My oldest Christmas memory is being six years old and getting up early at the wee hours of the morning trying to catch a glimpse of the old fat man himself. Creeping down my parents’ stairs, I was delighted to see a Sega Genesis sitting under the tree with a huge bow on it. While I had a hand-me-down NES my uncle had given me previously, the advertisements of the graphical improvements made my tiny mind say “I need this” and I was overjoyed. The system came with 2 games, Sonic the Hedgehog and Streets of Rage; the latter being one of my favorite games of all time. To this day, I will boot it up from time to time with my son for a quick playthrough. This title spawned a generation of knockoffs and imitations that have been hit or miss, with very few reaching the same level of quality. The recently released Raging Justice is the first to come even close to sparking the nostalgic feelings I hold for the original.

Raging Justice tells a similar story of a city overrun with crime and three heroes that set off to take down the criminal element. The story is just as campy as the games that inspired the title with laughable dialogue and an endless number of dimwitted criminals to pummel. Spanning a respectable nine levels, the game can be finished in under 2 hours with 2 different endings depending on where you fall within the Good Cop/Bad Cop rating (we’ll get to this later), which means it never overstays it’s welcome. Each level culminates with at least one boss battle per the standard for this long forgotten genre.

The heroes you’ll play as are varied and clearly modeled after Axel/Adam, Blaze, and Skate, each with their own pros and cons – a well-rounded character, a quicker fighter with less damage to compensate, as well as the small guy who is super quick but requires many more hits to dispatch the criminals. Each fighter has a fair number of attacks: punches, kicks, dash attacks, throws, a grab move, jump attacks, and a super move that can be used to clear huge areas of enemies. These work well and provide enough variety to keep the action from getting stale; the only downfall is the special move requires a fair chunk of your health to use.

It wouldn’t be a true beat-‘em-up without random weapons being dropped to assist you, and they drop quite often, almost in comical amounts at times. You’ll find a huge range of weapons dropped at random, as well as the occasional vehicle that can be used to dispatch huge waves of enemies with ease. The only downside to these is many can only be used a single time, breaking upon use, but this will vary depending on the item.

The biggest change to the standard formula this genre is known for is the Good Cop/Bad Cop system as well as level specific challenges, such as not dying, reaching a high score, collecting a certain number of pick-ups, or dispatching enemies in a certain way. Each level will feature a number of enemies that will flash red or just simply be stunned after taking a set amount of damage. Once stunned, you can press the grab button to arrest the criminal, earning Good Cop points and resulting in an extra life or health being dropped. On the opposite end, you can earn Bad Cop points by using a weapon on the offending enemy. This system doesn’t work as well in action, as a number of the highlighted enemies will fall prior to being stunned, no matter how careful you are. The enemies’ attacks are prone to friendly fire which can also result in a failed arrest or even stopping the motion resulting in a resisted arrest. You can replay each level, with the game saving your best run for each level on each available difficulty if you wish to try for a perfect game; however, this doesn’t make up for when the game robs you of your action resulting in you needing to restart the level entirely.

I found the presentation to be outstanding with the game’s old school meets new school vibe, with highly detailed characters that reminded me of a more fluid style of the more obscure ClayFighter. Each level or character has clear nods to previous brawlers from yesteryear, which makes this seem as if Sega themselves finally released a follow up to their long dormant series.

The game can be played in couch co-op with an additional player, but not having a third player or offering online gameplay is a bit of a missed opportunity. Additionally, the title gives the players a bank of continues that can be used, which are shared between the 2 players. This can prove to be a bit of an issue if you’re playing with a youngster or someone who isn’t as skilled despite the title being overly accessible. While I did not find the default difficulty to be overly challenging, the easy setting proved to be a bit much for my son, resulting in us needing to start the game over once he used our entire bank of continues by the game’s climax. I give the developers kudos for allowing the player to turn off friendly fire, as it’s easy to lose your characters among the chaos, or if you have a partner like my son, who thinks it’s hilarious to punch your partner in the face anytime the opportunity arises. If you wish to duke it out with your child, sibling, or friend, a duel mode is also offered, which neither takes away nor adds to the title.

Since Sega will likely never return to the Streets of Rage franchise, this is probably the closest we’ll ever get to a true sequel. While it has its imperfections, there is a lot to enjoy with the title at a low cost of admission. I strongly recommend purchasing Raging Justice on your platform of choice.

9 out of 10

Pros

• Amazing Presentation
• Accessible Gameplay
• Loads of Replay Value

Cons

• The Good Cop/Bad Cop Mechanic Slightly Unpolished
• Shared Continues in Co-op
• Lacking Online Play

Raging Justice was developed by MakinGames and published by Team17 Digital Ltd. It launched on May 8th, 2018 for X1, PS4, Switch, and PC for $14.99. The game was not provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of Raging Justice, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

 

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