New Trailer For Streets Of Rage 4 Teases A Fourth Character

Yeah, I still hate the art style and aesthetic they've gone for here and just feel it isn't true to the look and feel of Streets of Rage at all. And this does not mean I think a new SoR game could/should only be done in pixel art either, because it's not the graphical/technical limitations behind the original games that I'm talking about, which, by the way, still looked/look gorgeous regardless of the low resolution pixel art, but the actual visual/aesthetic look of the game. This just looks like a modern fan-made Flash-like nod to a beloved classic imo; it does not look like the real deal. But this is now all we're gonna get because Sega's went with it. I'm not a happy SoR fan right now.

I'm really loving the look of the game personally. The hidden fourth character is obviously going to be the strong and slow type, the kind I tend to avoid, so I'm not all that interested, but I'm still curious. Dr. Zan was kind of garbage so I hope they're not bringing him back.

Something like this, while still not quite perfect, is far closer to how a truly authentic [2D] Streets of Rage 4 should look as far as I'm concerned:

And as I've shown in previous posts on the topic, I think this artist here really gets how these classic SoR character designs should be looking in full HD (although not the flame part, which just looks like a quick Photoshop texture effect and not a properly drawn flame at all):

Now, an entire SoR game with HD art of that quality throughout would both be truly authentic to the original look and style of the classic games (from the concept art to the in-game art) and also just be stunning.

Anything less is just Sega half-assing it imo--unless is basically goes for a truly old school pixel look like it did with Sonic Mania and just goes all in and makes a sequel that is basically the best [new] version of the classic pixel-art-based SoR games, which I would still rather have than the new game's aesthetic shown above.

Honestly, given what I'm seeing above, I wish someone would just call the guys who did the awesome and gorgeous Sonic Mania and ask them to make a new Streets of Rage game in that vein.

@impurekind 100% agreed. I'm sure the game will be fun gameplay-wise but I'm not a fan of the art style. The recent release of Ninja Warriors Once Again is what SoR4 should look like.

I'm just hoping the switch gets BATTLETOADS

@KiryuJ Yeah, from what I can tell the gameplay looks solid--I hope it is--but visually (talking about aesthetically and artistically) I think it is just plain wrong for a modern remake of this beloved and already established SoR franchise (regardless of whether one individual or another likes this new look personally or not). There's just a way certain stuff is supposed to look, like we all have an idea of how traditional Disney art in its animations looks for example, and what they've done with this new game is wrong for what Streets of Rage is supposed to look like based on pretty much every single piece of concept art, promotional art and in-game art that the original creations were built around. Another example that might be easier for some people to grasp in order to make my point even more clear is like how the recent live-action Sonic just got everything wrong about how he should look, which again has been established very clearly from the very first game (even down to how his eyes should look when he blinks, which is literally in the first title screen animation of him that you see--yet this is something people have been quibbling over recently). And changing the look of something purely for the sake of changing it, especially to something that just plain looks worse (objectively so in almost every single regard as far as I'm concerned), is a bad judgement call imo. I think Streets of Rage 4 deserves more.

yes and its now switch confirmed.

@sixrings Another modern version of a beloved classic with a new aesthetic and art style that just looks all wrong too imo.

It's like all these modern artists didn't even bother to look at the plentiful concept art, promotional art and in-game art of the original games or something, which really should be informing them of where to go with the modern versions as far as I'm concerned--especially since there's literally nothing at all even remotely wrong or bad with the original look/style/design of these beloved characters.

It's strange, and rather frustrating to me, how Nintendo's artists have somehow managed to do things almost perfectly every time it took a beloved and classic 2D game character from the past and put them into Smash Bros (from Pac-Man and Mega Man to Ryu and Richter Belmont), yet almost every other artist making a modern version of a classic and beloved 2D game doesn't seem to be able to achieve that same feat (a feat I honestly don't think is really that difficult). I mean it's not like Nintendo and Nintendo alone has genuinely great artists and that it's doing something basically impossible for any other modern non-Nintendo artist to achieve. But it does seem to be that almost everyone else if falling short in this regard for the most part.

Wind Waker changed the art of Zelda. People complained.

@B-Locks Until they realized it was actually pretty gorgeous. The art above really is not gorgeous imo. Most of this modern "Flash"-like stuff just looks meh as far as I'm concerned; it looks like the kind of art you do when you want to use a shortcut technique and digital tool to save some time and money on actually doing it properly and painstakingly. And Flash literally is that, because it let's you create vector-based infinitely scaleable 2D art without having to worry about how you're going to scale it up in the future without some blurring or pixelation otherwise, but it comes at the cost of looking a bit like that flat cut-out stuff. So I think many modern artists and game developers are choosing that kind of approach rather than just drawing amazing and detailed art and dealing with how to make it look great still in the future when the time comes. And is a really strange phenomenon to me when I see art that might not have even been created in Flash yet in many ways looks like it was--because I think unless it's done really well and really specifically with the limitations of the style in mind that Flash-like art just looks cheap and amateur and bad for the most art. Even they way they've used certain lines and brush strokes to just avoid doing some actual research/work on drawing basica human anatomy and muscles properly and accurately is very telling of where they are coming from imo. Wind Waker, however, looks a bit like 3D Disney animation and mostly holds up just as well today as the day it was released.

@impurekind - It's not the only series that has done this, even Mario done with with how the art style of NSMB is when compared to other older games that are "great" from their original pixelated timelines. Zelda has done the same on many occasions, why hasn't people declared the same phone-in excuse for them?

I think what is happening here is SoR is being attempted as a revisit, but aged into the future. I think that is what is being attempted here. Cody is aged, older... Adam has a kid. The scenes changed, it's more punk, more cyber, kind of like how our own city's have done the same.

@impurekind like you said "IMO". It's your opinion. I like it. Whose to say whose opinion should matter more.

We'll just have to wait and see who the mysterious fourth character is. Looking awesome.

Man that trailer music is POPPIN!

I am pretty excited for this game, ever since I played Scott Pilgrim vs The World, I've loved these type of games (yes it's my first game I've played in those genre).
I do want to play the other SoR

@sixrings I only say that so people like you can't argue or moan I'm forcing my opinion down their throats like it's an objective fact when everything in the Universe is, of course, technically subjective from each human being's perception, so it's impossible to every really say something is truly objective. But, so much as it can be so . . .

@impurekind that's ok. On some other threads I visit though IMO basically can translate to "I'm a really big expert so you should trust me that my opinion is right even if it goes against facts.." Thanks for clarifying though.

@Paraka Yeah, and I think the New Super Mario Bros. games tend to look like a pale imitation of what they could look like also.

It's a bit like how the new The Lion King technically looks way more advanced than the original 2D hand-drawn animation but every single artist and animator worth a grain of salt knows fine well and would almost certainly be willing to say that the original utterly blows away the new film in terms of pure artistry and expression and charm and character and so on.

But people can still like the new stuff all they want--of course.

And, for the record, I disagree that what we're seeing in the new game equates to a positive interpretation of "aged to the future"; I think they could have done a far, far greater job of making a new Streets of Rage game "aged to the future", as I believe I have very easily demonstrated with the one gorgeous full HD drawing of Axel I posted above.

I think almost everyone, regardless of what they might say here and now without really knowing any better because the alternative doesn't exist right now, would think a Streets of Rage game with that quality of art in the image I posted above throughout (talking about the one drawing of Axel in full HD) would look an order of magnitude more beautiful and stunning than the game in the video above.

@impurekind - And what of the strong criticism of the new Zelda? Or of BotW's art style? What is your objective view on that while others have shared very comparable criticisms of them as you do this? Are they right or wrong for the same opinions you have of yours here with it being "poor flash animations?"

And no, Wind Waker isn't loved now cause it stands the test of time. Most who hate it still do, for the reasons they still did. It's the change of art direction now so they're not wasting breath on an oldie.

Also it in no way looks like Disney, loved the game outside the sailing and even I say that's incomparable.

@sixrings
All hail "Battletoads"!

I certainly hope it is not a loot box type of game. that would be disappointing for me. I have all of the games and I am looking forward to this one as well.

@Paraka Saying Wind Waker in no way looks like Disney (as in the traditional Disney animations) tells me you simply don't understand such things (be it about the particular hand-drawn cartoon aesthetic or the type of expressive animation). And, not that it's a be all and end all point, I have a Hons degree in animation and have studied Disney for like 20+ years, and I'm telling you it does in so many ways, far more so than 99.99% of the other video games out there (especially the 3D ones). And that's what I'm talking about: It's like if you look at a 3D Disney game like say Kingdom Hearts, it looks like Disney in terms of the art style aesthetic, which in this case it literally is of course. Same is true of Wind Waker to a large degree, even though it obviously isn't actually Disney.

Regarding the other games and their various looks: I think some of them look great and some look okay and some look a bit like what I'm talking about above in terms of being slightly half-assed and not true to what these games should really look like. And I think most people can instinctively tell what is what and would certainly appreciate a Zelda game that looked the way I personally think it should look in 2019, which, for the record, would indeed stay true to some of the very earliest artwork that depicted the franchise.

As far as I'm concerned BotW looks decent, and sometimes even pretty in certain shots and from certain angles, but I think it could certainly look a lot better aesthetically by relying less on the technical computer-calculated and rendered shader(s) for that almost "toon" visual effect it has and more on the actual skill of real artists to give it the kind of "cartoon" and "illustration" looks it's mostly going for. Of course, I have no doubt most people in here will never believe me and will deny I could possibly be right, and say it's all just subjective anyway and blah, until they see it with their own eyes.

I hope one day they do see what I'm talking about with their own eyes--because then Zelda will look truly stunning as far as I'm concerned.

@impurekind - "Because you disagree, you're already incapable."

Thank for the pep talk, fellow animator, but I think that is exactly why people are railing against you about this. If this style was on a different game opposed to SoR, would you vigilance of the art world be swayed to look good? If so, why or why not? Would you have posted as much about it? Stuff like that helps reflect on why it bothers you so. Hell even SMB3 looked different than SMB, and SMW did another stark contrast, none look like the original artwork of old, why did we not see as many people writing paragraphs of why orange neon orange pixels of 3 were all wrong for Fire Flower powerup in our magazines?

Wind Waker isn't Disney, so what you're trying to say is either phrased differently that I am not understanding your take, or you think the statement is just cause Hons art degree.

@Paraka If it were on another game I would still say I don't really like the "Flash"-like look (as I have done with many modern games, particularly remakes of beloved 2D pixel-based classics, which seems to be a trend where they take the lovely pixel art and turn it into slightly fugly and cheap looking "Flash"-like art). But the fact it's on the only new [official] Streets of Rage coming out for the foreseeable future makes it a far bigger point of contention for me right now.

Because all those games look great and they were a step forward visually/aesthetically from the games that proceeded them, regardless of the graphical technology behind the visuals. And I think 99.9% of people can see thatwith their own eyes and also perceive it more on a subconscious level too (like they "feel" it just looks good/right).

I do not for one second believe that is true of this new Streets of Rage visual/aesthetic; I think the only way the now look genuinely and objectively surpasses the games that came before it is on a purely technically level (as in the graphics engine is more advanced so it can run in full HD and actually uses 3D to create the "2D" visuals and and so on).

Yeah, I think you're just not getting what I'm saying with the Disney comparison, but I don't really know how else to put it.

Bringing back the feels Sega. I love it.

Anyway, I've said my piece and made my point and taken up enough of this thread now, so I'll leave you guys to the rest of it. Peace!

I like the music. I hope it grows on me like the Streets of Rage II soundtrack (which is still on my phone and one track is even my ringtone).

Can it be just as good as Streets of Rage II? I sure hope so!

@impurekind - I do believe a lot of people see SoR4 reeking of SoR flavor, a few have even shared these excitements here as well. Are they in the wrong for seeing this in it where you don't?

I come from a Battletoads childhood, so I cannot say the same thing as you. But your community, the ones from a SoR background, are progressively more inviting to the new "crisp" style that you detest so much. I cannot say the same thing for me; The new SoR looks closer to the series' roots than the new BT to their own. And the fandom is more against the weird Calarts-y take than SoR4 is. So I gotta be critical in understanding why.

Mind you, I am not here to just get a "gotcha" moment with you. Your first two paragraphs came off as a way to say, "Listen to why I am right." And I don't like that attitude, so I wanted to see and dig into as why this is it. Cause this is the internet, everyone attempts this. Especially since you are the only one being very prominent about it.

From my perspective it looks like they're attempting an approach that reflects the growth of a series. With the fact there was old, 80's synthpunk flavors in the old series, in would make sense that a more cyberpunk style may reflect how forward this timeline has jumped. It makes sense when you think about it. But does the style reflect that well? I think it does, but there is a rigidity of the animation I question. We don't know much if that was intentional, there is a lot of background history we don't have.

Then we got SEGA. Which I don't fully support the idea they're actively trying to half-way everything they do. Judging by their recent ten-year track record, I don't think they're fully capable of finally freeing Lizardcube to go all out with SoR's revival. Some of this looks restricted on purpose, and I'd likely err on the side of SEGA just not willing to take a risk that big.

Why can’t we just have Adam?

I personally love the art style. A lot of games are going for the hand drawn look nowadays. I welcome that! There’s was a glut of pixel art indie games that just seemed so redundant and uninspired. This looks absolutely gorgeous!

As for the new character, it’s clearly going to be someone with robotics. Probably the “heavy” of the group. I did notice something too. There could possibly be a 5th character hidden in that title screen. If you look above Blaze’s head there seems to be a silhouette that’s cropped by the screen edge...

The more I see, the more I want to play it.

SHUT UP ABOUT THE GRAPHICS ALREADY

I feel like one of the few that really love the art style.

It looks very fun but I don't like the art style and that "rocker girl" is just....dumb.

Anyway, let's see a bit more before deciding.

@impurekind wow! that art style is much better than this pseudo-anime of the new one! what a shame.

@impurekind I have still to be won over by the art style too, I was hoping it would've grown on me by now but nope, my opinion on it now is no different to the reveal trailer. I have faith in these guys delivering a worthy sequel though and I'm sure if the game's great, I'll grow to appreciate the look they went for. I used to think Hollow Knight had that cheap Flash look, and it nearly put me off buying the game. I just wasn't getting the hype for it at all but I put my faith in reviews and the words of NL members and I'm so glad I did as it turned out to be one of the best and most beautiful games I've ever played. Sometimes screenshots and even gameplay footage don't do certain games justice, they need to be experienced first hand.

If nobody noticed yet, the only people in the comments section saying they like the graphics have anime avatars.

This art style looks like trash.

@Wavey84

Yeah it's too bad. I love the original games (and beat em ups in general), but have zero desire to ever play this one. I don't know what audience they are trying to appeal to here.

It wouldn't be a SOR4 article without people saying it looks like Macromedia Flash animation. I'm sure that the person stuck with hand drawing each frame of some dude's gravity defying bouncy hair is totally thrilled with those comments. SOR 1-3 had ok graphics for being on the graphically yucky Genesis, a good soundtrack despite pumping through the ear-itating Genesis soundchip, and character design as original as the 12 Bar Blues. I love the games as much as you do, but get over yourselves.

Anyway, it's been a year since we saw gameplay footage. I thought this would be out by now.

@DinnerAndWine @Wavey84

To be clear, anime style is not the issue here at all--I don't want people to start getting some misguided and false idea and negative impression of what anime actually is--and this isn't even real anime anyway; it's some western artist's attempt at [maybe?] trying to look anime that just ends up being a pale imitation. Proper anime can look utterly gorgeous:

Even some modern anime can be pretty decent:

It's simply the quality and particular style of the art on hand in this Streets of Rage game; it's just not that great imo and looks like average "Flash" art with that additional dark and angular brush lines around everything that makes it look kind of boxy and angular and attempts to stylize over and cover up the obvious lack of good character [anatomy] drawing and so on.

If it actually looked like good and genuine anime, like the HD image of Axel I posted above for example, I'd be all for it.

All the apologetics reminds me of Sonic 4.

OH MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE??? I've seen some pretty horrible things in my life, but this... this is just siiiick.

@impurekind You really should appreciate we got any official SoR 4 at all. The series had been officially dead for 20 years. There is obviously a lot of hard work put into this one, with lots of background detail. My problem right now is quite a few enemies just seem to stand around.

In reply to the article/video,

The moveset of Cherry looks really fun. Also, pretty damn sure that is Max. Still annoyed there’s no release date.

@Wavey84 SoR 1 looks and plays awesome on 3DS, in 3D.

@Dragonslacker1 He retired

@DK-Fan How is ‘rocker girl’ any dumber than skatey-mc-skate? Rocker Girl totally fits with a cyberpunk theme.

@spamineggs That silhouette is probably the antagonist.

Surprise by some of the negativity to the art style. Ben Fiquet of Lizard Cube is an exceptional artist/cartoonist. His characters always blend with his backgrounds and he’s got incredible consistency in his style. That Monster Boy game had horrible style consistency but Lizard Cubes Wonder Boy was spot on. I know when I’m looking at bad art and SoR4 is not a game with bad art. But, I appreciate the style. Others won’t but the art is not bad in the least.

@NinChocolate I like the way you think!

@impurekind I think what Sega are trying to do here is make the game like their old Street of Rage comic books and copy that art style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEUAlgCKfYg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orAjn99tz4A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEXFkwLd2xw

Looks like Streets of Rage to me.

And the only way to make LizardCube's artwork/animation more French would be to inject it with some boeuf tartare, Serge Gainsbourgs nail clippings and a dash of Gitanes ashes. But please go on with the anime/manga commentary....

Whatever happened to the good old days of just saying “ahhh not really feeling it”, and walking away and leaving at that?

Anyway, looking forward to seeing more, I hope they beef up the punch and kick sounds nearer the end.

@Ravenmaster The art in that comic just does not look very good to me. If that's their inspiration then I can see why it's all went just a little bit wrong, at least in my opinion.

@Wavey84 With the Castlevania vid I was just trying to show a recent example that looks pretty decent, although I really don't think it's quite as good as some of the classic Manga Entertainment examples in terms of pure artistry. It's a pretty good show though.

And I agree with you on the rest; all we get now with most anime is just a bunch of high school drama teen stuff, literally normal-looking kids in school and dealing with teen dramas and stuff, which is just sooo uninspired to me. I don't give a hoot about seeing animation of just boring school kids falling in love and going through the motions, even if there's a little bit more to it that just that. I wan't cyberpunk and monsters and demons and sci-fi fantasy and sex and violence--and all the stuff that made the '80s-'90s anime so awesome visually and thematically. I want this:

@WiltonRoots Yeah, no one ever really did that, especially with anything they actually gave a crap about.

Remember when all the Nintendo fans just said "Ah, Genesis is pretty cool and we don't need to argue about which console is best." And remember when all the Sega fans just said "Ah, SNES is pretty cool and we don't need to argue about which console is the best."

People often get attached to things and want the very best from them, and they get annoyed when someone ruins something they love as they see it. And the majority of people interested in a new Streets of Rage game should be pretty attached to it too imo, and they really should be more critical about the way it looks as this is a major part of the game. I mean what's the point in making a new game in the series if it looks such that it doesn't really feel like a genuine game in the series anymore? At least that's how I'm thinking of it right now with this weird and fugly "Flash" and French-looking art style.

I think Streets of Rage, at the very least, really should look properly Japanese and anime.

@impurekind Yeah it's all about spamming the bejeezus out of the board to labour a point to oblivion, isn't it....

EDIT: Can you post anything without stealth editing the crap out of it? Wow!

@WiltonRoots Imagine what it would have been like in the days of the SNES/Genesis if we'd actually all been on the Internet using "social" media and gaming sites like this. . . .

This is the world we now live in, and I'm just using it best I know how to make a point regarding something I actually care about. I absolutely want a new Streets of Rage game. I was just playing the Sega 3D Classics 3DS version of Streets of Rage on my Oculus Rift the other day in full stereoscopic 3D and it looked frikin' amazing, so I'm well up for a new game in the series, but one that's actually done right and LOOKS right and feels right and sounds right and so on--otherwise I would rather not have it at all until it can achieve that.

So I'm making my views and opinions and feelings on such a thing be heard because that's what the Internet is in 2019--and I'd rather this game wasn't coming out so there was still a chance I could get the SoR game I think all the fans actually deserve in the next year or two and not now have to wait maybe another couple of generations before we get that chance to actually do it right again. Not that this is going to happen now--so by God I'll let the developers know that I think they've now ruined the chance of us true fans getting a genuinely amazing and true-to-the-originals Streets of Rage game for a long time.

Again, if these guys weren't going to do it properly right then they shouldn't have done it at all imo, and at least left the door open for someone who truly got the games to maybe take a stab in the next year or two. Because this is not Streets of Rage as far as I'm concerned (aesthetically and artistically), but this is all we're not gonna get for a long, long time I expect--and that's why I'm frustrated, and that's why I'm angry, and that's why I'm using the Internet to let myself be heard on such a matter.

I actually think I'm using the Internet and what it's all about here pretty well here to be honest. Because the Internet is not just a place for passively absorbing and accepting whatever is shoveled at you like a mindless drone; the Internet is a place where you can contribute too and also share your views and opinions with others and see what happens, and maybe even affect some change in your own small way.

And I'm actually giving concrete examples of where I think the look of the game has gone a bit wrong and providing examples to show how it could be done much better, and certainly look much closer to the original artist's vision and style of the classic games in the series, so at least I'm being constructive.

@impurekind These were your original posts:

"Yeah, no one ever really did that, especially with anything they actually gave a crap about.

"Imagine what it would have been like in the days of the SNES/Genesis if we'd actually all been on the Internet using "social" media and gaming sites like this. . . ."

They were perfectly fine and I got the point with them succinctly. I keep looking back and they just keep getting longer and longer and longer and longer etc.

Any streets is better than no streets! This does look excellent anyway. Can’t wait x

@WiltonRoots Yeah, I like to hammer the point home.

@WiltonRoots It's not "stealth" editing; it's literally just editing to clean up any rough spots of the writing and adding anything extra I think might make the point better. I'm not trying to dupe you in some way.

@Antraxx777 My issue is that this is not how things work for me. Just getting something at all does not equate to a good thing. Getting something genuinely great equates to a good thing. And I'd usually rather not have anything if it's not great.

I want the last character to be “Max” but I don’t think it’s happening lol. The art style is growing on me a lot.