Really I was thinking that for me to really be interested in this game the fighting system would indeed have to have the depth of God Hand or the rhythmic flow of action like in Arkham games. Never got around to Oni, which really is a shame since it was so much more interesting looking than Bungee's "other" series. At this point I basically agree, though. They've gone back on making SoR4 so many times that if they really want to try again they should just forget 3D altogether and make it a Genesis/MD retro revival game. 2D sprite action with soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro. Just a grind job for good sprite art and a basic working fighting system. Call it a day and instant classic.
What's with all the hate for Golden Axe: Beast Rider? That game was pretty fuckin' good when I played it, I enjoyed it, decent hack n' slash game, played similar to the original really. Admittedly riding the so called "beasts" could be a bit clunky at times, but it was in the original games too. Really don't think it was such a bad game as people are saying.
I don't approve what I saw. It's too grim-dark, not like SOR. That music did not turn me on to the game either. Back to the drawing board. Again.
The level art wasn't *too* bad, but WAAAY too dark (SoR always managed to present you with night time scenes with bright colour), the character design was not to my taste (black tattooed jack? Nah), but what really makes me dismiss it is the gameplay. Not SoR in any way. No specials, no vaulting, no proper throws. Whoever goes by the name "Sega" on Eurogamer (one of you guys?) is so in tune with my point of view on the whole thing, I'm just going to copy and paste him, because I can't put it better myself: "Argh once again another misses the point - you have to retain the gameplay. Streets of Rage (and with other 3D remakes like Final Fight and Turtles in Time) never played with an 8-way attack system. You're still within a 2D plane where you can only attack left and right and that's important to how it plays. A lot of the gameplay is the strategy of throwing opponents into each other and precise punches that don't work when you can attack / be attacked diagonally. Doing it this way will just give you another Final Fight Streetwise. It's why Street Fighter 4 works so well. Nice new update but the good old tried and tested gameplay. Stick to the original gameplay and you'll be on to a winner but if not then it's simply not Streets of Rage. " Essentially What Ruffian did here is akin to taking Street Fighter and turning it into a Tekken clone. Wrong gameplay for the wrong game. I know it's a pitch and only 8 weeks work, but when you've started going completely the wrong direction with the game right from the start, it doesn't bode well.
It's very difficult to retain that sort of gameplay when you start going into 3D, because unlike Street Fighter, Streets of Rage isn't strictly played on a 2D plane - it's a pseudo-3D affair with strange camera perspectives and arguably weird hitboxes. But for whatever reason... it just sort-of "works". My feeling is that fantastic 2D artists and animators are a rare commodity, and so stuff is built as 3D models, which inevitably end up becoming part of 3D games. And I'm equally not convinvecd the genre has made the transition to 3D - look at all the generic "action" games out there for kids. Better to assume the Dynamite Deka series (Die Hard Arcade, Dynamite Cop) is a spiritual successor instead. Police beating up bad guys - it's not too far from the original aims of Streets of Rage.
Me and my sister have beaten SOR2 countless times, and this nearly brought a tear to my eye. Not for a second would I have imagined that a 3D Streets of Rage could work, but I have been proven wrong. I'm heartbroken to see that it didn't turn into something greater than just a concept video.
What I wanna know is why people insist on creating everything in 3D? Why? Is it some sort of novelty thing where people think it will sell a game? At the end of the day, Streets of Rage is a 2D arcade-style game, it is defined by its mechanics in 2D. 2D is not defined just as a graphical choice, but fundamentally how these types of games work. Whilst it is probably a fun and challenging (and I would imagine, also rewarding) experience to make a Streets of Rage game work in 3D, it is obviously something which is not a good idea, given that the game has been rebooted several times over a good 15 years. Also, with changing the game to 3D, it's inevitable that you're gonna be changing the gameplay style, because the camera will not work in the same way- the hit detection will change and well, what else is there to the mechanics of how Streets of Rage works? 2D is still a legitimate style, and I'm not sure why all these game companies want to take something old and awesome and punch it in to 3D. It worked with Mario, yeah, but Sonic only clings on by the skin of his teeth and lots of other games over the years have come and gone because of it too. Just because it's possible does not mean it is a good idea, and maybe these people are finally starting to learn that by losing valuable time and cash on these bum projects.
Its possible to translate the game's mechanics in a 3D environment. Most 3D fighting games fail at either lack of combos, multiplayer of even jump(yeah...). The Rage did pretty well imo. SoR 4 should take ideas from there.
I pretty much stand by this comment. Changing everything into a 3D game doesn't mean it will be awesome. I still think it would be neat for a 2D perspective with 3D assets involved. 1 Thing that really got to me (aside from it seeming too dark as people have said and the music which ... was there any?) is the fact that when the character came out and started to kick ass a little it seemed to be less of a streets of rage game and more of an unarmed Dynasty Warriors game, seeing the other enemies just standing around twiddling thumbs while you kick the shit into their mate seems a little retarded and it loses some of it's suspense by doing that. By which I mean in SOR in the way that you had the occasional guy hiding in a garage or down a hole that would either quickly appear or have a slight build up, I feel that this game would introduce the same mechanic by using an overly dramatic cutscene or a hold your hand style of play. Graphically, I think it looks far too moody and looks more like a very old tech demo for the Unreal engine, than a reboot of my beloved childhood franchise.
That and Sega would probably throw a takedown your way if your project did actually get off the ground. I still don't totally understand why they pulled the fanmade Streets of Rage Remake last year (even though it's still easily available in obvious places). Especially considering Sega have been mostly a-ok with the Sonic fangaming/hacking community basically since it began back in the '90s
It's a horrible double standard based on the profitability of both franchises.. Sonic has a huge fanbase, and Sega are regularly making new games every year that people happily buy. The fangame scene is a drop in the ocean, and doesn't harm the Sonic franchise's sales figures. Streets of Rage has a much smaller fanbase, and the only games in existence are SoR 1, 2 & 3 - So the only money Sega make off the SoR name is emulated re-releases, and Bomberlink took those 3 games, and combined and improved on them... I guess Sega saw as a threat to whatever re-releases they were planning at the time (For example, SoR 2 came out for iOS the week after SoRR's release).
I'm not so sure about that - the amount of Sonic fans that engage in 'IP violations' is pretty huge. If sega were to start taking down fangames, mods, hacks, fan-art, etc. they would have a PR nightmare on their hands, because lots of people would cry out about it - and loudly. The rest of your comment seems pretty much spot on though, regardless of how huge the sonic 'fan content' efforts are, they don't affect sales at all. In fact one could argue that the recent modding trend has even caused sega to gain sales (although not much), since you have to own the original game to use the new content.
Shortly after I clicked the topic, I was reminded of the whole SoR Remake ordeal... Dammit SEGA. As for the new game... I think it's pretty unanimous they aren't taking the right direction. Now if only we could somehow be heard.
We don't need to be heard, this was a game pitched by Ruffian Games that Sega didn't go with. Which means that either Sega thought it didn't look like it was headed in the right direction or that they aren't interested in a new Streets of Rage game at the moment. Also, at the moment if there'll be a new Streets of Rage game, it'll be a low budget downloadable title. I don't think Sega can afford taking chances with a big budget title for a niche audience.
I've just thought of a way to make SEGA and the fans happy. I think I should pitch it in an email to them and gain a percentage from their sales: Make a 2D style Streets of Rage but with 3D assets (like Generation's classic levels). When you pause the game, it then gives you the ability to control a floating free camera to look around the environment and zoom in and out. It lets you see the punches you've made make contact with the enemies, see the sweat pouring from Adam's forehead and look in to the windows of the shops behind and generally view character models and stop-frame animations, kinda like Theater mode in Call of Duty: http://youtu.be/MKbg5OxKZP0?t=3m59s Therefore, the game runs in 2D, but you get the 3D elements developers are obviously so desperate for. Also, it makes perfect sense- I often pause the game to get a still of the action in 2 player. Sometimes I do some really cool moved with Blaze which just look epic in a still. Yeah, I'm a saddo, bite me.
Just sayin'. Also, the other notable 3D beat-'em-up series, which criminally failed to get a home release until it was long past relevance, is Spikeout.
Part of the point of three dimensions in a videogame is that there are more possibilities to what you can do, what you are describing would only kinda look cool visually and cause a couple of fun Youtube videos of people messing around with it. For a lot of people it would also only be fun to mess around with for 10 minutes at most. Besides that, things like sweat pouring from Adam's forehead and the inside of the shops would probably look like crap from close-by. Especially if the game would be 60fps.
Well what I was suggesting would be that the series does not need 3D gameplay, but if they are obviously so desperate to show 3D off then they could add that feature just for the fun of it. Seriously though, why is anyone interested in a 3D Streets of Rage? For the novelty? Then the problems are solved with my suggestion whislt retaining the same style from the old games.
From the way y'all are talking it sounds like you don't think a proper beat em up can be made in 3D. I think it has well been proven by now that is not the case. To be clear I liked the way this early footage looked. The fighting system didn't look polished but it did look like it had potential. My biggest worry is that it would do nothing to advance 3D beat em ups and just be a kind of so-so title, as it didn't look like anything special to play in that early stage. That said, that video had MAJOR style points. If they had polished up the fighting a lot it could have been something special. That said, yeah I think games and gamers are at the point where anything that hasn't already made the "transition" to 3D we've all been looking at from the late 90s til now-ish it really doesn't have to. 3D games are no longer an innovation. The next graphical frontier is essentially scaling the uncanny valley, and I'm not sure how much games themselves will benefit from that. It's totally okay to go back to putting quality effort into 2D games now, because developers have nothing to prove when it comes to graphics. Anyone who thinks they do is just buying into some hype or another.
