The folks over at IGN have shared a brand new gameplay video for Streets of Rage 4, giving us our first proper look at the game's pixel-art characters.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that 12 former Streets of Rage characters would be returning to the series as unlockable and playable fighters in their original pixel versions. These welcome, nostalgic additions come alongside a retro soundtrack option, which you can hear for yourself throughout the video above.
Last week, a release date for the game was spotted across a number of Nintendo Switch eShop stores worldwide, suggesting that it'll be launching next week on 23rd April. That date still appears on the eShop to this day, but publisher DotEmu remains adamant that the date shown is incorrect.
It's unusual for a Switch eShop listing to be wrong - as we understand it, Nintendo would have its say on when a game will release - but we're keeping our eyes peeled for more info on this as we get closer to that mentioned date.
Do you like the look of these retro characters? Does the video above make you even more excited for the game's release? Let us know with a comment.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 29
I am looking forward to this, and glad they incorporated the old school characters. At this point, just gotta hope there's no performance issues on the switch. Looks great, can't wait.
Game seems great, but old looking chars doesn't fit with new looking backgrounds... Seems copy and pasted on... Ugly result...
See for example the part where 3 Axel fight... The difference is too heavy
@Zanzox it does look weird. There should be an option to make EVERYTHING look pixelated. But I guess we would be better off playing the old games in that case.
@Zanzox
Yeah they really do look out of place and half assed.
But if the game is decent enough.
Those pixel sprites look awful on the hand drawn backgrounds. Personally I think the game should have been a full pixel art graphics and been more like Sonic Mania in that regard.
Why can’t we have everything in 16 bit!
@jobvd agree!
@Lord yes... Why
Was Roo confirmed?
The soundtrack is from stegal movies! Perfect! Ohh,ahh,yii
It would have been amazing if they redrew all of the old sprites. But I'm sure that would have been a ton of extra work. As it is, this is a cool bonus.
I'm going to be contrary here and say I think the pixelated characters look fantastic. Especially with the added lighting effects on them.
I didn't want this game before, but now I'm day 1. Looks great
A nice touch but the new art is so lovely I personally won’t be using any pixel characters.
I’m impressed by the lighting additions they’ve done. Glad they didn’t go with this for the full art style though, I wouldn’t be half as excited for it tbh.
Returning characters and classic OSTs is how this game goes from waiting on a sale to get my purchase to Day/Week 1.
Was afraid how inconsistent it would look with having low res pixel sprites on top of highres backgrounds and enemies, but they really did a great job. I love how they incorporated environmental edge lighting on the sprites.
I love that they incorporated the old pixel artsyle. I still much prefer the drawn artsyle.
Reminds me of that pixel game that square released Octopath Traveler.... It was weird pixel artsyle but everyone got used to it.
I hope it does come out next week! I really can't wait to play it
Got my physical copy preordered!
Yeah, the old school sprites don’t fit in with the new art style. But that’s alright, I always just assumed it was just added for bonus and for nostalgia. I’m fine with the new art style, I like it actually. So now all that’s left is just for this game to be released.
I think the first character I will play as will be new axl, then pixelated Adam for old times sake then new blaze. I think my last will be axl for sor1, I don’t like his jumping attack. Axl from sor3 has grown on me visually. I forgot shiva! X x x x x x not long now x x.x love the slower tempo song in this new video. X x x x x x x
Honestly it looks fine until the other characters enter the game and then it seems odd but I like it. Static hand drawn backgrounds are not unusual in 16 bit games.
I purchased the Genesis with a SOR2 pack-in at launch. I played that until the sun came up the next day. I was so tired and I had to work as well. I spent many weekends playing that game. I now own all three so I will likely get SOR4.
Now it looks fantastic with the original sprite characters.
@Zidentia
SOR2 only featured a few static backgrounds with most having lots of animated details and parallax scrolling, compare the cityscape in the new video to that in the second stage of SOR2, 4’s is static while 2’s has lots of blinking lights.
@SalvorHardin I know that. I did not make a direct comparison, I simply said static hand drawn backgrounds were common in 16 bit games. They created an illusion of scrolling by changing the perspective.
Well, they actually found out that the game was no appealing to retro fans, so they copied and pasted the characters and effects of previous games on a high resolution background to fool the fans to buy it. I wait for the sale. I think the SOR Remake project was and is way better than this game.
This looks amazing and I'm so happy to see it coming out. I'm sure they will add more updates if the game sells well.
The fact Nintendo still haven't taken the listing down and that it hasn't appeared on any platforms I'm wondering if maybe the game will be a timed exclusive for a month or so maybe? Perhaps we'll see a Nintendo Direct before the 23rd.
@Sawdy Roo is my all-time fave!
I just want Roo and Mr.X.
@Axlroselm You know... I can't argue with you on that. I really liked SOR Remake. It was really fun and there was a whole slew of different unlockables. I really liked that you could choose where you went!
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