Tag Archives: Yuzo Koshiro

Mega Drive, Streets of Rage

Streets of Rage 2: Everyone’s Favourite

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Speak to pretty much anyone familiar with the Streets of Rage series, and chances are their favourite installment is probably the second.

While the first game may have set the template for the series to follow by being a beat ’em up designed for the home rather than the arcade, the second is where it well and truly hit its stride. Streets of Rage 2 demonstrates what the humble Mega Drive is truly capable of in the hands of real masters of their craft.

And it’s a game that is still relevant, enormously playable and impressive to look at, even to this day. So let’s take a closer look.

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Mega Drive

Streets of Rage: Dawn of a Phenomenon

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The Streets of Rage series is an all-time great in gaming, and you could practically hear the collective sigh of relief from the entire community when the brand new fourth installment, released at the tail end of April 2020, turned out to be good.

How do the older installments hold up today, though? Having not played them for a few years, I figured “while I wait for my Limited Run copy of Streets of Rage 4 to arrive” would be the perfect time to revisit them all. So that’s exactly what I’m doing.

We begin, of course, with the first game in the series, which first hit the streets in 1991 with releases for the Mega Drive, Master System and Game Gear. We’ll be concentrating on the 16-bit Mega Drive release for today, since that’s still the most readily available version for modern audiences. Let’s dive in.

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Cover Games, Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog: Little Brothers

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cropped-sonicheader-9220777This article is one chapter of a multi-part Cover Game feature!
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It’s fair to say that, for many people, Sonic’s “golden age” was the 16-bit era that encompassed his first four(ish) games.

What doesn’t tend to get talked about quite so much is the fact that, around the same time, there were some fantastic 8-bit releases in the series on Sega’s Master System console and ill-fated Game Gear handheld.

So, well, let’s talk about that, shall we?

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Cover Games, Ys

Ys: Sights and Sounds

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cropped-ys-header-8918215This article is one chapter of a multi-part Cover Game feature!
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Much like its gameplay, the overall aesthetic of the Ys series has evolved considerably over time.

As technology has improved with each new generation of games consoles and computer hardware, the Ys series has adapted and changed. And with its longstanding nature — not to mention its numerous remakes over the years — it’s fascinating not only from the perspective of examining how Falcom has improved the series over time, but as a means of showing how games in general have grown and changed.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at how the sights and sounds of the series have changed over time, and their relevance to gaming’s evolution as a whole.

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