Streets of Rage 2 Classic

Ignore the old and outdated reviews. You can now save your games and the game is even better than before! It’s an absolute blast from start to finish, capturing the perfect balance of nostalgia and timeless gameplay. Whether you’re a veteran of the series or new to side-scrolling beat-’em-ups, this game is pure fun with its colorful environments, dynamic soundtrack, and satisfying combat mechanics. The addition of unique moves and special attacks for each character—Axel, Blaze, Max, and Skate—gives every playthrough a fresh feel, especially when teaming up with a friend in co-op mode. The enemy variety and cleverly designed boss fights keep you engaged as you punch, kick, and suplex your way through the gritty streets. From its tight controls to its vibrant graphics, Streets of Rage 2 is a masterclass in arcade-style action that remains endlessly enjoyable, even decades later.

These Sega Forever games are fairly well-executed emulations of the Genesis/MegaDrive originals. If you’ve got a controller and a yen to play some Streets of Rage 2, this will do fine. That said, if you decide to invest the dollar or whatever to remove ads from the app, be advised that the cloud save function (and therefore ALL save states, as there are no offline saves) has been broken in the transition to iOS/iPadOS 15. According to the correspondence I’ve received from Sega as part of the bug report I submitted in regards to this issue, they are aware of the issue and are investigating the cause, but a timeframe for a fix has not been made available. If you are okay doing without save states (remember, most of the games under the Sega Forever banner didn’t have save functionality in their original releases at all!), there’s nothing else wrong with this release of SoR2. It’s a classic, and I’ll love it until I’m dead. Even that might not stop me playing it.