Beloved Beat-Em-Up Series Returns with Streets of Rage 4, Relentless Beatdowns Imminent
Dotemu, Lizardcube, and Guard Crush Games Tagteam SEGA’s Classic Arcade Franchise
PARIS – Aug. 27, 2018 – Publisher Dotemu (Wonder Boy, Windjammers) and developers Lizardcube (Wonder Boy) and Guard Crush Games today revealed Streets of Rage 4, an all-new continuation of SEGA’s iconic arcade brawler series known for its radical fights, jammin’ ‘90s beats and dashing sparring gloves and bandanas.
Featuring hand-drawn visuals from the team behind 2017’s gorgeous Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap remake, Streets of Rage 4 builds upon the classic trilogy’s gameplay with new mechanics, a fresh story and a gauntlet of dangerous stages with a serious crime problem. Streets of Rage 4 recalls classic gameplay but it stands as an entirely original arcade-style romp thanks to the expertise of Guard Crush Games and Dotemu.
Whether players gang up with a friend or clean up the city solo, Streets of Rage 4 is a skull-bashing, chicken-chomping delight all set to a thumping soundtrack sure to get your blood pumping.
To keep up to date on all things Streets of Rage 4, punch your keyboard until it types www.streets4rage.com, go to www.facebook.com/StreetsofRage4 and slice that follow button on Twitter @Dotemu, @Lizardcube and @Guard_Crush.
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About Dotemu
Dotemu is a french video game company specializing in modern releases of beloved retro games. Our mission is simple: give every gamer access to yesteryear’s classic video games on today’s platforms, including PC, mobile, console and more. Working alongside the world’s most cherished and recognized publishers, the Dotemu team has published a number of global top-sellers across both PC and console, including Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap, Windjammers, several games in the Ys series and more.
Founded in 2007, Dotemu leverages its considerable technological know-how to maintain the original spirit of classic games while giving them a second life as rediscovered gems for a new generation of gamers.
About Lizardcube
Lizardcube is a Parisian games studio founded by game industry veteran Omar Cornut (Pixeljunk Shooter, Tearaway, Soul Bubbles, Dear ImGui) and traditional comic/animation artist Ben Fiquet (Soul Bubbles). It is best known for the acclaimed remake of Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap, praised for its gorgeous art style and retro engineering marvel.
About Guard Crush Games
Guard Crush Games was founded in 2009 by Jordi Asensio and Cyrille Lagarigue based on their passion for classic beat-em-up and sidescrolling titles. The team is best known for its XBox 360 release, Streets of Fury, and follow-up on PC Streets of Fury: Extended Edition in 2015, which revel in over-the-top action and capture the studio’s love for fun sidescrolling brawlers..
With Kiryu being the best hope for potential peace, he is given a task through the fifth chairman’s dying wish to try and bring peace between these factions by forming a brotherhood with the leader of the Omi while also bringing a new chairman to lead the now failing Tojo Clan. Of course, things are never easy as Kiryu learns that there is now someone else calling themselves a “Dragon” in Japan’s yakuza and it just so happens to be someone that not only has a history with the potentially new chairman that Kiryu is sent to retrieve, but also one that is more than willing to let the East and the West go to war.
It is interesting to note that one of the first abilities that players have the ability to unlock as Kiryu is to mark all sub-story locations on the map. This is a major bonus as players previously had to stumbleupon most of these events and now they can easily seek these out. As per usual, these sub-stories range from endearing to outlandishly weird. A number of new sub-events have been added into Yakuza Kiwami 2 that weren’t in the original but returning players will also notice that a handful of other events have been removed entirely. It is also worth noting that a few locations found in the original PlayStation 2 version are also missing but players shouldn’t be too concerned in this regard as a number of new side areas and additional content has been included to make up for these lost locations.
Also worth noting is that the game has now added the ability to take weapons dropped by enemies and, instead of simply using them for the fight and losing them when it ends, and store it away for later use. This makes for a more interesting mechanic that allows players to build up an arsenal for a harder battle rather than only relying on their surroundings. Speaking of harder fights, Yakuza Kiwami 2 has made a few modifications to the boss battles in the game making them quite a challenge but not annoyingly so like in Yakuza Kiwami. That being said, most boss fights still end with a “Feel the Heat” style finishing move that sees Kiryu charge up a special attack to give the fight some cinematic flair.
These points can be spent on random side skills such as improving the amount of money earned in fights or unlocking the ability to see sub-story locations as mentioned earlier as well as used to increase Kiryu’s running speed, various stats, and even new special moves to expand his ever growing list of attacks and crazy Heat moves.
With this release of Yakuza Kiwami 2 Sega has made sure to go over the game with a fine tooth comb to make sure that they have handled all of the goofy and obscure translations necessary to give this game its charm. The only voice track available is the original Japanese which is absolutely what fans should come to expect at this point as these characters have become iconic in this series.
