The first Streets of Rage game had its flaws, but it was still a pretty good game overall. Its graphics are the least impressive, but the gameplay was still good and brought up some cool ideas and mechanics. It even has a very nice soundtrack. I already reviewed the first Streets of Rage game on its game page, but I will definitely be comparing it to this game, Streets of Rage 2. I have a lot to say about this game, so bear with me.

Streets of Rage 2 was made by a different development team, known as Ancient. The man who composed the music for the first Streets of Rage, Yuzo Koshiro manages the Ancient company. We all know how well this game was received, as people were amazed by it. Not only has Streets of Rage 2 been claimed to be the best Streets of Rage game ever, but also one of the best beat 'em ups of all time. Many still enjoy Streets of Rage 2 to this day, as it is the most popular entry in its series. However, this is my review, so I'm going to tell you what I think about this game and if I feel that I can recommend it like I did the first Streets of Rage. This was the game that introduced me to the series, and I enjoyed the game in my earliest moments of playing it. Do my initial thoughts on the game match my current thoughts?

STORY
Our story is mainly the same as the first game's, but with some differences. In the first game, three ex-cops quit their corrupted police force and took down a crime syndicate led by a mysterious villain named Mr. X. The ex-cops were known as Axel Stone, Blaze Fielding, and Adam Hunter. In the second game, Mr. X returns and attempts to lure Axel and Blaze into a trap by kidnapping Adam. The city is also once again a dangerous place, due to the work of Mr. X and his new and improved crime syndicate. However, two new characters join our heroes to bring Mr. X down again. One of them is a friend of Axel and professional wrestler, Max Thunder. The other is Adam's kid brother on roller skates, Eddie "Skate" Hunter. Now, I know a kid fighting on roller skates helping bring down a crime syndicate seems very strange, but I will explain why it's not so much a problem as you may think later on. In terms of story, not much has changed from the first game's, but we know that beat 'em ups don't really emphasize on story.

PRESENTATION

GRAPHICS
When you start playing the game, you will certainly notice how much better the graphics look in Streets of Rage 2 than in the first Streets of Rage. Everything looks bigger and better in this game. Even the sprites are bigger than the first game's. This game's animation is also better than the first game's. Much improvement has been done in terms of graphics in every aspect.

SOUND
The soundtrack in this game is considered to be one of the best soundtracks ever made for a video game, which was made mostly by Yuzo Koshiro. The music in this game follows the styles of house and techno. Each track also fits the scene nicely, and there is more musical variation than in the first Streets of Rage game. Yuzo was not making this game's music alone, but with another composer named Motohiro Kawashima. Motohiro was responsible for some of the tracks in Streets of Rage 2, including Max Man, Expander, and Jungle Base (which was made by collaboration). He contributes to the variety of this game's soundtrack, helping create a musical masterpiece. The sound effects are of higher quality than the sounds in the first game. Smacking enemies around sounds better this time around, but when the characters shout some of their newly acquired move names, they aren't that clear. For example, there are lots of people that confused "Grand Upper!" with something else. When I started playing Streets of Rage 2, I thought it was "Sun Claw!". The music and sound are nicely done in Streets of Rage 2.

GAMEPLAY

CHARACTERS
I noticed more diversity between the playable characters of Streets of Rage 2 than in the first game. The characters have more moves and even some unique commands for some of the new moves. Add for this game are defensive and offensive special attacks (which replace the police car special from the first game), blitz moves, light and neutral jump attacks, more grabbing attacks, the ability to use your combo ender itself, the ability to toss any weapon at will, and even character specific moves. An example of a character specific move would be that Max could perform the Atomic Drop by grabbing an enemy from behind, then jumping and pressing the attack button as you descend. If you do it correctly, you will do heavy damage to the enemy that was unfortunate enough to get hit with it. Another example is that Skate could do an overhead throw by vaulting over an enemy and pressing the attack button as he is in the middle of the vault. If done correctly, your opponent will be thrown in the direction you vaulted, which implies that you can, in fact, change the direction of his overhead throw.
There are even weapon specific attacks that certain characters can do. For example, when Blaze attacks with a knife, she will do the only combo possible with a weapon in the game. Another example would be that Max hits anything behind him with a pipe or sword before hitting in front of him. All of the characters attacked the same way with mostly every weapon in the first game, but that's been changed here.
About the character balance, there's not much of it. Axel is the most overused character, but for very understandable reasons. His primary combo is the quickest in the game, especially when it starts. This means that he will most likely beat enemies to the punch, literally. Another thing he has over the other characters is his blitz attack, the Grand Upper. This is the most spammed move for Axel players that know how to perform it. People might not even use the primary combo because they are more fixated on using a two-jab to Grand Upper combo. Why not three punches? Because for some strange reason, Axel's third punch and also his back attack make the Grand Upper do less damage than it is supposed to. I'm not sure why, but it happens. The Grand Upper also starts off with invincibility frames, so it might even get you past an enemy's attack. Axel is the easiest-to-use and most effective character in the game.
Max is the second best character, considering how great his power is. He may be slow, but people tend to slide to speed up his movement. The slide can also act as a bulldozer and hit enemies in its path. The closer Max is to an enemy, the more damage he does to that enemy. The third punch of his combo does more hits (up to four) depending on how close he is to the enemy he is attacking. His grabbing moves are also very powerful. He can slam enemies in three different ways, and he has a headlock attack that does the most damage in the game, but not with a single hit. It does five hits, but it can finish on any hit that kills early. The strongest single-hit move in the game is the Atomic Drop, which I already talked about earlier. His Thunder Tackle is also a pretty good move if you want to charge through enemies with power. The reason why he is the second best is because he moves and attacks at the slowest speed.
Skate is the fastest character in the game, but his primary combo certainly isn't. Skate may be lacking in some areas, but in others he excels. There is a running mechanic in the game, but the only one allowed to use it is Skate. I'll go more into this lack of consistency later, but running certainly helps Skate's evasiveness and further improves his speed, as it can also help grab an enemy mid-combo. Skate also has some interesting attacks, such as his overhead throw (which I also talked about earlier), his Migraine attack, and his Corkscrew Kick. The Corkscrew Kick's distance can actually be controlled by holding Left or Right on the d-pad. He does have some flaws, however. His primary combo isn't very strong or fast, his blitz can get interrupted due to the pause delay (I'll tell you about pause delay later on), his back attack is a back flip that can get him hit due to moving backwards into an enemy that is too close, and his overhead throw may leave him open to an enemy's attack just after he finishes it. Skate requires more practice than Axel and Max to master, but he can be effective when you get to know him better.
I consider Blaze the best character from the first game. Here, I'd say she is the worst of your options. Blaze's new primary combo for this game is rather slow, and her combo ender won't knock an enemy down like it should every time you use it. Her offensive special, the Kikoshou, is also so slow that she may get it out of it before it comes out, especially when you use it during a frontal grab. She jumps so high that her jumping attacks may go over or be hit by an enemy that is too close. Her blitz can also go over an enemy that's too close. And because of the game's stiffness with pause delay and whatnot, she can't simply walk to an enemy for a grab mid-combo. There are some things that Blaze can do right, on the other hand. Blaze's back attack actually hits in front of and behind her, although the hit in front of Blaze requires being pretty close to your enemy to hit in the first place. Some of her attacks, including her jumping attacks and weapon attacks, have good range. I also mentioned she does the only weapon combo in the game with a knife. Being a judo expert, Blaze has good grabbing moves to go with her move set, including her newly acquired frontal slam attack. Along with Blaze's character flaws, I have more of a personal gripe: I actually wish they had used the design and moves from the first game. Why use some slow kick that doesn't even knock down every time like it's supposed to when you could do a stylish back flip kick off your enemy? However, I still prefer the frontal slam over a recycled back flip kick as a grabbing attack, and Blaze's jumping kick has more range in this game. She also has the worst character design in this game than any other Blaze in the series. She isn't completely terrible, but she's still the worst of the bunch. Good luck trying to master this character in Streets of Rage 2.

MECHANICS
I just do not like the gameplay in this game. First of all, when I play Streets of Rage 2, it feels so stiff and slow. In Streets of Rage 1, you could walk up to your enemy for a grab as you do your primary combo. This isn't so easily done, because you get pause delay whenever you hit something, so you can't move to grab mid-combo without your enemy hitting you as you walk. You have to be REALLY close to grab an enemy in the middle of your combo. I know that the light jump attack helps in that aspect, but you can get hit out of that, as well. That may also happen very likely due to having too much pause delay. And because you get slowed down by pause delay, your enemies have some more time to attack. Some of the attacks you can do in the game may not be able to finish because the pause delay stopped you enough to be hit out of it. Skate's blitz and Max's offensive special are some attacks I know experience this problem. There's even a jumping pause delay, which I think is more of a glitch than something intentional, but I wish it wouldn't happen ever. Even when you're not hitting something, you still aren't able to move for just a little bit. There's also the problem of jumping in only one direction and not being able to turn around in the air, like in the first game. So, if you make a jumping mistake, you can't fix it. You can't even attack behind you while in the air because of this issue.
Some things that you could do in the first game don't happen in this game. When I talked about characters and moves, I never mentioned team attacks or reversal throws. That's because Streets of Rage 2 doesn't have them. This makes grabbing your partner and being grabbed from behind much less wanted. The typical solution to being grabbed from behind is to special out of it, but you can't do that right away. If you are grabbed from behind and an enemy approaches for an attack, you will definitely get hit. There's also another solution, which is to mash the back attack command (Attack+Jump buttons together, or hold one and press the other) until you break free. That's not going to stop the guy who grabbed you from hitting you anyway (although Max has the special case of his back attack hitting first). It also doesn't even matter if another enemy approaches and hits you anyway. You'll be forced to special if you are in this situation without Max and no other enemies. And, of course, the problem with hitting enemies with the defensive special attack is that you lose health if it hits any enemies. In the case of grabbing your partner, you used to be able to take that time to perform a team attack, which is when you vault over or throw your partner, and the one in the air does a powerful aerial attack. This was a good reward for using teamwork in 2-Player Co-Op. In Streets of Rage 2, all you can really do is throw your partner, as he or she holds Up+Jump to avoid throw damage. However, it still doesn't do as much damage as a team attack from Streets of Rage 1, and you can't even do a reversal throw on your partner when you get grabbed from behind. At least it's better than the case of being grabbed from behind by an enemy. Levels in Streets of Rage 2 don't have as many interactive environments as Streets of Rage 1, but I'll get to that when discussing level design.
There are also some things that this game added that weren't done right. I already talked about how pause delay can get you into trouble, but let's look at some other things. There is also a running mechanic in the game, but it was only given to one character: Skate. I find this to be a strange design choice, considering how all of the playable characters in Golden Axe, a past SEGA beat ‘em up released in 1989, could run without such a ridiculous restriction. Even when in Streets of Rage 1, where none of the heroes could run, that at least kept consistency. Running would certainly help my problem with being much less able to grab mid-combo, but only Skate gets the running ability so the others have to get really close. And the collision in this game is off, at times. I've fought certain enemies that would manage to somehow go through my attacks because the way the collision is set up is just weird. I have also had my special attacks go through enemy attacks, but not actually hit them. I remember a time I was trying to avoid a jumping kick with Axel's special, but then that thing I just talked about happened. In terms of difficulty, the game can actually be pretty easy until later on the “Hardest” difficulty. Saying that it is the hardest mode is lying, because there is a secret difficulty level that the game reveals the secret code for when you finish it on the “Hardest” difficulty. That is the difficulty where things get really crazy. The game is even easier if you’re using Axel or Max, and I talked about how effective they are. The new moves and varied characters contribute to improvements in terms of gameplay, but there are also mistakes made in Streets of Rage 2 that ruin the experience for me.

WEAPONS
Looking at the arsenal of weapons you can use in the game, there is the same amount of them as in the first game. Returning weapons are the knife and pipe from the first game. The new weapons include kunai knives, katanas, and grenades. The kunai knives handle like regular knives, and the katana handles just like a pipe, but much stronger. The grenades are not something that you get on your own, however. They are thrown only by biker enemies, and those who want to use them must do it quickly by picking them up after they are thrown. Never let them explode on you, whether or not you decide to pick them up. There isn't as much variety as in the first game, considering there are two pairs of weapons that handle the same as weapons that were from the first game. Then again, the weapons in Streets of Rage 1 weren't too varied either. I just wish the bottle and pepper shaker would return in this game. Still, the weapon selection is pretty good. My favorite weapon is the katana for being the most powerful weapon and not having high risk to pick up like the grenade.

ENEMIES
The enemy roster is bigger than the one from the first Streets of Rage. You have returning enemies from the first game that were changed around either a lot or a little for Streets of Rage 2, but you will also find new enemies such as some new street thugs, bikers, boxers, kick boxers, guys on jetpacks, ninjas, and more. Returning enemies consist of types of enemies that came from the first game, but have gotten changes in move sets, designs, and even names. Some have even been either promoted to a higher enemy tier or demoted to a lower enemy tier. One of the bosses from the first game, Bongo the fat fire-breather has been transformed into Big Ben, who is not an end-level boss. On the other hand, the dominatrix enemy Nora from the first game was just a regular enemy that appeared quite frequently and in every level. In Streets of Rage 2, the new dominatrix enemy is named Electra and serves as a mid-boss in most levels, but not all.
Some of the returning enemies from Streets of Rage 1 also had some of their features given to other characters. For example, Garcia (or Galsia in Streets of Rage 2) picked up lead pipes, spawned and threw knives, and could grab players from behind in the first game. Here, the knife-spawning and knife-throwing features were given to one of the mid-bosses, and the pipe-wielding and grabbing features were given to the bikers. Enemies in this game also show off new moves like anti-air moves and even special attacks. I suppose recycling enemies' features from the first game to give to the new enemies contribute to the roster's variety. But that just means we're seeing things that happened before, but with different-looking enemies. I still like the fact that they kept those features to begin with, and there are still new kinds of things enemies can do, so I'm not bothered by this too much. A more significant problem that I have with the enemies is that some of the regular enemies like Galsia and Donovan keep around the same amount of health for most of the game, but at least not so much later in the game. Overall, I think the enemies were handled pretty well.

LEVELS
Like in the first game, there are eight levels to play through. In Streets of Rage 1, every level had one scene only. In Streets of Rage 2, every level has multiple scenes to fight in. This expands the level size and length and adds more variety. You'll be fighting in scenes like a bar, a truck, a jungle base, an underground arena, and even a baseball stadium. In the popular amusement park stage, you will find many scenes to fight through.
You will notice from the first level in the game that the screen will scroll diagonally down and right, but that's the only diagonal direction it ever scrolls. In fact, the first Streets of Rage had a level where the screen scrolled to the left.
The levels in Streets of Rage 2 are certainly prettier than the first game's levels, considering all of the graphical improvements over the first game, but they lack environmental interactivity. The closest to thing to interactive level environments is the one scene in the game where they put conveyor belts. You could also take advantage of any walls in the various scenes you play through and keep several enemies pinned to them, especially in a diagonally scrolling or elevator section. Still, there is not one pit to help dispose of enemies found in Streets of Rage 2. In fact, one of the elevator scenes that I thought should have a pit didn't have it. Streets of Rage 1 also had crusher machines in its factory level, but Streets of Rage 2 doesn't do much of anything for interactive level environments.
I should also point out that some of the settings of the levels in Streets of Rage 2 have been used in the first game already. In both games, you fight on a bridge, a boat, a beach, and a factory. I won't count the city streets or the syndicate headquarters because I believe those should normally be shared the way they were, as they fit as the first and final levels.
Also, some of the scenes in the game have the craziest enemy placement on higher difficulties. There are multiple occasions where you end up fighting off multiple jet-pack enemies, and there are just general cases where it gets too crowded with really strong or annoying enemies. Yes, you can try to avoid enemy trigger points by traversing the scene at a slower pace, but there are times when you cannot avoid it.
I like the fact that there are more scenes in each level and that they look better than levels from the first game, but I would like some interactive level environments in a game to help make things more interesting and varied. The whole game is mainly walk right on plain ground and fight enemies. And I know that what side-scrolling beat 'em ups are known for, but the interactive environments expand on variety in level design. I liked when Double Dragon had platforming sections because it added to the variety needed in order to help break up the monotony of doing the same thing constantly. The overall level design of the game is okay, but not that great.

CONCLUSION
Streets of Rage 2 has overall great presentation, as the graphics and soundtrack are great. However, the gameplay isn't all that. It seems slower and stiffer than the first game. There were also times when I almost fell asleep because the game wasn't as fun as the first one. Granted, there were new additions to the gameplay of this game that I did like. The new moves and more varied heroes and villains are indeed improvements. It's just too bad that some things were left out of this new engine that came from Streets of Rage 1. I especially think that some of the weapons and moves from the first game should have made it into Streets of Rage 2. And then there are things that Streets of Rage 2 adds that aren't quite done right. The overdone pause delay is part of what makes this game so stiff, and the only character that can run is Skate, which makes no sense at all. The difficulty doesn’t really increase so much until late “Hardest”. I think you're very likely to disagree with me, knowing how popular this game is, but I think this is the worst game of the 16-bit Streets of Rage trilogy.

I'm sorry to say this, but I give this game a 5.5/10.
It's a shame, because I saw potential in this game as I began to play it, but it disappoints me with its gameplay flaws today.