Jenkem
その目、だれの目?
holy fuck this track is good
t flying will now rebound off the invisible edge of the screen instead of disappearing off-screen and making you wait until they get back in range. It only took 30 years for this to finally get fixed. I swear, this is the only beat 'em up in existence to do this.
Things I'm looking for in SOR4:
-Pipe CRACK sound effect (highly unlikely based on gameplay footage)
-Mr. X, hopefully with a tommygun and a shit talking hard camera laugh
-A boss elevator or boss hallway, something in the last stage where you go through a gauntlet of previous bosses
-Motorcycle dickheads that drive by and you can jumpkick in their stupid fucking face
-Classic SoR theme in the last stage, a remix of the classic SoR theme is fine too
-Dominatrix enemies
-A "twin" boss ala Blaze Clones or Mona-Lisa, an evil robotic doppelganger is acceptable too
-Never Return Alive/Attack the Barbarian as the proper boss themes, remixes are okay
Voiceovers suck.
Should we ask the yellow vests what thay think about the Guardians of ZOG?5. Second act is beating the cops. Because, you know, it's 2020 and cops are obviously worse than the gangsters. So progressive.
1. Game feels very slow. Characters (except for one) may neither charge nor barrel roll. Jumps also feel shorter/slower, as well as the dash attacks. Attack animations and fighting also feels slower (mb because they have more frames?), and it seems like most enemies have to be dodged with this absolute lack of mobility. Compared to SoRR, this game feels like fighting in a fishtank. And mind you, I was playing Blaze, who is supposed to be nimble.
Is Roo confirmed yet?Is Roo confirmed yet?
All right I beat it.
1. Mr. X is DEAD. Really dead-dead this time. Now you remember Mr. X, right? Cool looking gruff motherfucker, a real mob boss look to him, sat like the boss he is. Well guess what? He's now succeeded by his two children, a pair of twins. And even worse, they are anime-ized into androgynous levels of shit. They don't look like final boss quality characters and don't look like they belong in SoR.
2. They did some retarded shit with Shiva and went fanfiction with his character. He's now some Buddhist bitch and has friendly rivalries with Axel and even calls him "Brother" out of endearment. This is not the Shiva I know. The Shiva I know jumps into action when directed, is stoic as fuck, and is prepared to beat the SNOT outta you and just comes off as an all around badass. SoR4 Shiva is bullshit.
3. The Nora (that's the SoR1 version of Electra) fight was humorous. She turns the Galsias into literal simps who get all hyper armored out. It's weird she's a boss though since she was usually a regular-ish enemy or end of screen encounter in previous games.
4. NO BIKERS... I think? I looked at the enemy concept art and saw they had the Bikers, SoR2 Electra, Abadede, Soya and R. Bear but whether they're in the game or not is anyone's guess. The bikers I think got genderbent into these fat bitches that resemble wild boars that like to headbutt you. No motorcycle drive bys. Maybe they're in some Mania difficulty because the art they drew of the missing enemies looked pretty complete.
5. The game is kind of annoying with some enemies and bosses. There's usually two distinct types of enemies, the regular bitch-boys and then some juiced up version that has an extra move or two. The problem is, this game loves to give enemies unbreakable attacks that ignore whatever you're doing and hit you. It's fine to do these attacks for a couple bosses just to add some new danger but for every boss and certain semi-regular enemies? It becomes tiring. There's also this one enemy, some bitch that throws these vials on the ground that can either explode, cause acid puddles or electrocute you and they can be real cunts when mixed with other enemies especially if you get the ones that throw some sort of fire concoction that likes to make enemies juggle the shit out of you once hit.
6. Combo system isn't some generous thing like I thought. The way it works is you build up monstrous combos, the combos add up and linger on the screen and the higher the counter becomes the more you add to your score. Adding to your score gives you things like extra lives so you always want to maintain a big counter. The thing is, if an enemy hits you it completely breaks your combo counter and it doesn't "cash out" your number where you left it off, you lose everything completely. I had a 70 hit combo going on once and a Y. Signal cheapshotted me in the back of the head to erase all of it. I think it's a nice system to have but I do wish you had to be hard knockdowned or something to lose it all completely. Maybe enemy jabs reduces the score multiplier or something but if you get knocked down you lose it all, tough shit.
7. Gameplay wise, it's very fun but the one thing that I think comes back to haunt it is the lack of run/rolls which feels like most characters have severely hindered mobility. If this game had run and roll for every character then this would be extremely smooth sailing. SoR2 didn't have run or roll which is what they were inspired by, but SoR2 also didn't have a bunch of shit to dodge at a moment's notice or enemy AI that likes to move around quickly and just out of reach. When you begin fighting enemies with projectiles or love to throw their weapons you really start to feel that loss of extra control that would have added so much.
8. No alternate routes but it is 12 stages and I feel that's a pretty good number. Alternate routes would have been really good to have but I think the core game is strong enough on its merits of being fun to punch fuckers in the mouth that you can see yourself returning to replay it more than once.
9. Still not entirely sold on the art style but it does look much better when you're playing it. There's also some nice lighting effects going on in some stages. I'd still slam Blaze.
10. My biggest disappointment is the music by far. There were some tracks that sounded okay but for the most part it lacked a lot of character and has a lot of generic synthwave shit embedded in it. I always regarded the music of SoR to be an unseen companion to the game experience that really helped drive it along and sadly it just isn't that good to me. Nothing gets the adrenaline pumping or has you humming along. It's just kind of... there.
Final verdict:
I'd need to replay it a little more but I think as it stands it's a pretty good beat 'em up which could be a great one after more time with it. Is it better than SoR2? No. Is it better than SoR3: Nah. Is it better than SoRRemake? Hell no. But when it comes to a modern, 2D beat 'em up, this is probably the best of the bunch in my eyes. It is disappointing in a sense but I can't be too mad at its existence since I'll always have Remake to fall back on (and let's be real, it was never going to succeed Remake as that game was just something special). I think a lot of me really wants this whole genre to come back since there's nothing more simplistically enjoyable than beating mohawked punks in various colored clothing in increasingly violent ways.
I give SoR4 a STURDY 6 legs up.
You can use a defensive special right as they're about to attack in order to tank through their attack and continue your beatdown. Alternatively you can jump over them as they're winding up their attack so you end up behind them and are in a better position to continue punching. Using your Grand Upper, strong attacks, and other specials is a good way to deal a lot of burst damage against their shields.What the fuck am I supposed to do against those riot shield cops as Axel? Dying on stage 2 on fucking Normal difficulty already because of these fucks. Please tell me I'm not supposed to just keep running away from them after couple punches until the shield breaks because that would be beyond lame. I must be missing some way more efficient way to deal with them.
How'd you rank all the SoR games in order including this one?
In fact, how would you rate all them & throw in Final Fight & Golden Axe too?
I think the soundtrack had a lot to do with SoR3's lesser popularity too, and I don't mean that in a demeaning way because it is my favorite OST of the series. But it's just too different from what the mainstream are used to listen and I can see how a lot of gamers would be put off.I think SoR3 gets a really unfair rep for idiotic reasons.