Will there be a Streets of Rage 4?

There is one in development as we speak! Check out our newly built Streets of Rage 4 section for more information!

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What is 'Bare Knuckle'?

Bare Knuckle is the name of the Streets of Rage series in Japan & the Far East. Aside from the name there are few differences between the Eastern & Western versions, with the exception of Streets of Rage 3 which has some major changes in it.

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Who are AM7 & Overworks?

Sega's internal development teams used to be called AM1, AM2, AM3 etc - the most well known of these was AM2, who were responsible for many of Sega's biggest arcade hits.

AM7 were one of Sega's console game development teams, and created all three Streets of Rage games, as well as the Game Gear conversions of the first two. They were also responsible for the vast majority of the Shinobi series, which explains the shared sound effects & font in Revenge of Shinobi and Streets of Rage. With Sega's re-organization in 2000, AM7 became Overworks. You can visit their Japanese website here.

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Who is Ancient?

Ancient is a development group that includes Yuzo Koshiro (as CEO) and they were involved with AM7 in the development of Streets of Rage 2 & 3. Interestingly, Yuzo Koshiro's sister, Ayano Koshiro actually worked for them too and designed much of Streets of Rage 2 & 3 with her brother, as well as several new characters for Streets of Rage 4 (which ended up on the scrap pile, sadly).

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Who is this Yuzo Koshiro?

Who is Yuzo Koshiro?! Only one of the most talented video game musicians ever! He was the guy behind the music in the Streets of Rage series, as well as various others such as Revenge of Shinobi (GG/MD), Actraiser 1& 2 (SNES) and Shenmue (DC). His sister Ayano worked with him at Ancient as a designer, but since left the company to focus on raising her children. Yuzo Koshiro can be followed on Twitter (@yuzokoshiro) and Ayano too (@ayanokoshiro) and you can keep up with Yuzo's latest musical work on his Soundcloud page.

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Who is Ash in Bare Knuckle III & Streets of Rage 3?

Ash's appearance in Bare Knuckle III is as follows; in the harbor stage in Round 1 he drops off punks via speedboat. When you reach the chicken at the far end of the level Ash gets out to fight you. He is, as another site put it, a politically incorrect stereotype of a homosexual (he minces around dressed up in dodgy clothes and cries when you beat him up). To clear another point up, Shiva is in Bare Knuckle III; he only appears as the boss and doesn't drive the speedboat.

Sega of America obviously didn't want a character like Ash in Streets of Rage 3 as it would get a lot of unwelcome criticism. So they put Shiva in the speedboat, and instead of fighting Ash at the end of the harbor scene you take on a large group of punks.

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Why is Mr. X a 'brain in a jar' in Streets of Rage 3?

Good question. Presumably the team fatally injured him or smashed up his body so much at the end of Streets of Rage 2 that the only way for him to live would be to remove his brain and put it into a new robotic body. Improbable I know, but that's video games for you.

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What Genre is this game?

Streets of Rage is a belt-scrolling beat 'em up that began in the mid-Eighties with the Double Dragon series. Games of this type generally tend to involve walking from left to right beating up enemies (usually street punks). It reached the height of its popularity in the early Nineties, with arcades being absolutely full of them at one point. Final Fight, released in 1989, made the game style extremely popular and arguably had more of an influence on later games than Double Dragon. Streets of Rage is clearly based on Final Fight, with a similar plot and levels. Certain parts of Streets of Rage 2 in particular are very Final Fight-influenced.

Sega's classic arcade game Golden Axe also had an influence on the original game, as the engine used in Streets of Rage 1 is apparentely a tweaked version of that used for the Megadrive conversion of Golden Axe. Consequently, the special attack is based on Golden Axe's magic attack ie it wipes out most enemies and can be used only once unless you find powerups to restore it.

Other cool arcade games in the genre include X-Men (the 6-player cabinet is great fun), Cadillacs & Dinosaurs and The Punisher. I also remember The Simpsons and Turtles had game in this style at this time. Cadillacs & Dinosaurs and The Punisher were released by Capcom using a much upgraded Final Fight engine and are fine examples of good beat 'em ups. The Punisher, released in 1993, is one of my favorite games in the entire genre for its innovative ideas and extreme violence. You can learn more about the genre by checking out Brawlers Avenue, an awesome and ever growing encyclopedia and community dedicated to Beat Em Ups!

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Rumor Killing

• You cannot play as Shiva in Streets of Rage 2 - although you can bring him up using either PAR codes or savestate hacking, the game will always crash as there was no code written to make him playable. There are fanmade ROM hacks which make him playable though.

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• You cannot play as the City Hall Boss version of Shiva in Streets of Rage 3 - I've seen fake non-working cheats that claim to do this, but looking at their description of his extra moves and how to perform them it is very obvious that they were simply made up. Also, why would two different versions of Shiva be included?

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• There is no Brazilian SMS version of Streets of Rage 3 - TechToy did buy the licenses to convert several Genesis/Megadrive games (such as Gunstar Heroes) to the Master System, but Streets of Rage 3 was not among them.

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• There is no code/cheat to restore the characters' BKIII costumes in SOR3 - the actual graphics were redrawn. You can however patch the graphics using our IPS patch.

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• The same goes for restoring Ash as the mid-level Boss in Round 1 - the actual code has been changed, so without some expert ROM hacking it is impossible to make him appear.

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