Bare Knuckle /Streets of Rage (Some info from Streets of Rage Online)
By Jeffrey Couto

Competion Drives Game Creation!

In the early 1990's with competition from Nintendo's new system, the Super Famicom, and its many exclusive game titles Sega of Japan found itself in a difficult position. No longer did they have the newest and most advanced system on the market, but now some of Japan's most acclaimed game companies were beginning to make games exclusively for Nintendo's new machine.

In order to compete Sega was forced to create several new games internally that would be exclusive to their system and would be able to stand up to their competitor's newest products. Amongst these properties Sega created was Bare Knuckle, a side-scrolling beat-em-up game which would go on to become the company's answer to Capcom's arcade port of Final Fight for the Super Famicom system and one of the Mega Drive's most respected franchises.

The Story

Bare Knuckle 1 >
A vicious criminal syndicate has taken over the city, including its government and police force. In order to restore peace to the city three police officers decide to take on the criminal syndicate and their mysterious boss, Mr.X.

Bare Knuckle 2 >
It's been a year since Adam, Axel and Blaze saved the city from the criminal syndicate and Mr.X, however not all is as it seems. After 1 year the syndicate resurfaces and kidnaps Adam forcing our heroes to once again rise against Mr.X in order to save their city and their friend. This time the fight would be joined by Axel's friend Max and Adam's brother Skate.

Bare Knuckle 3 >
The syndicate is back and it has replaced top city leaders with robot duplicates! It's now up to Axel, Blaze, Skate and Dr.Zan to once more save the city from the evil forces of Mr.X.

A Success!

After its initial release Bare Knuckle quickly became a popular game with game fans, due to its mix of fun gameplay, a two-player mode and some great music composed by Yuzo Koshiro. After the success of the game Sega began to work on its sequel, which would go on to become the most popular entry in the series.

Bare Knuckle 2 kept most of what made the original game so popular with fans while also addressing the single biggest complaint against it, the in-game graphics, which were considered average for the Sega Mega Drive. The new game had much larger graphics than its predecessor (thanks in part to the new 16-meg cart), expanded character selections (up to 4 from 3 in the Bare Knuckle), more moves per character, larger number of enemy forces.

Unfortunately by the time Bare Knuckle 3 was released (1994), side-scrolling beat-em up's were no longer a popular genre with game players, who were now more interested in the more complex one-on-one fighting games like Street Fighter II. Despite the fact that game featured better graphics and a larger number of moves, characters and stages it was not received well by fans who thought that it didn't bring anything new or worthwhile to the table.

Hard Times on the Streets of Rage

After the final 16-bit installment of Bare Knuckle was released by Sega, speculation started to mount that they would rework the franchise for their new video game platform, the Sega Saturn as either a 2.5 D or 3-d game. An attempt was made to get the game Fighting Force (from outside development company Core Design) and convert it to a new Bare Knuckle, but this never went through. Another game, Die Hard Arcade, appears to have been an attempt at bring the franchise back through the arcades, thankfully this route was not taken.

In 1999 development work began on Bare Knuckle 4, which would eventually be released on Sega's latest system at that time, the Dreamcast. Despite its potential on the new console the idea for a new entry in the series was shot down after it was decided that a beat-em-up game would not sell well in an era when 3-D games are the norm. Thankfully this setback did not mean that a new Bare Knuckle would not eventually make it out into the game market.

The Fight Goes On!

It's a safe bet to say that at some point in the near future we will see our favorite Bare Knuckle heroes once again. Yuzo Koshiro has made it known that he intends to make a new game in the series and he has already done a lot of work on it, including character designs. Whereas the game will be in an all new 3-D format or stay closer to its origins as a 2-D game is yet to be seem, however let's hope that any new entries in the series will be as much fun as its predecessors and maybe (maybe) be good enough to bring this dying (dead?) genre back to the forefront of the video game industry.

For more info on this great game series stop by Streets of Rage Online

Jeffrey Couto