Name: Streets of Rage 3

Genre: Side-scrolling beat-'em-up

Publisher: Sega

Review by Swift

I already had the first two Streets of Rage titles on my Virtual Console, and I had already had my mind set on getting the third no matter what, thereby owning the trilogy on my Wii. I'll be brutally honest; I did not regret buying this game. But it is a step back from the awesome Streets of Rage 2.

For one, what I liked about the Streets of Rage games before this one was that both of them had realistic storylines and realistic settings. This game changes all of that, by introducing robots into the story. Mr. X makes a return alright, but now it seems like he's become a generic villain resorting to robots instead of hired thugs like a realistic crime syndicate, which for me is a minor disappointment. There are also snippets of the storyline shown between each level, unlike the previous two titles.

The gameplay is still awesome though, still featuring you choosing one of four characters to play as. Blaze, Axel and Skate return and a new character named Dr. Zan is introduced. It plays like Streets of Rage very much – you go around beating up thugs, or what looks like thugs. In fact, it feels faster-paced and is probably a lot more challenging because of this. In fact, the game is certainly a lot more challenging than the first two Streets of Rage games, though I'm not complaining about the difficulty. It's not to the extent that it's frustrating. In fact, it makes me want to come back for more, to keep trying.

The annoying factor of this game is the censorship. The US version, which is the version we Europeans got, is littered with it. In the original Bare Knuckle 3, there were women who dressed in short skirts and attire that apparently was not deemed appropriate for audiences outside of Japan. The censorships in some cases on these women didn't look right. A minor boss with a guy controlling a boat was also cut out. But putting all that aside, the game's fine.

The graphics look pretty good, up to the standards of Streets of Rage 2 definitely. The music, however, unfortunately does not live up to the previous two titles. It's not bad, but it isn't as good or as memorable as the first two titles.

If you want the complete trilogy, this game isn't that bad. It's probably the second best Streets of Rage game, with the second one being the best. As I said in my review for the first Streets of Rage game, if you want one game in this series, the second one is the way to go. If you want all three, this one's pretty good and is challenging enough to keep you going for a good while.