Dotemu is pretty much the king of the beat 'em up hill nowadays. The French publisher has released two of the most beloved beat 'em ups of all time in recent years: TMNT: Shredder's Revenge and Streets of Rage 4. Both games have received numerous updates since their launches, with a new update for Streets of Rage 4 arriving within the last week. This patch consists of mostly balance adjustments for numerous characters and enemies, but it also adds co-op moves and custom options for Survival Mode.
Patch notes:
Stages:
- Added some destroyables to help to maintain the combo counter
Combo counter:
- Added a half second to disappear
- Stage transitions have a bonus time to not break the combo counter
Added Custom Survival Mode:
- Players can tweak his/her survival experience with a variety of options.
Mania :
- Added Cursed arcades in Mania difficulty.
- Added special reinforcements during boss battles.
- Added One life.
- The score to get an extra life is higher in the arcade mode.
Added co-op attacks:
- Hold 'Pick up' and grab your partner to throw him.
- Airborne player can press a special button to perform a unique attack.
Head to Steam for the full list of changes.
Trying out the game post-update, we were able to successfully perform co-op move on the ground. Basically, while standing next to a partner, you hold the grab button (B on Xbox) for an annoyingly long time and then press the D-Pad or stick towards the partner to throw him or her at enemies. It's a cool move when it works, but the move needs to be easier to perform consistently. Meanwhile, we couldn't do the aerial co-op move at all; the changelog certainly doesn't describe it clearly.
As for the custom options in Survival Mode, players must own the Mr. X Nightmare DLC to access it. If the custom options have been unlocked, players will see the Custom Sim option on the main Survival Mode menu. From there, numerous options can be tweaked, just like the custom arcade options in Shredder's Revenge. The only catch is that Custom Sim is not unlocked by default. How do you unlock it? The game doesn't say. Presumably, gamers will unlock it by getting far enough in Survival.
Streets of Rage 4 is a beat 'em up from Dotemu that supports 4-player local co-op and 2-player online co-op. The game is now available on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and Steam, where it sells for $24.99.