Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X Nightmare PlayStation 4 Review

Streets of Rage 4 quenched the thirst of those gamers in need of classic beat ’em up action, and it did so with a blast. Now, DotEmu and company graced their players with Mr. X Nightmare, the first DLC for Streets of Rage 4, and it is just as good as the main game. If you played Streets of Rage 4 and ended up longing for more, keep on reading.

Mr. X Nightmare is a DLC that will bring some freshness to the base game and a lot of replayability thanks to the procedural way of making challenges. In summary, this game offers three new playable characters, a new survival mode with weekly challenges, character customization to create your fighting style with new moves, and new weapons and enemies. Let us dive in and explain each point.

But first, some context. Why is it called Mr. X Nightmare? Well, after the battle against Mr. Y and Ms. Y, Mr. X's Children, Axel, Blaze, Adam, Cherry, and Floyd, return to the base to start a training session with the help of Dr. Zan, who has created a simulator with remnants of Mr. X's brain to randomly generate scenarios, and enemies your heroes will face preparing for the next battle. Thus arises the Survival mode in Streets of Rage 4.

Who are the 3 new characters in the DLC? Estel Aguirre. Estel is a police officer who will join the other heroes of Streets of Rage 4 while being off duty. You could already see her as a tough boss to fight during the main game, but now you can use her powerful punches and spinning kicks to your advantage, which will cause a lot of damage to anyone who crosses her path.

Shiva. Shiva is another one of the bosses that you could fight in Streets of Rage 4, although he has been a recurring boss since Streets of Rage 2. Now, with him under your control, you can perform his martial arts combos, his very fast movements at lightning speed, or the special combos that will make him one of your favorite characters.

Max Thunder. Max is already an old acquaintance of the series and was a playable character in Streets of Rage 2, one of the most memorable installments of the franchise. Like Estel, he is a boss face in the main story, but in this DLC, you will also be able to fight with him and make use of the brutality of his movements and special techniques.

This new game, Survival mode, will challenge players and bring freshness to the title. In it, you will face endless enemies and you will be able to obtain benefits if you manage to survive both types of sessions: random, in which each confrontation will be unique thanks to the procedural generation that grants a practically infinite variety of scenarios, and weekly, similar to random but with weekly events to spice things up.

At the end of each course, you will be able to choose between two prizes. These prizes will be generated randomly from a wide range of unique and devastating abilities, such as toxic attacks making enemies drop a firebase when falling and extra defense, among many others.

Survival mode also allows you to unlock new movements that can be used in all modes of Streets of Rage 4. You can customize your characters with these new movements, so your list of movements can be tailored to your liking, even in the main game. As you advance, you will also encounter new and rather powerful weapons, such as an electric mace, an actual swordfish, and even a lightsaber which you can “Force throw”.

Once you complete the level, you can get everything that you have not taken, in addition to choosing the corresponding prize, so you do not have to stop and take everything that was dropped, and, of course, there is no backtracking. After all, a staple of the genre is the inability to go left once you’ve advanced right.

There is even a free update for this DLC, by which the developers wanted to thank and celebrate reaching the 2.5 million downloads mark. This update includes a new game mode, New Mania+, which presents a rather challenging experience for the most seasoned players.

Mr. X Nightmare is a must-play if you like Streets of Rage 4. Perhaps some extra new characters would be fine, but everything else in the DLC is definitely worth your time and your dime. If you think you are done with Streets of Rage 4, give Mr. X Nightmare a go, and you will soon find out that the procedurally generated challenges are somewhat of a new game.