Streets of Rage 4

Man, Shiva's alternate blitz move, the flying kick, seems super good. Multi-hit and low ending lag means I can zip across a stage with combo->flying kick->combo->flying kick and annihilate everything in my path. The electric perk in survival mode makes it even better. It's great seeing everything get lit up in electric explosions :o

SOR 3 Roo is unlockable via cheat code and holy fuck his combos are insane!

Also, I noticed they increased the volume of the voice clips for all the characters as well as giving mooks some new voice clips when they die.

Estel is really fun to play as.

SHE IS! She might replace my Blaze main.

Yeah and her ground in pound is sooooo satisfying to land. Only thing is that her "vault" takes getting used to. Also is it me or his her jumping punch really good?

I did the weekly survivor run for the first time with Floyd, got to 15 or 16, but I died rather lamely to the karate dude in a stage with pits I think? It was dumb because he kept punching me off lol. Those guys are the worst in pit levels.

Edited by Vertigo_High on Jul 17th 2021 at 9:46:05 AM

Okay furthest I got was floor 22 I think? With Estel. Also got to around 20-something with Roo. I knew was a Tier Induced Scrappy in So R 3 and Remake to a lesser extent but he's not that bad in this gam tbh, plus his back attack is still one of the best if not the best in the game.

Hmm... I don't think elemental effects proc lifesteal. Bummer.

Number one thing that keeps ending my survival runs is wrecking balls knocking me into pits. Or more appropriately, wrecking balls knocking me into wrecking balls knocking me into wrecking balls knocking me into wreckings balls knocking me into pits. Wish there was a "resist trap damage" perk.

Fighting the player characters trip me up cause I never fought them before. AI Blaze is fucking brutal with her combos. I also noticed AI Axel was called "Break".

Been watching some other streamers, and Roo seems really strong. He's got one of those blitzes with a million iframes, which is basically the key to getting really far. I got to 29 mostly spamming Cherry's flying knee with as many elemental blitz perks stacked as possible. My biggest mistake was passing over the health drain on hit (but food no longer heals) perk.

Max and Shiva seem to be the most intuitive to fit the whole "abuse iframes" strategy. Maybe another champion will emerge in time, but I saw some streamers get to 39 and 55, respectively, so, uh, yeah.

Abusing iframes against the AI PCs is super vital to taking them out, since they spam specials that will otherwise let them iframe you. Of course, this doesn't work if they star special, so you have to either choose if you want to take it to the chin, or counter with your own star.

Edited by KuroiTsubasaTenshi on Jul 20th 2021 at 9:05:23 AM

"Break" is the robo-Axel from Streets of Rage 3.

Not sure how a robot puts on pounds like Axel did, but hey.

It's all in the mind, so why not?

I know who Break is. It's just that he didn't really seem to look or act much like him though.

Well he was just a robot duplicate. And in the Segaverse its comically easy for the stupid masses to mistake a duplicate who looks nothing like the real thing for, well, the real thing. Look at Shadow.

Well Break, well, breaks apart as you beat on him more. wish that was here too.

I mean, AI Axel having a different name is a cute Continuity Nod, nothing more.

Yeah, thats a pretty nice touch.

Tried out the life leech perk, and it took me a couple tries to get used to it. Cherry's damage output really isn't good enough by itself to fully heal, even while abusing her blitz. At least not with the current weekly sim, where blitz AoE perks are pretty far and few between. I found the way around this was to pick up all the weapon element perks I could, then constantly be bringing golden weapons with me. It's not nearly as graceful as blitz spam, since it lets enemies approach more readily, but I'm taking chip damage either way, and golden weapon element spam can fill up the tank in 3-4 seconds—especially with the golden "halberd".

Hilarious "Hey, Buddy!" strat I just witnessed: getting Galsia seems kinda lame, right? Well, how about when you also grab a golden "halberd"/knife as a prize?

OHSHI-

Margaret/grenade lady seems like the most useful for me since she'll pollute the area with grenades you can use yourself. I found her more useful than the Gold/Agent she upgrades into.

Probably. At least, as long as you're picking up elemental weapon properties, those grenades get a bit stupid (so long as you have time to grab and huck them yourself).

Random sim also seems to randomize the buddy. The stream I was watching the initially got Galsia then progressed him to one of the kick girls, then a biker girl. Not sure what would have come after that, since he passed up the next "Hey, Buddy!"

I've started with Margaret, but on different attempts have gotten her turned into a Nora or kickboxer. On the next upgrade I got her turned into a Karate guy who was good. Between Margaret and Galsia Magaret can actually hold her own but Galsia admittedly becomes dangerous with a taser or halberd.

Double Floyd is a freakin pain, his super is fullscreen and he hits hard, also you can't hit him when he's doing his pogopunches. Like shirow, I tend to die on the arena stage a lot because of the dumb wrecking balls. Getting ball -> electric fence -> ball -> fence -> ring out frekain sucks lol.

Some of the Survivial palette swaps are pretty tough too. The green hair Diva does this chun-li impersonation that gives her super armor and moves her which can be annoying to deal with, Barbon's swaps are SUPER annoying when there's more than one of them on the field, The karate guys are ring out kings, and red enemies deal a ton of damage, especially ones holding weapons like Zs.

I don't find Break so bad but Blaze, Adam and Floyd are super problematic.

Abusing iframes is the name of the game. Choose blitz or special, and then super stack elements on them. Take rockets on star specials, and item elements where you can spare the picks. Blood Thirst is also more godly than it sounds because of the elemental/rocket iframe cheese.

Yeah, Floyd's pretty ridiculous. Thunder Sphere lasts for years, so it tends to still tag me even if I'm using Cherry's slide blitz. I tend to just give up a few stars because it's way less risk and way less of a headache to use them to off the double Floyd.

As far as the arena goes, I found that sticking at the very top or bottom, them spamming whatever has my fire element to be the best way around dealing with the wrecking balls. What will happen is as enemies are knocked down, the fire splashes will be wide enough to trigger the balls. As long as I don't move up or down, the enemies will try to circle me... and walk straight into the wrecking balls. And if it lines up just right, the boss enemies get ejected without needing to go through their full health bars.

Eh I try to avoid blood lust, it's more a hindrance than a help from my experience using it.

Depends on the character. Feels like Shiva can get a lot of mileage out of it.

Well, after a point, the game also stops really giving out much for food, so it's your only long-term healing option. Besides that, elemental spam makes that 8% worth way more than it sounds. Like, star special rockets are often a full heal. Get enough fire element and your blitz/special/weapon attacks are going heal you for over 50% of your health bar (with specials, you absolutely have to take Old School Rules to maximize the life drain, though). And it obviously becomes a problem if you aren't spamming element-enhanced moves that maximize iframes.

Remember the streamer I mentioned getting to level 55 with Shiva? Zero chance he would have made it that far without Blood Thirst.