Streets Of Rage 4 Review: 4 Ups & 3 Downs

Dotemu did everything in their power to recapture the spirit of the old games. Unfortunately, it also recaptured a key criticism the old trilogy received. Side-scrolling beat-em-ups like Golden Axe, Captain Commando, Double Dragon, and Final Fight have the player constantly defending themselves from every direction while goons descend upon them from every direction. If you take a breather for a second, it could spell your doom.

This sort of gameplay caused a lot of players to develop immense strain in their hands, especially in their right thumb. This was such a common problem with beat-em-ups until the millennium, it was nicknamed Nintendoitis or Playstation Thumb (which is ironic since this game was on a Sega console).

Because modern controllers don't rely on button-mashing, this problem seems like a distant memory. But it comes back full-swing in Streets of Rage 4.

After fighting a hundred goons one after the other, you'll probably have to pause from to time to time to stop your hand from cramping. This might be a real problem from younger players who never played the old games and thus, have never experienced this inconvenience.