Street Warriors.
Well the story like in any beat em up is pritty simple sort of a comic book like storyline. It takes plays a few years after the events in the first game, once again the city is in peril as a cesspool of crime once again casts it's shadow when we discover crimelord Mister X is back and to make matters worse has kidnapped one of your teammates Adam from the first game. So now once again you reactivate your crimebuster team who must go on a dangerous mission to save both your friend and the city from evil.
So now lets get to the jist of things. The graphics supurb, I really love the detail in the enviorments. Music, is one of the best things about this game the beat of it is just catchy, it was so good that there are some remixs of them in existance today.
But the two best things about this game that make it really stand out are these things. The combat/combo system of the characters is flexable and more unique. There are four characters to choose from each have their strengths and weaknesses, personally I love playing as Axel he's my favorate character in the game since he's more balanced, sometimes on occasion Blaze my second favorate. Anyway all of them have a varity of moves to bust a lot of heads like sub supermoves there is a firey uppercut for Axel, but most notablely the supermoves like for Axel it's the fists of fire combo that's sort of similar to the rapid fire punch combo of the Kenshiro character in the anime/manga series "Fist of the North Star".
And for Blaze her sub super movie is sort of a hadoken like move and supermove is where she does a power flip power knive hand strike, these moves can do tons of damage to enimies when things get too hot or even bosses. However be careful because they will drain a bit of your energy so use them wisely as a last resort solution.
All of the enemies are colorful and unique and never in short supply, obsticles just as colorful like hitting inadimate objects to get items I find that aspect just a little funny sometimes since some consist of alien eggs or arcade machines (which have the real title of the franchise on them called "Bare Knuckle") how the heck anyone can destroy an arcade machine with one punch is anyones guess but okay I buy it. But you go though in each level into a lot of colorful enviorments that constantly change the more you progress, like an amusement park, the pirate ship and H.G. Giger haunted house, theres a baseball field which is actually a secret base, and plenty more which give this game a little unpredictability but most of all give it a fast pace due to the fact your not locked in one arena of battle too long.
I know what your thinking what's the catch well there is only one and it's a common one in most of this beat em up. My only real problem with this game is it's a bit short, despite how many levels there are depending on how skilled you are in this game you can get though this game rather quickly. When that happened I couldn't help but feel there should of been two may'be three more levels in the game I wouldn't of minded. But the same could be argued with a lot of other beat em ups the ride may be short but all the same it's a sweet ride.
It also make me miss this genere in video games that isn't really utilized all that much today, personally I really think they should bring this genere back and build on it once more for a new generation. And may'be even give this awdsome franchise a forth sequel probably with the old characters Axel, Blaze, and Adam along with two or three new characters I'm not sure who like may'be a ninja, I don't know you get where I'm going with this; or a revival of some kind I don't see why they can't.
Streets of Rage 2 is one of my favorate video game sequels ever that truely outdid it's predessor (at least until the 3 game), so if you feel like kicking some butt then this is the arena to do it in.