To many people, Streets of Rage is a relic from a bygone era. The 26-year gap between Streets of Rage 3 and Streets of Rage 4 is well-documented by this point; but that certainly didn’t deter the 2020 update from being a great game. Our Streets of Rage 4 guide aims to fill in the blanks for some people who are getting to grips with this kind of game for the first time, or even re-familiarizing players from the past.
Before you check out our Streets of Rage 4 Guide, read our Streets of Rage 4 review to see what we thought! We have the complete list of trophies and achievements for Streets of Rage 4, too!
Some of the things we will explain are:
- Characters
- Items
- Extra Lives
*Our thoughts are based purely on how the characters feel in combat.
1. Characters
Axel, Blaze and Adam
Axel Stone
- Strength: Mid-High.
- Speed: Mid-Low.
- Blitz Move: Super uppercut.
- Offensive Special: 9-hit punch combo.
- Defensive Special: 360-degree punch.
- Jumping Special: Flying punch into a forward rolling, whilst punching.
- Physical combo: 3 low damage punches and then 2 kicks.
Blaze Fielding
- Strength: Mid.
- Speed: High (Quickest in the game).
- Blitz Move: Forward, jumping double flip kick.
- Offensive Special: Forward Hadouken.
- Defensive Special: Backwards handstand kick.
- Jumping Special: Flying kick.
- Physical combo: 2 punches then a back punch.
Adam Hunter
- Strength: Mid-High.
- Speed: Mid-High.
- Blitz Move: Dashes forward performing 2 punches.
- Offensive Special: Double kick.
- Defensive Special: 360 kick.
- Jumping Special: Jumping 360 kick.
- Physical combo: 2 punches, uppercut, and a roundhouse kick.
Axel and Lloyd
Cherry Hunter
- Strength: Low-Mid (Worst in the game).
- Speed: Mid.
- Blitz Move: Flying knee.
- Offensive Special: Smashes guitar into the floor.
- Defensive Special: Plays a chord with the guitar which creates a shockwave.
- Jumping Special: Slams guitar into the ground.
- Physical combo: 3 punches, 1 uppercut, and then jumps up with the enemy and punches them into the ground.
Lloyd Iraia
- Strength: High (Best in the game).
- Speed: Low (Worst in the game).
- Blitz Move: Double, sideways punch.
- Offensive Special: Ranged fist grab, then he can either electrocute an enemy for a couple of seconds or can punch them 4 times.
- Defensive Special: Shockwave electricity attack.
- Jumping Special: Hops into the ground producing a small shockwave, and he can continually keep hopping into the ground (causing shockwaves) with continual button presses – at the continued expense of life.
- Physical combo: 4 punches.
Who should you use?
The reality is that there aren’t too many discernible differences between the five characters. They all share a similar defensive special, their jumping specials are largely the same, and there isn’t one character that is head and shoulders above the rest.
Blaze Fielding
However, we did find that Blaze was our preferred choice. Cherry is probably the weakest of the lot. Lloyd is a walking T-34 tank and hits harder than Mike Tyson, but his lack of any real mobility kill him as an option for the later levels. Plus his offensive special takes forever and his jumping special is easy to counter. Axel is more of an all-around “good at everything” type of character without really excelling anywhere. Adam offers quite a lot with his speed and strength, but his specials offer no variety.
Blaze is arguably the best because her physical combo is short and sweet, her blitz move can be spammed a lot—particularly with enemies locked into the corner of the screen—and her speed and jumping is invaluable.
2. Items
Retro Axel in action
If an object looks like it’s not part of the background – HIT IT – and you should hopefully be rewarded. They can take the form of phone boxes, barrels, bikes, suits of armor, and can even lead to hidden areas. These will contain health items, weapons, money, and even star items.
Roast Chicken
- Will restore all of your health. Try not to use one until you’re down to less than 25% health.
Apple
- Restores 25% of your health.
Star Move
Limited to one per star that you own. You can see how many you have by the bottom right-hand corner of your health bar. Using one performs a powerful move that launches enemies within the vicinity and deals great damage. Resist the urge to use them until boss battles.
3. Extra Lives
Fighting on the floor
You can’t beat having some extra lives to fall back on in case the going gets tough. So far, we’ve been able to establish that you can earn up to 3 additional lives. They can be earned when the player accumulates enough points, money, and reaches the following scores:
One Extra Life
- 8,000pts
Two Extra Lives
- 16,000pts
Three Extra Lives
- 24,000pts
Well there you go, you’ve got a great footing to get started with our Streets of Rage 4 guide. Once you’ve learned these basics, your newfound knowledge and skills should result in fruitful rewards.
