When I had my Sega Genesis back as a small toddler or child, I didn't ever play Streets of Rage. I probably saw it on the shelves, but I ignored it. For me, it seemed like a "big kid" game. I was more into mascot platformers like Sonic the Hedgehog and games like Ecco the Dolphin. For years, I avoided this game. Side-scrolling brawlers have grown and evolved over time, but after playing this, I realized it's one of those genres that can't really do much outside of what's on the tin. Responsive controls, combat, and enemy variety are the imperatives. Streets of Rage was one of the first games to make this genre a 16-bit staple back in the day.
You can play as three different characters. Axel, Blaze, and Adam in the fictional city of Wood Oak. These three crime fighters follow a very basic story that was typical back in the day. You only played RPGs for stories. The controls are rather strange and challenging to get used to. I found the characters' momentum to be wrong. You walk side to side slowly, but up and down is twice the speed. This lets enemies hit you cheaply when you dodge. There is no dodge button, so you need to predict the enemies' moves so you can sidestep out of the way. Jumping attacks are very floaty and almost useless if you jump too high. Additionally, I observed that the execution of combos and various moves was haphazard, lacking any discernible pattern.
Sometimes I would do a spin kick, grab an enemy, and flip over them. While all these moves look cool on screen, I could not figure out a combo to do them. I was mashing A the entire time, wiggling the D-pad. There's not much else to it. The game isn't too difficult until you get to the bosses. Suddenly, you can wipe out your health bar in just four hits. Like any 16-bit annoying trope, the last level is incredibly long, and you go through a boss rush before fighting the final boss. Once you get to him, you can answer a question, and if you choose yes, you will be dropped two levels back to do it all over again. Lives are very scarce, so it's important to pick up weapons and use them whenever you can.
I found that when there were more than four enemies on screen, the combat just wasn't good enough for this. Locking enemies into a combo is key, but, like I said earlier, it's nearly impossible to figure out. Bosses rarely lock in, which intensifies their difficulty. Most players won't get past the first few levels before giving up. The game is very unforgiving. I just wish the characters moved faster and didn't feel so sluggish. The environment is also nothing to write home about. The environment is primarily brown and dark, featuring generic settings like a large city bridge, a beachfront, and a mundane building. The enemy variety is also quite small.
By the time you get to the eighth and final stage, you will feel burned out and done. If you somehow managed to survive, there's not a lot of incentive to keep retrying, given how incredibly repetitive this game is. If combat and controls were more responsive or there was a dodge button, this would be forgiven. Even the screen-clearing special attack doesn't help much