Spider, tell me this. I've spent my childhood on originals, and remake melted my brain. It's the pinnacle of gaming. I don't like anime in my western comic style nor SJWism. Do I buy this or nah? My mind says nah, but my dick throbs at nostalgia impulses. I trust you to shoot me straight.
Don't think of this game as the second coming of SoR2 in terms of how SoR2 innovated the beat 'em up genre at the time of its release and don't think of this game as being able to compete with SoRR. It's too much of a lost cause for that because SoRR is so good it actually fucking destroys being able to enjoy other 2D beat 'em ups.
I went into SoR4 with LOW expectations. Right away I didn't like the art style and wasn't sure of the gameplay, but I have a deep love for this series in particular and I've always held the beat 'em up genre as one that I'd really like to see return in full force.
I have gripes with SoR4 and in the grand scheme of things I don't think it's as good as SoR2/SoR3 because they followed too much of an SoR2 blueprint but made a game that would have made more sense with an SoR3 gameplay direction. The art style is not as bad as I thought and I kind of have grown to like it, I'd still vastly prefer the old sprites/look but the most important thing is SoR4 does a great job of telling you which enemy is which and you'll never get confused in the middle of a brawl. It's one of those unseen strengths SoR as a whole always had that a lot of follow-up brawlers don't consider too much.
But if SoR2/3 are excellent games then SoR4 is a borderline great game. This isn't some horrible atrocity like I was anticipating and I'm happy as a fan to say that regardless of how you rank the games, SoR is still a series that has never had a rotten apple in it.
As for anime shit, the Y Twins are the most obvious examples of it but there's some minor stuff too. One thing that threw me off is how Axel doesn't sound much like you're used to or would expect, and Blaze in particular has a very high anime girl voice which is jarring as shit since you'd expect a more sultry tone to be in line with how she's supposed to be like 30 years old now.
SJW shit, the only real stand out is Estel which is a boss that looks like a total dyke and turns into a good guy by the end of the game if you follow the story but every time you encounter her you'll be smashing her face in. I can't think of any other overt examples and they keep faithful to designs like Nora from SoR1 and there's no dumb agenda pushing. Even with Estel she's just a hardass cop and doesn't go into any preachy rants.
I'd say to buy this if you really love SoR and want what is in my eyes a really fun beat 'em up. I can say also that my first playthrough was around 2 hours but all follow ups have been half that so it maintains that proper length where it's not too short to blow through but it's not so long each time you replay you zone out halfway. It also has online co-op and up to four players if you play locally if that's any deal breaker.
But, if you're happy with playing Remake then I don't think there's enough here to justify a buy. You won't lose out on anything if you skip this and keep to Remake unless you have a fetish for bouncing enemies around and amassing big combo scores.
So... the GOOD CODEXIAN in me says to wait for a sale if you're on the fence about it and that if you have access to SoRR you're truly not missing something unforgettable.
But... the SOR FANBOY in me says to buy it so this series doesn't go dead for 30 years again and encourage more 2D beat 'em ups to be made.