It’s time to hit the streets – 3D Streets of Rage II is out now on the Nintendo eShop.
Getting hold of classic games used to be a monstrous pain in the ass, not to mention somewhere on the dubious side of legal. For the PC it can be relatively straightforward – the platform has stayed somewhat constant for 20+ years – but for old consoles and arcade systems? You needed to emulate.
Thankfully Nintendo’s eShop is doing a cracking job of doing the emulating for us, bringing a load of Virtual Console classics onto the Wii U and 3DS.
SEGA, Nintendo’s arch-nemesis who are sadly without a console business now and have been relegated to mere developer and publisher, have taken full advantage of the retro marketplace Nintendo are fronting, and we’ve seen a number of great titles including 3D Out Run, 3D Thunder Blade and a vast array of Sonic the Hedgehog titles.
Today it just got really special. Today, 3D Streets of Rage II was released for the Nintendo 3DS.
A stereoscopic 3D retooling of the SEGA Mega Drive classic – which criminally, didn’t make our list of top-ten side scrolling fighting games from a while back – 3D Streets of Rage II looks everything it should. It’s got the same great cast of characters that genuinely have different play styles and not just different sprites, the cut-above-the-rest presentation of the Streets of Rage series, and the same epic action.
Plus, you can play co-cooperatively with a friend just like you did in the good old days; I always used to play as Max, and my best friend played as Skate, the perfect combination of speed and brawn. I think we’re going to be spending some time revisiting 3D Streets of Rage II the next time we get together.
