretsuken-esque punches, and Tatsu will instantly Flash Step from another side after the first barrage to deliver another.
- Significant Anagram: The variation of Goro is called "Dokuja", which is an anagram of "judoka", the official name of a practitioner of judo.
Koobo
- Amazing Technicolor Population: He is blue-skinned.
- Ambiguous Robots: The manual reveals that he is a cyborg with cybernetic legs from the waist down. You would not know due to the blue skin (pale, chalk white for the Baboo variants), and his robotic death cry would say otherwise.
- Bad Boss: Has no problem jumping on minions that happen to be in his way.
- Boss in Mook Clothing: Requires strategy with the weapons surrounded. Has health nearly identical to bosses.
- Catch and Return: He can do this to the heroes if not careful.
- Composite Character: Koobo is a combination of Jack and Particle/Molecule. He pulls out an unlimited amount of weapons (pipes for him, maces for Koobo) when disarmed. Koobo is robotic from the waist down unlike Particle, which is completely robotic. He can also walk normally, and he weaponizes Particle's jumps that can harm friend or foe alike.
- Evil Redhead: Has crimson red hair.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Has yellow glowing eyes.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The constant supply of weapons can make the fight go quickly if you can keep hold of them.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: He can pull out an unlimited amount of melee weapons, and not small things like knives but rather Pipes and Maces. The worst part is when Donovan mooks also show up, the unlimited weapons turn them into much more difficult opponents. It can get even worse if he Turns Red and gains telekinesis.
- Kung Fu-Proof Mook: He will catch or deflect weapons thrown at him.
- Mighty Glacier: Keebo (exclusive in Survival and Training once unlocked) has a telegraphed and slow wind-up time to slash with a BFG, but it has a longer reach, and deals a huge amount of damage once it connects.
- Mind over Matter: Can use telekinesis to lift many object off the ground. Pipes, maces, and bricks.
- Mini-Boss: Has the stamina and special abilities accorded with such, and is never fought in large numbers.
- Skeleton Motif: Wears a skull mask over his face.
- Unique Enemy: Usually appears before a boss fight.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: The lack of pants is understable, as his legs are robotic, but not wearing a shirt is pushing it.
Sugar
- All Bikers are Hells Angels: The bikers are part of the Red Demons motorcycle club. They are ruffians working for the new syndicate. You can also spot a "1%" on their emblem.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Unlike the others, who have Black skin tone, Candy's skin tone is magenta.
- Badass Biker: Like the weather bikers from 2 and 3.
- Berserk Button: When facing off against Barbon, any destroyed motorcycle will spawn an angry biker who'll be out for your head.
- Brawn Hilda: Quite rotund, but no less spry for it.
- Charged Attack: They charge up for a few seconds, then lunge forward dramatically.
- Distaff Counterpart: Of the bikers from the original trilogy visually, though their movesets are entirely different.
- Faceless Goons: None of their faces are seen behind their bike helmets.
- Hero Stole My Bike: In a cutscene, the gang "borrow" the Red Demons' bikes to reach Chinatown.
- Ironic Name: Their names are related to sweet things — Sugar, Honey, Caramel, and Candy — while the ladies are biker thugs.
- Scary Black Man: Gender inverted, they are Scary Black Women. Or at least Sugar, Honey, and Caramel are.
- Stripperiffic: Would you believe that at one point in development, they were designed to wear a leotard and thigh-high boots? Seriously.
◊ - Suspiciously Similar Substitute: For the Fog bikers. How ironic is it that a biker gang known for wearing neon tiger striped outfits disappeared but was replaced by another biker gang also wearing neon tiger-stripes?
- Theme Naming: See their entry for Ironic Name.
- Use Your Head: Their main attack is a charging headbutt.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Caramel and Candy, the two strongest variants, will perform a jumping piledriver on you if you let them get too close.
Victoria
- Amazing Technicolor Population: The Margaret and Anne variants have orange skin that's oranger than Hulk Hogan at his orangeist.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
- With the exception of the standard palette, her palette swaps throw bottles that match the color of their jackets, be it Molotov Cocktail, Acid Bomb, Grenades, or Electric Bomb.
- Grenades thrown by Victoria will flash red, while the ones thrown by you will flash green. The red ones will harm you while the green ones are harmless to you and your friends.
- Cowardly Mooks: They mostly run away and throw bottles of various hazardous liquids at you. Their only physical attack is a push that barely damages you.
- Delinquent Hair: They sport bowl cuts died assorted colors.
- Distaff Counterpart: Strongly resembles mini-boss Jack from 2, but female. Like Honey above, they don't fight anything like him, though.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: They're all as vulnerable to the puddles they create as you are. They're also prone to doing this to you, dropping their bottles if you grab them so you're stuck in the middle of it. The grenade variant averts this both ways.
- Japanese Delinquents: They were initially conceived as these, although this aspect of them would be scrapped pre-Alpha.
- Sinister Shades: To complete their punkish look.
- Spikes of Villainy: On their shoes. Oddly they never use the spiked shoes to kick. They also have spiked studs on the lapels of their leather jackets.
- Support Party Member: Explicitly described as support enemies in their concept art. They're much less dangerous on their own.
- Theme Naming: Their names are based on members of the British Royal Family; Victoria, Elizabeth, (Princess) Margaret, and (Princess) Anne.
Y Syndicate Bosses
Diva
- Advertised Extra: Featured prominently in the reveal trailer and animated intro as well as on the cover art. In the game itself, she's fought at the end of the first level, tells the heroes who and where to go for more information on the Y Syndicate, and completely disappears from the plot onwards. As of the DLC, she's currently the least important character on said cover art, being neither a main antagonist like the Y Twins nor a playable character like everyone else.
- Bad Boss: When she strikes the ground with electricity, any mooks unfortunate enough to be in range will also get hurt.
- Battle Theme Music: "Overflow", by Groundislava, an appropriately electronic sounding number with a dash of new jack swing.
- The Beastmaster: She mostly uses her snake to attack, though as it's wrapped around her, and she seems to be supplying the electricity herself, it's more like the snake is a living weapon. The initial reveal trailer has a more traditional take.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Despite getting her ass kicked and possibly being hit with pipes and knives, Diva's face in the cutscene following her defeat has only a few scratches.
- Combat Stilettos: Diva wears high heels in combat. That doesn't stop her from delivering kicks or jumping around.
- Electric Black Guy: ...Girl. With the exception of a two hit kick combo, all of her attacks use electricity.
- Evil Redhead: Presumably dyed.
- Kick Chick: Her only physical close range attack is two quick kicks in succession.
- Shock and Awe: She crackles with electricity and and conducts it through her snake
- Snakes Are Sinister: Has a snake wrapped around her arms and shoulders that she channels her electricity through. It's emphasized in the initial reveal trailer to give her all the more of a sinister vibe.
Beyo and Riha
- Battle Theme Music: "Double Divas", by Motohiro Kawashima, a frantic, dramatic piece.
- The Beastmaster: They use snakes to attack.
- Combat Stilettos: Like Diva, they can fight with high heels shoes without any difficulty.
- Dual Boss: Of Stage 8.
- Grapple Move: Unlike Diva and Riha who have elemental ranged attacks, Beyo will use her snake to grab enemies from a distance to pull into close quarters before splashing the surrounding area with a pool of poison.
- Kill It with Fire: Riha's snake is a glorified flamethrower.
- Kick Chick: Only appearing in the Survival mode is a green Palette Swap named Weetnee. She relies mostly on kicks which delivers in rapid successions.
- My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Unlike you, they will never take damage from their pools of fire/poison.
- Playing with Fire: Riha has embers emanating from her and she blasts the area with flames when she fights.
- Poisonous Person: Beyo's snake spits out toxic puddles on the ground, though the woman herself seems to have toxic green bubbles surrounding her.
- Powers Do the Fighting: Unlike Diva at least who has a close-range kicking combo, Beyo and Riha rely entirely on their elemental snake attacks to fight.
- Shout-Out: To Beyoncé and Rihanna. Weetnee refers to Whitney Houston.
- Underground Monkey: They are palette-swapped fire and poison versions of Diva. Lampshaded with their battle theme.
DJ K Washi
- Battle Theme Music: "DJ K Washi", by Motohiro Kawashima. Notably, it was used in Cherry's reveal trailer.
- Beehive Barrier: His shield will glow in a hexagon-like pattern when receiving damage.
- Break Meter: Has a shield meter above his health bar, and once it's depleted, he becomes stunned and vulnerable.
- Climax Boss: Defeating him puts an end to the Y siblings' plot to brainwash the people of Wood Oak City, but they're still at large and the heroes still need to track them down.
- Flunky Boss: Like most SOR bosses, but his are notable for syncing up with his fighting style. He exclusively summons Red Signals, who can throw you, and Golds, who also shoot projectiles.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: He keeps his distance and fires projectiles the whole fight.
- Long-Range Fighter: All his attacks are long-range and he isn't capable of any form of melee combat.
- Named After Somebody Famous: His full name, Kawashiro, is a portmanteau of the surnames of the two original composers for the series, Motohiro Kawashima, and Yuzo Koshiro.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: His helmet gives him a passing resemblance to Guy-Man of Daft Punk.
- Regenerating Shield, Static Health: His shield regenerates back to full a few seconds after it's broken, but his health never regenerates.
- Shielded Core Boss: He's invulnerable to damage until you break the shield surrounding him, which stuns him for a while and opens him up to being comboed.
- Tron Lines: As a part of his pseudo-robotic costume.
- The Voiceless: He's the only character in the entire game to lack voice bytes.
Mr. Y
- Avenging the Villain: Averted. Mr. Y knows that the heroes killed his father, but he isn't interested in taking revenge on them. In fact, his first move was trying to bribe them.
- Bad Boss: Surprisingly averted. Unlike his father and a number of other bosses throughout the series, he'll never accidentally hurt his allies during boss fights against him, despite using rather destructive weapons.
- Granted, you'll only ever see him fight alongside generic mooks when playing co-op, but the point still stands. Of course, the siblings are immune to one another's attacks during the final boss fight.
- Bad Ass Long Coat: Wears a white one, and can hold his own in a fight.
- Badass Normal: While his sister can charge her sword with lightning, he just uses guns and explosives without any kind of supernatural flair.
- Battle Theme Music: "Mr. Y", by Yuzo Koshiro, a remix of his father's boss theme from the original game, and "Next of Kin Showdown" by Das Mörtal when one of them mounts the mecha they use to fight you at the end of the game.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: With his sister.
- Bottomless Magazines: Mr. Y has no need of reloading his gun, he has unlimited ammo and grenades.
- Brother–Sister Team: Villainous example with Ms. Y.
- Dual Boss: With his sister at the end of the game.
- Evil Laugh: "AHAHAHAHA!" It's a lot less gruff than his father's, but no less evil.
- Expy: Of Ryo from DEVILMAN crybaby. He has the same hair colour, similar hairstyle, same eye colour, and a similar fashion sense and personality, as well as both of them wielding machine guns.
- Faux Affably Evil: His first appearance has him applaud the heroes' performance and even offer them money to get them off the Syndicate's back. At gunpoint. He shows his true colors later on when he blows up a subway train filled with civilians in an attempt to kill the heroes once and for all.
- Grenade Spam: Is very fond of doing this after he Turns Red.
- Guns Akimbo: He does this in a cutscene after being beaten in stage 11 where he shoots out the airplane's flight controls. He only uses one machine gun in his boss fights.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted. Mr. Y uses a machine gun, while his sister uses a rapier to attack you.
- Hammerspace: Can store a rocket propelled grenade in his coat.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Literally — you can grab his grenades and throw them back at him if you're quick enough.
- Humongous Mecha: He pilots one during the final battle if his health is the first to go low enough. Doubles as a Background Boss. It is also autonomous as it can operate without its owner before Ms. Y takes it over.
- Light Is Not Good: His bright, white hair and long coat do little to detract from his dark intentions.
- Like Father, Like Son: Just like Mr. X, he laughs during his boss battle and mows you down with a machine gun.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: By blowing up the train at the end of stage 7 in defiance of Estel's protests, he unknowingly clears up the misunderstanding between her and the heroes, who she had mistaken for common criminals, which in turn causes her to save the heroes at the last minute in stage 9 while he and Ms. Y are overpowering them with brainwashing music.
- Red Oni: Tends to smile and laugh in almost all of his appearances, in stark contrast to his sister's near perpetual scowl and lack of emotion otherwise, and is even willing to bribe the heroes to get them out of the way.
- Missing Mom: It's never stated what happened to his mother.
- See You in Hell: After being defeated in stage 11, Floyd tries to convince him to surrender. Mr. Y decides to shoot out the airplane controls instead and jumps out the door, declaring he'll see the heroes in hell before surrendering.
- Villain Ball: Tries to shoot his rocket launcher at a train filled with civilians just to finish off the heroes. Even when Estel of the police yells at him to stand down, he refuses, stating that he takes orders from no one. This bites him in the ass since Estel rallies the police against the Syndicate and personally rescues the heroes later when the twins try to hypnotize them.
- Villain in a White Suit: Wears an almost entirely white outfit to contrast his villainy.
- White Hair, Black Heart: A ruthless crime boss despite his almost angelic appearance.
Ms. Y
- Amazonian Beauty: Downplayed. She's definitely easy on the eyes and she's got some decent muscle definition, but not overtly more than the other female characters in the game. The ending screen of her and her brother getting arrested shows a bit more of how toned her physique is with her form-fitting one-piece dress that hugs her back muscles and her arm muscles being nearly as muscular as Adam's.
- Avenging the Villain: Averted. Ms. Y knows that the heroes killed her father, but she isn't interested in taking revenge on them. She just wants to continue her father's legacy.
- Battle Theme Music: "Mrs. Y", by Yuzo Koshiro, yet another remix of her father's battle theme, and "Next of Kin Showdown" by Das Mörtal when one of them mounts the mecha they use to fight you at the end of the game.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: With her brother.
- Blade Spam: A very skilled fencer, capable of rapid-fire thrusts.
- Blue Oni: To her brother's red. She's deathly serious, calls herself a queen, and demands the heroes obey her and her mind controlling music right away, rather than attempt to negotiate the way he does.
- Brother–Sister Team: Villainous example with Mr. Y.
- Dark Action Girl: Co-leader of the Syndicate and attacks with a sword.
- Dual Boss: With her brother at the end of the game.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: The balance patch changed her pattern where she will hop all over the place to keep away from you and make it harder for you to hit her consistently. Before the patch, she would rarely jump.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted. Ms. Y uses a rapier, while her brother uses a machine gun to shoot you from afar.
- Humongous Mecha: She pilots one during the final battle if her health is the first to go low enough. Doubles as a Background Boss. It is also autonomous as it can operate without its owner before Mr. Y takes it over.
- Lady of War: Her fighting style is fittingly elegant.
- Like Father, Like Son: She does Mr. X's slouch of villainy before fighting her the first time, and when she controls the giant mech.
- Master Swordsman: Her skills with the rapier is deadly. She's capable of delivering multiples strikes in a heartbeat.
- Missing Mom: There's no indication on where her mother is.
- Perpetual Frowner: Unlike her brother, Ms. Y never smiles once. She always has an angry look on her face.
- Reclining Reigner: When she's seated on the throne or on the Y-Mecha, she reclines sideways with her legs crossed.
- Shock and Awe: Can charge her sword with electricity once she Turns Red.
- Slouch of Villainy: When she's the one mounting their mecha. She also does this before fighting her the first time.
- White Hair, Black Heart: Like her brother, sans any semblance of civility.
Wood Oak City Law Enforcement
Feroccio
- Acrofatic: Barney in particular, though several of them are surprisingly quick about dashing in to attack despite their weight.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Having him as an ally is this. Once he is upgraded to carry a taser, he will attempt to grab his opponents to pin them down and electrocute them with it. While this move allows him to stop opponents on its tracks, he doesn't fare well against the counter-heavy Goro since it is counted as an attack, and is a sitting duck against a shielded Murphy since he cannot be grappled so long as his shield is active.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Barney has the darkest uniform of all the beat cops, but several of them are shown to not be on the take early on. With that said, there is one Barney in particular that never attacks Syndicate members in the next to last stage at the airport, implying that at least one of them (him) is on the take.
- Dirty Cop: Some of them. The Lou palette appears shortly after the reveal that the police is at least partly in the Y twins' pocket and is never seen to engage with Y syndicate goons (mind you, his orange outfit implies he's just a security guard and he's attacking you because you actually did vandalise an exhibit!). Most of the rest of the beat cops are not and will target Syndicate mooks as often as they will you.
- Elite Mooks: Barney is very fast, tends to have lots of health, and his dash and stun gun combo hurts.
- Hammerspace: Barnaby, a palate swap found only in Survival Mode, has an unlimited supply of tasers and simply withdraws a new one from hammer space when he loses one.
- Hard-Coded Hostility: Cop enemies and Y Syndicate enemies will attack each other if left to their own devices.
- Mythology Gag: The "default" palette's name is taken from a supporting police officer character from the Streets of Rage comic featured briefly alongside the Sonic Fleetway comic.
- Police Brutality: All policemen will use violence on you, but also on any mooks who happen to be nearby. Justified since the city is being controlled by the Y Syndicate and the city is rampant with delinquents.
- Shout-Out: A cop named Barney.
- Static Stun Gun: Barney and Barnaby love to dash in and use their stun guns.
- Theme Naming: A number of them are named after famous fictional cops and detectives, such as Barney (Miller) and Dick (Tracy).
Murphy
- Armor Is Useless: Despite being decked out in full riot gear, Murphy's not any tougher to take down than anyone else once his shield's broken.
- Beehive Barrier: The pattern on their shield are made of hexagons.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Hilariously enough, a disarmed Murphy will never attempt to retrieve their weapon once it's on a ground. This leaves them at a complete mercy against Syndicate mooks, as a shielded Murphy without a weapon is much less dangerous since they will only do a Shield Bash and are incapable of countering once they attempt to wail on him.
- Mythology Gag: His design is taken from the Friend on the Force that helped Axel's crew in 1. The "default" palette's name is the one given to the same character from the short lived Streets of Rage comic featured alongside the Sonic Fleetway comic.
- Ninja: The final level features a palette swap called Shadow that exclusively throw shurikens rather than slowly move in with riot shields. Their movement speed and pattern are directly lifted from Hanzo rather than the usual Murphy behavior and will only briefly manifest their shield when deflecting thrown projectiles (mainly shurikens) at them.
- Police Brutality: Since Murphy is a riot policeman, violence is part of his job description.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: Carries a futuristic riot shield that looks to be made of hard light. it cycles through a small series of colors to let you know how close it is to breaking.
- Shout-Out: A cop with technological enhancements named Murphy.
- Stone Wall: Has great defenses as long as his shield is up. When it breaks however, he goes down fast.
Commissioner
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: He's considerably stronger than the rest of the police force, and can move way faster to boot.
- Battle Theme Music: "The Commissioner", by XL Middleton. With the retro soundtrack, he instead uses the very quirky "Ready Funk" from the 2nd game.
- Degraded Boss: An odd example. He's just as strong, if not stronger, than his first encounter when Estel calls him later in the game, but he no longer needs to be defeated to proceed, effectively making an incredibly dangerous, powerful mook.
- Dirty Cop: At best, he's turning a blind eye to the corruption of the police, and has no problem resorting to extreme brutality. When he smashes his desk at the start of the fight, a large amount of money falls out, implying that on top of everything else, he's on the take.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Has no name given outside of his rank.
- Extremity Extremist: Only relies on his bare hands to punch and grapple the heroes.
- Inexplicably Identical Individuals: On hard mode, two Commissioners show up to provide backup for Estel during her second boss fight.
- Manly Facial Hair: Has a mustache, can kick your ass and slam you all the way across the room.
- Turns Red: Once he gets low on health, he'll gain a boost in walking speed and start using his lunging grabs and punches more often.
- Shout-Out: His charging grab attack is identical to Rugal Bernstein's God Press special move from The King of Fighters series.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: A substantial jump in difficulty compared to Diva and even the level preceding him. As the fight progresses, he proves to be faster, stronger and more aggressive than any previous foe, requiring players to recognize the tells for every attack and how to properly avoid each of them while also managing the back-up he calls in.
