The best Genesis game ever!! And still one of my favourites. =)
I still remember those unlimited afternoons on my or my friends' living rooms, hours and hours playing SOR, alternating between seeing the good or the bad ending... and just waiting until the elevator level came up, so we could throw the enemies out of the level... and saving the police-aid for the perfect moment.. =')
Streets of Rage was maybe the first game I ever played on Genesis (I can't be sure of course..), and it's still my favourite, along with the sonic series and Revenge of Shinobi. =)
It as a really nice story (nicely presented on the opening scene, along with a beautiful and contagious song), an easy and perfect game-play - consisting in beating up anything that moves (including your partner sometimes =P), nice sound and background music, well-adjusted longevity (8 levels) and two different endings.
Personally, I think it's the best off the SOR series, because of its originality (the others didn't touch me much, expect for the "Skate" character included on them.. It's my favourite character, so I think that if this game has a flaw, it's just the fact of the directors don't imagining "Skate" soon enough so he could appear on the first Streets Of Rage.
Anyway, this game brings me great memories of my youth, so I still play it sometimes (I even got it on my mobile phone, with the support of PicoDrive - an genesis emulator designed for mobile devices). I recommend this game to anyone that has a working genesis device, or if you don't, try it out as a rom, you'll love it!! =)