One of the absolute best beat 'em ups of the 16-bit era, and one of the few that could stand toe-to-toe with Final Fight. The soundtrack is also one of Koshiro's best, and definitely his #1 on the Genesis.
"and one of the few that could stand toe-to-toe with Final Fight" I hope you talk about the arcade version because SNES Final Fight is quite pathetic compared to Streets of Rage 2 :D And Streets of Rage 2 is THE king of 16 bit beat 'em ups, followed by Streets of Rage 3 and then, many others... PC Engine/Turbografx 16 apparently can't deliver such awesomeness probably due to its 8 bit CPU and limitations in sprites handling and SNES tends to struggle too with its limited CPU and limited resolution which really hurt the genre. Still SNES has a few good beat 'em ups such as Turtles in Time but nothing that reaches the excellence of Streets of Rage 2 and 3.
You Genesis hardasses and your screen resolution, which affects nothing about how a game plays. But you can still reach if you want to, if it makes you feel better. Sorry Yohko, I'd rather play Turtles in Time and Hyperstone Heist over SOR, though I do like the SOR series.
"If you don't like this game, I question whether or not you have a soul." I love that. 😆 This is definitely one of the greatest games of all time in my book. It's just a simple concept, sure, but it's pulled off so well. The music and atmosphere are gorgeous too.
as you say the best beat em' up on home consoles, I still think the original Final Fight for arcade is better than this, it have a little more variety with bonus levels and the stages aren't too long. either way Streets of Rage just nails the late 80's and early 90's atmosphere
I have this exact same memory. My best friend had a genesis (or mega drive here in the uk) and I had a snes so we had the best of both worlds. He moved away when we were around 10 years old and I never saw him again. Hope he’s doing ok ✌️
for me its quite a step down on music, by a lot, its good to have a health bar for enemies, graphics are improved, but not so much gameplay, despite having more combos, it feels like they dont add much to the gameplay
One of my all-time favourite games. I still play it a couple of times a year now.. And what a soundtrack. That "Come on!" and the music kikcing in on the first boss was always great
The best beat em up game ever. I love how the difficulty settings are so balanced. Hardest is a great challenge, but Mania, yeah, good luck. Axel is the best character in the game.
I think I owe my love for making music due to video games like this. Ever since I listened to video game soundtracks like this (and Streets of Rage 1 & Streets of Rage 3), I wanted to make my own music. Now I've been making music for 10 years now, studying music theory and learning to audio/musically engineer by learning the synthesizer/piano. If it wasn't for this game awakening my love for making music, I wouldn't know what I would be doing with my life right now. This is why Yuzo Koshiro is one of my heavily influences in my form of music because he's such an amazing music composer
@PeePee2000 Premier Manager, Bakuretsu quiz ma-q dai bouken(Arcade), Summer Carnival 92(Recca, NES) Fighter and Attacker(Arcade), Viewpoint(Neo Geo), Fire and Ice(Amiga, which has a few tunes that harnesses house and techno), and this game. These are the games that uses house and techno as their soundtrack, all released in 1992. I'm still looking for games that does have house and techno as their soundtracks from that year.
This game absolutely changed my life. I was a kid, and had played the first SOR...there was something about 2. I decided I wanted to be THIS.. this incredible inhuman thing, a hero, a driving force to be reckoned with. I earned a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo, Joined the Military and did their combatives courses, and now at 34 after years of NoGi my Blue Belt in Gi BJJ. I would still be the weak kid turned unasterive man had I not had this game to love and characters to live up to.
@@ianswift3521 not really...3 has glitchy combat system..and the health bar is weird and not balance..some levels (like that train level)is boring and the music is too weird and experimental..also that"dark vibe" in 3 does not work well.and the graphics in 2 is much better also
Ive tried countless beat’em ups from tender age. Not one compares to this. Music, atmosphere, music, graphics, characters, music. Did I mention music? It’s amazing what they did with Genesis back in the day.
Imagine waking up on Christmas and you hear the street of rage, sonic the hedgehog, Mario, and eternal champions etc , this is how the 90s were video games were immediately hooked up to play
(1:31- 5:15),(20:11- 24:34) Excelentes canciones me encanta este Juego lo juegue de niña y ahora solo lo puedo ver, porque no tengo tiempo de jugarlo. Que tiempos aquellos.
sor is better than final fight because while capcom always blasts street fighter games and resident evil games out their ass sega actually cares about this franchise
LMAO @ you earning an extra life RIGHT after you beat the final boss. Goddamn, does this take me back and I hope that Yuzo Koshiro and Adam come back for the newest game.
Two special moves for each. The neutral A, and the forward A. For Axel, the neutral A the fire fist, like you said. But his forward A has him do a powerful combo.
Much better than the first game, bigger sprites, and enemies finally had life gauges outside of the bosses. Music is about as good as the first game, which had a strong soundtrack as well (thanks to Yuzo Koshiro, and not using that cursed GEMS soundfont). Third game gets a bad rap, but it too is not bad. I own all 3 Final Fight games, the first two Streets of Rage for my Genesis, first 2 on Sega Genesis Collection, and thank GOODNESS Sega finally got their heads out of their asses, and included the third game on PS3's Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, the only way I have the third game.
@@opium3843 Trust me, the second games beefed up sprites helped a ton, and adding enemy life gauges was an absolute must, again something the second game improved dramatically on over the first game.
The third game deserves its bad rap, if you're talking about Streets of Rage 3. The difference between that and its Japanese equivalent Bare Knuckle 3 is like night and day, SOR3 is an unplayable mess in comparison.
@@eclectica1 Mainly because they upped the difficulty, something done to combat the game rental market here in the US. The removal of Ash is it's own can of worms entirely. And we know exactly why he was removed from the US version.
All this time I thought axel was saying YETAPAW I was like wtf does that even mean? I thought that was some Japanese shit...I looked it up and he's saying GRAND UPPER... and after 30 plus years I CAN FINALLY HEAR GRAND UPPER lmao... this game brings back fond childhood memories
Hold on…………….Japanese based games have the craziest, but simplest sayings once you find out what they are saying. Street fight 2……..guile was saying “ sonic boom”, but it sounded like “ yaddic gooooo”, ryu was saying “shruiken”, but it sounded like “ ooo youuuuu Ken!”😆
When you watch playthroughs of these older games and realize just how much palatte swapping there was to save space. Some games it made sense like fantasy games where the different palattes would denote their elements.
I used to hate it how they always had to cut out the drum and bass tracks from the music whenever a sound effect played for hitting an enemy or something
I used to suck at this game always losing at stage 7 with normal amount of lives until i found out how to do that uppercut with axel, now I cant lose 😂
One of the absolute best beat 'em ups of the 16-bit era, and one of the few that could stand toe-to-toe with Final Fight. The soundtrack is also one of Koshiro's best, and definitely his #1 on the Genesis.
This game is the Speed Two Cruise Control of its age!
"and one of the few that could stand toe-to-toe with Final Fight"
I hope you talk about the arcade version because SNES Final Fight is quite pathetic compared to Streets of Rage 2 :D
And Streets of Rage 2 is THE king of 16 bit beat 'em ups, followed by Streets of Rage 3 and then, many others...
PC Engine/Turbografx 16 apparently can't deliver such awesomeness probably due to its 8 bit CPU and limitations in sprites handling and SNES tends to struggle too with its limited CPU and limited resolution which really hurt the genre. Still SNES has a few good beat 'em ups such as Turtles in Time but nothing that reaches the excellence of Streets of Rage 2 and 3.
NintendoComplete toe toe ? Ssreets of rage smokes final fight easy
NintendoComplete
You Genesis hardasses and your screen resolution, which affects nothing about how a game plays. But you can still reach if you want to, if it makes you feel better. Sorry Yohko, I'd rather play Turtles in Time and Hyperstone Heist over SOR, though I do like the SOR series.
"If you don't like this game, I question whether or not you have a soul."
I love that. 😆 This is definitely one of the greatest games of all time in my book. It's just a simple concept, sure, but it's pulled off so well. The music and atmosphere are gorgeous too.
@salman yusuf It's an opinion
Squidward must dislike it then. lol
The greatest beat em up on home consoles. Legendary!
Omg bit of a stretch mortal combat or street fighter I’d say
Enlightened Nomad those aren’t beat em ups.................
@@AyeThatsHandsomePete ok 👌
as you say the best beat em' up on home consoles, I still think the original Final Fight for arcade is better than this, it have a little more variety with bonus levels and the stages aren't too long. either way Streets of Rage just nails the late 80's and early 90's atmosphere
this is pretty good but turtles in time is probably the best.
This game brings back memories of my childhood I was playing it with my first best friend at his house
I have this exact same memory. My best friend had a genesis (or mega drive here in the uk) and I had a snes so we had the best of both worlds. He moved away when we were around 10 years old and I never saw him again. Hope he’s doing ok ✌️
The 90s kids only understand this ❤❤❤❤❤
The best beat 'em of all time. Only the arcade version of Final Fight comes close.
There was not one level that I went through without bobbin my head while kicking ass. That’s how awesome the OST is. A classic for the ages 🔥🔥🙌
I thought it was just me
Loved how they incorporated newer fluid moves and better sounds. Music is no disappointment. Best game ever. ;)
for me its quite a step down on music, by a lot, its good to have a health bar for enemies, graphics are improved, but not so much gameplay, despite having more combos, it feels like they dont add much to the gameplay
So many memories.. 34 years old next week. I remember every detail of this game like I was playing it yesterday
I recently discovered it, just finished streets of rage 4 and now I want to go back to older ones.
Axel makes the same sound when he picks up food as Pac-Man does!
It's like Boo!
oo oo aseball baseball!
press C and UP at the same time when your getting tossed around man! You will land on your legs lad.
Thank you for doing this one. My personal favourite "beat em up".
And then came SOR Remake, best beat em up ever
One of my all-time favourite games. I still play it a couple of times a year now.. And what a soundtrack. That "Come on!" and the music kikcing in on the first boss was always great
The best beat em up game ever. I love how the difficulty settings are so balanced. Hardest is a great challenge, but Mania, yeah, good luck. Axel is the best character in the game.
I beaten Mania back in 2014 with Axel funny enough.
That's your opinion on Axel. My go to character across all SOR games has always been Blaze.
Far worse than SOR1 and BK3
max is the goat lol that knee drop of his has a loud rewarding crunch for your troubles of getting a back grab
too bad he’s not on sor3
I always use Sammy, mostly for the roller blades, which was cool back in the day. ^_^
I think I owe my love for making music due to video games like this. Ever since I listened to video game soundtracks like this (and Streets of Rage 1 & Streets of Rage 3), I wanted to make my own music. Now I've been making music for 10 years now, studying music theory and learning to audio/musically engineer by learning the synthesizer/piano. If it wasn't for this game awakening my love for making music, I wouldn't know what I would be doing with my life right now. This is why Yuzo Koshiro is one of my heavily influences in my form of music because he's such an amazing music composer
Godspeed, TG Venom! ♡
@PeePee2000 Premier Manager, Bakuretsu quiz ma-q dai bouken(Arcade), Summer Carnival 92(Recca, NES) Fighter and Attacker(Arcade), Viewpoint(Neo Geo), Fire and Ice(Amiga, which has a few tunes that harnesses house and techno), and this game. These are the games that uses house and techno as their soundtrack, all released in 1992. I'm still looking for games that does have house and techno as their soundtracks from that year.
My childhood all over again
God, all the music is so good, I wish I could play this game again.
Why can't you?
The best classic beat em up game
This game absolutely changed my life. I was a kid, and had played the first SOR...there was something about 2. I decided I wanted to be THIS.. this incredible inhuman thing, a hero, a driving force to be reckoned with. I earned a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo, Joined the Military and did their combatives courses, and now at 34 after years of NoGi my Blue Belt in Gi BJJ. I would still be the weak kid turned unasterive man had I not had this game to love and characters to live up to.
RIP my brother I will always remember you T-T.. me and my brother played this game alot ahhhhh
Music in this game is absolutely 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RUclips
Streets of Rage 2 is arguably the best beat-em-up game ever made.
sorry final fight but you’re second place in my heart
i think 3 is far better. this one has that cool first song but that's it, everything else was dialed to 11 in the third game.
@@ianswift3521 not really...3 has glitchy combat system..and the health bar is weird and not balance..some levels (like that train level)is boring and the music is too weird and experimental..also that"dark vibe" in 3 does not work well.and the graphics in 2 is much better also
Honestly, Streets of Rage 4 will have to do a lot if it wants to surpass Streets of Rage 2.
Streets of Rage 4 looks like shit, the fan made Streets of Rage Remake runs circles around it.
Streets of rage 4 is a beast of a game
@@Bloodreign1...Streets Of Rage 4 is a beast of a game...the best game...the best beat em up after the 26 year's.
@@Ilovewatchingsupernaturalparan Agreed. It's awesome.
@@Bloodreign1 Yea you're talking outta your ass. SOR4 is damn good
My first time played this was back in the day as a kid and i loved it
Ive tried countless beat’em ups from tender age. Not one compares to this. Music, atmosphere, music, graphics, characters, music. Did I mention music? It’s amazing what they did with Genesis back in the day.
Could the Stage 7 robot factory have been a foreshadowing of the events in SOR 3? Most likely, yes.
Maybe, but I think the SOR game devs just watched RoboCop 2 and borrowed some things. 😏
Dude just hearing the music as the level begins takes me back to my early childhood. I used to always use the black skater as my fighter.
que buena musica tiene este juego, como le suma, y los efectos musicales son geniales tambien.
I don't know why but as a kid I always thought the knife was supposed to be a butter knife...
And i thought that the apple was a cake
yeah the knife’s damage is so low
Axel probably skips leg workout day.
He still gives powerful kicks tough
He's got chicken legs
Honestly I hate legs workout X.x, I cannot stop wondering how can I walk after that torture
he no longer skips leg day in the third game because he trained with max (who is an absolute unit)
For anime characters, skinny legs aesthetically look better. 😅
My all time favorite mega drive game along with sonic 1.
If your character gets thrown by an enemy, hold Up+Jump button to land on your feet.
lol really, ive played this game since i was a kid and never used that move, could have saved me dying in the later stages
i knew about that but i didn’t know about the blitz moves lol
Best game ever. Been playin this for as long as i can remember. And im 32 yrs old.
Imagine waking up on Christmas and you hear the street of rage, sonic the hedgehog, Mario, and eternal champions etc , this is how the 90s were video games were immediately hooked up to play
The baseball stadium level reminds me of the old Comiskey Park in Chicago, which was torn down a year before this came out.
I think it was very cool back those days!
Amazing job on this one,Alex!
you really kicked ass
this is also my favorite one of the series
This was definitely my favorite game on sega.
(1:31- 5:15),(20:11- 24:34) Excelentes canciones me encanta este Juego lo juegue de niña y ahora solo lo puedo ver, porque no tengo tiempo de jugarlo. Que tiempos aquellos.
Despite being a big SNES fanboy and Capcom fan as well, I always thought SOR outclassed the SNES FF games.
sor is better than final fight because while capcom always blasts street fighter games and resident evil games out their ass sega actually cares about this franchise
best beat them all ever, ost is a jewel.
The sounds, and game play, are embedded in my soul. Go Axel, Go.
Never played the originals, but I somehow appreciate them after playing Streets of Rage 4.
LMAO @ you earning an extra life RIGHT after you beat the final boss.
Goddamn, does this take me back and I hope that Yuzo Koshiro and Adam come back for the newest game.
the mr x theme song is kinda cheerful for a boss theme. or calming at least
truly great game, i wish i can play it again:
I remember there is a special move for each character. For Axel, it is a fire fist.
Two special moves for each. The neutral A, and the forward A. For Axel, the neutral A the fire fist, like you said. But his forward A has him do a powerful combo.
@@amso7169 true. And with Axel it's even a bit of a waste because his GRAND UPPA/ MEGA PAW/ GET THE PA! is free and even better!
Much better than the first game, bigger sprites, and enemies finally had life gauges outside of the bosses. Music is about as good as the first game, which had a strong soundtrack as well (thanks to Yuzo Koshiro, and not using that cursed GEMS soundfont). Third game gets a bad rap, but it too is not bad. I own all 3 Final Fight games, the first two Streets of Rage for my Genesis, first 2 on Sega Genesis Collection, and thank GOODNESS Sega finally got their heads out of their asses, and included the third game on PS3's Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, the only way I have the third game.
I wouldn't say _much_ better! They're both two of the best beat em ups ever made.
@@opium3843 Trust me, the second games beefed up sprites helped a ton, and adding enemy life gauges was an absolute must, again something the second game improved dramatically on over the first game.
The third game deserves its bad rap, if you're talking about Streets of Rage 3. The difference between that and its Japanese equivalent Bare Knuckle 3 is like night and day, SOR3 is an unplayable mess in comparison.
@@eclectica1 Mainly because they upped the difficulty, something done to combat the game rental market here in the US.
The removal of Ash is it's own can of worms entirely. And we know exactly why he was removed from the US version.
Damn this soundtrack is banging 🔥
I spent many afternoons as a kid playing Streets of Rage and Final Fight.
The first one was my favorite game of all time
Axel... making skinny jeans cool in the 90s
A gold game, best street fighting games.
Love this game. Hated that Brash guy with the knife stabbing you in the back.
you can just kill him with a jump attack lol
One of the best games on the genesis by far!
All this time I thought axel was saying YETAPAW I was like wtf does that even mean? I thought that was some Japanese shit...I looked it up and he's saying GRAND UPPER... and after 30 plus years I CAN FINALLY HEAR GRAND UPPER lmao... this game brings back fond childhood memories
Hold on…………….Japanese based games have the craziest, but simplest sayings once you find out what they are saying. Street fight 2……..guile was saying “ sonic boom”, but it sounded like “ yaddic gooooo”, ryu was saying “shruiken”, but it sounded like “ ooo youuuuu Ken!”😆
Bro 33:49 is great 👍
Love this game
Soundtrack was on point
51:18 : Moonwalker move
I had this on game gear, epic.
GRANDPAPA
CarozQH
grab the caaar (dont know how to type a Boston accent)
The soundtrack is sickk
Best music ever
I just found out that one of the goons is named buffet he must have had a big meal before he had to fight you 🤣😂😊
Always a classic. I remembered that they named all the bad guys, lol
The music is so good
This music gets me super pumped!
To bad it took three games to kill Mr.X,though he was SO easy to beat it isn't funny.
DDDDR444447UYTRT558554459SQQ1KBI9AS, w4h6y8🎟️🎟️🗣️🎃🅿️👣🎟️🎆🅿️🅿️🗣️
he still cucks you with his tommy gun in the second game lol
Such a great game, one of the best in its time imo.... Absolutely loved this game.
One of the best Megadrive games ever. It's still really playable these days.
It's one of the games that really makes it worth buying a mini Megadrive.
When you watch playthroughs of these older games and realize just how much palatte swapping there was to save space. Some games it made sense like fantasy games where the different palattes would denote their elements.
That resolution is perfect 🤩
Me and my brothers favorite game.
3:38 I love it
El mejor de todos los tiempos!!!
Stage 4 The tune is The Shamen Move Any Mountain. So who ripped who then?????????
Maybe in SOR 4, Garcia gets promoted to syndicate head, heh.
nah he’s still a hobo
Definitely Normal mode judging by health bar for bosses and not going to options at the beginning 😀
In the US version of the game Axel punches faster than any other region version of the game.
Best beatem up ever made
If the first game was just good for the music and gameplay, this is even better
Stage 3 end boss looks like something that could be in SPLATTER HOUSE game 😂. Didn't remember that boss
I love this music!!!!!
Sometimes, when I pick something up, I'll make the "beewup" sound from picking up an apple.
The best fighting game period!!!!!!
For me the first Streets of Rage still has the better Soundtrack although this one is brilliant too.
To think that the same console that could sing like this also was home to the droning farts of Doom 32X
Axel: Metapod!!! Metapod!!!! Metapod!!!! 🤣🤣
I used to hate it how they always had to cut out the drum and bass tracks from the music whenever a sound effect played for hitting an enemy or something
the fact that sega actually ports their games to mobile seals the deal that sor is better than final fight for me
I played and clear all levels
I played this game for the first time on PS3
Even at the age of 42 i randomly imitate the sound of the pipe hitting enemies.
Don´t grow up folks, it´s as we all know by now, a trap!
I used to suck at this game always losing at stage 7 with normal amount of lives until i found out how to do that uppercut with axel, now I cant lose 😂
Q juegazo ahora q tengo la mini megadrive me tengo q hacer con este juego.
Either I’m high af or this is an awesome old school soundtrack!
The former
The second game still #1.😀👍🎮
RUclips
Well played
At 2:37, did I hear a Ms.Pac-Man sound when he grabbed that apple?