On May 10, french Twitch channelGwakheld a live stream interview with developers of Guard Crush, the studio behindStreets of Rage 4alongside Lizardcube and Dotemu. During the stream,Streets of Rage 4Game Designer Jordi Asensio most notably mentioned how at some point in development, he wished to put Joe Musashi fromShinobiin the game, but Sega Japan turned down the idea.(Shoutout to Saiyapi for clipping that part).
Throughout the interview, the developers of Guard Crush explained how Sega is a huge company made of multiple smaller entities, and how they were only in contact with a small division of Sega Japan duringSoR 4’s development. Asensio explained how he wished to include certain Sega characters likeShinobiinStreets of Rage 4, but it all depends on who the character is related to inside Sega, and a lot of other things, so it’s far from being a simple matter.
Just as I quickly explained in my feature covering the release ofShinobion Sega Ages Switch,Joe Musashi andShinobiis one of Sega’s most iconic franchises, which is currently dormant. GettingShinobias a playable character inStreets of Rage 4would have definitely been a cool fanservice moment.
The interview featured Jordi Asensio,Streets of Rage 4programmer Cyrille Lagarigue, andStreets of Rage 4composer Olivier Deriviere, who handled nearly all the stage BGMs. The trio shared many anecdotes onBare Knuckle 4’s development, and answered multiple questions regarding the game’s music and gameplay. We’ll be publishing a translated summary of the whole interview shortly. Like Ulala would say, stay tuned.
Streets of Rage 4is available on PC, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.Be sure to check out our review. I personally didn’t get to try the game yet, but I see no reason why I wouldn’t find it incredibly fun and satisfying seeing the combo-focus andSoR 2based gameplay.
