Action · 2020 · Dotemu · local · online
Streets of Rage 4
Two buttons, a street full of thugs, and a roast chicken you will end up arguing over.
What it is about
A city, a syndicate, and between you and its leaders twelve stretches full of thugs. The series has needed no more plot since 1991, and this entry changes nothing about that.
You fight with one attack button, a jump and special moves that cost health — unless you hit enough enemies afterwards to win it back. Weapons and food lie on the ground, and both are the reason people shout at each other in two-player.
You play with up to four on one screen from a single copy, or two online. Everything is hand-drawn, the music comes from the same people as before, and the old characters from the earlier games can be unlocked.
Our verdict for couples
A brawler needs no explanation, and that is exactly its value here: two buttons, one street, and after thirty seconds even someone who has never touched the genre knows what to do. On one screen as a pair it produces a very old kind of pleasure — you divide up the thugs, call out who takes the one with the knife, and meet again at the end of the street. The assists are generous: lives and difficulty can be set freely, and the hand-drawn art looks better than anything the series had before. A run is over after two and a half hours, and whether you carry on depends purely on how much you enjoy the brawling itself.
Pros
- One copy is enough on split screen
- Lives and difficulty freely adjustable
- A stretch takes ten minutes
Cons
- A run is over after two and a half hours
- Online is two players, not four
- The final stretch ramps up noticeably
Suitable from
Casual–Hobby
- Conflict potential
- Spirited
- Cosiness
- Draining
- When you can stop
- After 15 minutes
- How long it lasts
- Under 5 hours
What other co-op fans say
Most people writing here played it as a pair and say the same thing in different words: simple, loud, short and exactly right that way. Praise goes to the hand-drawn art and the music, and several mention having waited years for precisely this game. The recurring objection is its length — and the final stretch, which ramps up sharply, has earned its own small collection of furious reviews.
- “Game is so fine and waited a lot of years to play couch co-op with my brother. Also try the 1,2,3 SEGA games.”
- “very short game, but very appealing gameplay with great co-op.”
- “Bluetooth Controller Support on Mac is completely wrecked. Only game I have any issues with.”
Summarised by machine from 60 Steam reviews, not written by our editors. The quotes appear verbatim in those reviews.
If you like this one
Runs on the same devices as this game.
A Marvel beat ’em up in pixel art where each of you runs two heroes and swaps between them.
A hand-painted platformer where missing a jump costs nothing but a second.
A racing game where the track switches into another world mid-race.
You build the course you then have to run yourselves — and the other one is building too.