Streets Of Rage 3 is the last and final outing of this series, and it is arguably the best one to date. There's a few reasons for this, such as faster, fluid combat, exceptionally cool character design, amazing, upbeat, fast techno music... you know what? Let's just get into the review.
The biggest improvement that was made since Streets Of Rage 2 was the speed of the combat. Here, the developer added the ability to tap the directional pad twice in any direction and the character would run, and if you double-tapped up or down, your character would use an evasive roll either up or down. This might seem like a pleasant addition to the gameplay, but you will quickly realize in the later stages that you absolutely need these maneuvers to survive. Along with those new mechanics, the combat has been vastly improved in all areas. Combos are executed much more quickly than in the past, has a sense of loose fluidity that makes using the entire screen a necessity, because foes are typically coming out from all directions and you need to be able to move quickly to different parts of the screen (enter new maneuvers). You have your returning characters Blaze, Skate and Axel is the powerhouse this time around, as well as Dr. Zan, a machine, with a curly mustache... a machine... with a curly mustache. You also have the ability to play as Roo, a Kangaroo as long as you let him live and kill his owner instead.
One of the most remarkable things Streets Of Rage 3 does, is it has multiple endings. Depending on certain bosses you defeat or getting beaten by depends on what ending you'll get. The story starts out that you need to save the Mayor from being impersonated by a robot and addressing the city and taking control of it. I won't give away any suprises, but I will at least say that Mr. X has returned, with his brain controlling a robot. If that's not straight out the craziest science fiction anime you've ever heard, I don't know what is. A quick note, you can only advance to the very end of you play it on the normal difficulty or higher.
Level design is relatively standard fare in this release, sporting your usual bright, gleaming city streets, your warehouses and docks, (that has a first-ever changing background from day to night, which is incredible.) But later on, as expected for this series, you start advancing to ninja temples, dark forests, city hall and a secret robot-manufacturing facility (if you get that far). The level design is so awesome just for the fact of how preposterous it is.
Probably the biggest change to Streets Of Rage 3, is the soundtrack. This time it was only half composed by Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima composed the other half of it. This time, music was seriously influenced by hard hitting techno, street hip hop beats, hard rock music, and a classic Shinobi tune played in reverse. Most people may or may not like the direction the music has taken, considering the music previously was more Caribbean and jazzy sounding. For the sort of scenarios that play out in the game, the music is perfectly fitting, as the game feels more like a serious rundown street brawl with science fiction elements.
Streets Of Rage 3 will be a hit or miss for fans of the previous serious. As somebody who was slightly disappointed with the previous installment, Streets Of Rage 3 feels like a breath of fresh air, and doing new and interesting stuff that hasn't been seen previously in the series, or in beat'em ups for the matter.
