Video Game / Streets of Rage 3

Streets of Rage 3 is a 1994 beat 'em up developed and published by Sega. It's the third game in the Streets of Rage series and was the final installment for the Sega Genesis.

It has different stories depending on which regional version you play. In the Japanese version, the city (now known as Wood Oak City) suffers a cataclysmic event when a bomb using Rakushin element is dropped and kills dozens of thousands; the heroes are contacted by Dr. Zan, who claims to have invented said weapon and asks help to prevent further tragedy. In the English version, the heroes obtain information about a plan to replace government officials with robotic doubles, with Dr. Zan being the whistleblower. In both, they discover Mr. X is behind it and go after him to stop his reign of terror once and for all.

This work contains examples of:

• Actually a Doombot: The "Mr. X" you fight in stage 5. In a way, the "Axel" you fight in stage 3 as well, though he's more like a Robot Me Evil Twin.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: In the third game's third stage, one segment has you running away from a bulldozer driven by a Donovan, trying to balance breaking through concrete walls and knocking the 'dozer back. At the end of the stage, you walk past a steel beam and the Donovan drives into it, causing a steel barrel to fall from the ceiling and knock him out.
• The Beastmaster: Danch/Bruce, albeit of the abusive ringleader variety. Defeating him before defeating his Boxing Kangaroo Victy/Roo causes the grateful animal to flee immediately and unlocks it as a playable character.
• Blackout Basement: The Disco level, largely due to the blinking lights since you're in a rave club.
• Bowdlerise:
  • The storyline of Bare Knuckle 3 involved a convoluted plot of a powerful thermonuclear material called Rakushin,^note The term was first translated as such in the Fan Translation of Bare Knuckle III and subsequently canonized in official English scripts by Floyd and Dr. Zan's in-game profiles in Streets of Rage 4. In the lengthy real-life gap between the third and fourth game though, it was translated as "Raxine" by Bandai Namco Entertainment in Project × Zone 2., fear of nuclear war between America and the fictional country of Lima, and the disappearance of a respected General Ivan Petrov, who has been replaced by a robot duplicate designed by Mr. X to instigate said war.
  • Streets of Rage 3's storyline changes the game slightly to remove the intro featuring Wood Oak City being nuked by a Rakushin bomb, changed the General to the Chief of Police, and removed the nuclear war storyline in favor of putting a corrupt impersonator and robotic copies of the city officials to further Mr. X's plan to weaken the city's law enforcement, as well as many dialogue changes, resulting in some dialogue making little to no sense.^note For example; in Round 1, Zan instructs the heroes to interrogate Syndicate mooks (which they fail by virtue of beating them all up), where in the original, Zan simply gave them the heads up that they'll be in for a fight. And the most egregious is in the alternate Round 6 where the Chief of Police is said to be a robotic impostor (when it's actually the flesh and blood Shiva in disguise) In addition, the dominatrices wore jackets, Blaze, Axel, and Skate swapped colors so Blaze wouldn't wear red (despite wearing red in previous games), and Macho Camp Ash was cut (he still existed in the game's code, but you had to use a game enhancer to use him). Oh, and they did a paper thin job of disguising the White House as a generic City Hall. Also, the Bad Ending to stage 6 isn't as subtle in the Japanese version.
  • Strangely inverted for the bad ending caused by timing out the Final Boss: In the Japanese version, even though the bombs were set off and caused catastrophic damage, the citizens at least are glad the conflict are over and forgive the heroes, and it is noted that in time, the damage can simply be repaired and the failure forgotten. In the overseas versions, the damage is on a smaller scale, but the citizens are extremely angry at the heroes for failing and it's noted that it will take a long time for the citizens' trust in the police to be restored.
  • The version of Bare Knuckle 3 in Sega Genesis Mini 2 was further censored to completely remove Ash's stage. As such when the player exits the warehouse, they're sent straight to the stage after Ash's boss fight.
• Boxing Kangaroo: Victy/Roo, having been trained and being under the control of Danch/Bruce whom he sics on you. You can either take out Victy/Roo in their fight or focus on his owner which will free him from his control and give you another playable character to boot.
• Brain in a Jar: The fate that had befell Mr. X after the events of 2 and his overall appearance during the Final Boss battle of this game.
• Camp Gay: Ash, a hairy guy with a Porn Stache wearing part of a cop outfit and stockings. He was taken out in the American verison.
• Canon Discontinuity: The entire storyline in 3 was retconned by none other than Streets of Rage 4, which clearly references Bare Knuckle 3's storyline instead.
• Classic Cheat Code: In addition to the unlockable characters, every normally available playable character except Blaze has an overpowered "super" version that's unlocked with either a code or via Violation of Common Sense: for Axel, you need to spin the control pad repeatedly after selecting him until the first level intro cutscene ends, for Zan, you need to hold down C on both controllers and for Skate, you just need to stand there without pressing any buttons until you lose a life. This replaces Zan's and Skate's basic combo with a massively damaging Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs attack while Axel's default special attack becomes a massively powerful Spin Attack that knocks down all the enemies on the screen after it finishes. Axel also has 2 additional super modes in the Japanese version of the game which are accessed by losing all his lives and inputting a specific name in the high score table, with one of them giving him an unique combo chain similar to the other super characters and another one of them replacing his double kick attack with a rapid kick combo.
• Collapsing Lair: When Mr. X's Robot Y is defeated in Hard Mode for SOR3 (good or bad ending), the last thing Mr. X does before dying (his preservation vial was broken, exposing his disembodied brain) is to set off a Self-Destruct Mechanism to trap Axel, Blaze, Skate, and Zan in the hopes of taking them with him in death.
  Mr. X: (Japanese Good Ending) You... won't... escape... alive!
  Mr. X: (English Good Ending) Well if I die, you die. Goodbye.
• Corridor Cubbyhole Run: The mine level. You have to make your way though it all the while some mine carts will come thundering by. You can tell when they're coming when one of the rails start vibrating, giving you time to get out of the way.
• Cute Kitten: One pops out of the trash cans in the last section of the first stage.
• Cyborg: Due to an accident while working on the Rakushin, Dr. Zan's body from neck to toe had become cybernetic.
• Darker and Edgier: Aside of having a heavier soundtrack and grittier graphics, SOR3 is also more serious story-wise, and the Syndicate has been upgraded from merely organized criminals that rule the city to a downright arms dealing terrorist group. It is also the only game in the series with a secondary character (Police Chief) dying on-screen (as opposed to disappearing bodies), and one of the darkest of possible endings in the series.
• Dead All Along: In a way. See Brain in a Jar above.
• Difficulty by Region: The Japanese version's Normal is the North American version's Easy, Japanese Hard is North American Normal, and Japanese Very Hard is North American Hard. Also, in the NA version, enemies inflict more damage on higher difficulties, which does not happen in the Japanese version. On the flip side, performing special attacks in Streets of Rage 3 costs much less energy than in Bare Knuckle, and the sidestep actually works properly. Astute players eventually start thinking of their lifebar as offensive power.
• Doppelgänger Attack: Yamato in the 4th level, attacking you with duplicates of himself.
• Fastball Special: Big Bens can pick up Galsias and throw them at you, and Galsias have learned to do elbowdrops in this game. You can do this using your own allies, and can be useful with the throw recovery move.
• Gainax Ending: The easy and bad endings of 3, which show Mr. X in his human form breaking a glass of wine, make sense at first (well, you didn't manage to catch up Mr. X in private after all!), but when you get to the end of stage 7 on a harder difficulty setting and when you fail to save the hostage at level six... Fridge Logic ensues.
• Girly Run: Ash has one while sprinting.
• A Glass of Chianti: The final scene of one of 3's bad endings is Mr X watching Shiva get defeated with a wine glass in hand, which he promptly crushes out of anger.
• Guide Dang It!: In one section stage 3, you have to outrun a bulldozer and smash walls before it can hit you. Normally tough as nails to clear without special attack spam, but you can make it much easier by hitting the dozer to knock it back...something the game doesn't exactly make clear at any point. Doubly so in the American version, where it needs to be hit multiple times to knock back, so it's harder to find out by accident.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner: The Stage 4 boss Yamato uses this as his close-range attack.
• Importation Expansion: The Golden Ending of Streets of Rage 3 is expanded upon in the English language localization, stating explicitly that Dr. Dahm turned state's evidence and was committed, Dr. Zan was exonerated, and the crew went their separate ways. The Japanese version only says that the incident was quickly forgotten.
• Imposter Forgot One Detail: Robot Axel is distinguishable from the real deal by wearing the wrong color gloves (purple in the American Version, blue in the Japanese). The Japanese version also has the fairly obvious tell of having an entirely different name.
• Medium Awareness: In the Japanese version, in a rare bit of humor, if either Axel or Skate defeat Roo in a match in Battle Mode, both of them have a potential win quote pointing out their refusal to lose against a "hidden character.''
• The Men in Black: The hitmen wearing suits and sunglasses and wielding guns.
• Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: In stage 3 of SOR3, there are several pits that you and enemies can fall into. If you fall in, you simply respawn with a lot of health lost, unless the damage was enough to outright kill you. Averted with enemies; if one falls in, they die instantly, even if they have multiple life bars!
• Non-Lethal K.O.: Ash in the Japanese version is sent reeling and crying when all of his energy is gone instead of dying. The Japanese version of the same game also has this in VS mode where both players can beat the snot out of each other, yet both characters are shown having a win and lose quote at the end of the fight, showing it wasn't a fight to the death.
• Pyrrhic Victory: This type of ending occur if you fail to stop Neo X/Robot Y within the time limit. Sure, you defeated Mr. X for good, but his bombs leveled the entire city and the civilians' trust in the police force has been broken (Again this was only in the American version, the Japanese one have the citizen being more lenient on them).
• Robot Me: Axel and Mr. X get one in 3.
• Samurai Shinobi: The Stage 4 boss, Yamato, wears samurai armour and utilises Iaijutsu with a large No-Dachi, but he also throws shuriken, turns invisible and can split into multiple clones.
• Say My Name: In the Japanese version, if the player fails to save General Ivan Petrov in Stage 6 (or the Chief of Police, though this is averted in the North American version): "IVAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!"
• Scenery Gorn: Happens In the bad ending of the Japanese version. All the more reason for trying not to screw up.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: The opening sequence has Axel punching the screen.
• Taking You with Me: At the end if the final fight with Mr. X, whether you beat him in time or not, he intends to take the heroes with him when he dies by locking all the doors of the base down. Fortunately, Adam rescues them just in time.
• Unstable Equilibrium: The star system. Survive well and you'll rack up the points needed to get stars. Die frequently, and you'll never see them, or lose them all and never get them back if you had them. In fact, especially on the harder North American version, it is entirely possible to have a lot of experience with the game, but never even hear of the star system.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: While the Japanese Golden Ending of 3 is a simple one-page statement saying that, essentially, it was all over and quickly forgotten; the English text turns it into a long crawl explaining what happened to the characters afterward.