I’ve been revisiting this series a lot since SoR4 came out–an excellent entry worthy of the series.
SoR3/BK3 is definitely seen as the black sheep of the Genesis trilogy. The OST is way more experimental. The art direction is more industrial compared to the colorful prequels.
One of the most controversial elements with this game was the western localization, Streets of Rage 3. SEGA of America upped the difficulty, changed the character color palettes (why?!), removed a problematic character, and cut the story.
The difficulty was the most controversial change. The reason? The rental market. However, this ruins the balance IMO. The game is meant to replayed since it has multiple ending.
I played BK3 on the M2 excellent 360 collections last generation. And while SoR2 is my sentimental favorite, BK3 is really strong. The new battle mechanics such as dashing feel great. Zan is also an interesting addition. Along with extra hidden characters.
It’s still my least favorite of the series, but the series is so good that’s not a diss.
My rankings.
SoR2>SoR>SoR4>BK3>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>SoR3
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There were so many unfortunate changes in SoR3 right down to removing the amazing rambo-rippoff axel full screen animation, but the removal of the hard-gay type stereotype was the only justifiable cut, imo.
Besides the difficulty, I’m sure the other changes were just someone trying to put their own stamp on things and justify their job.
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Not all changes in SoR 3 made the game more difficult. They greatly decreased the health cost of doing crowd control attacks and dramatically increased the coverage and iframes of the roll (which is basically the only good change it did as the roll is kinda useless in BK3). It’s still not very fun to play to paly though.
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SoR3 was the only one I had as kid. I loved it though I could never beat it. Nowadays, I play BK3 pretty regularly but SoR3 is just not as fun.
This game is majorly underrated.
It’s underrated nature reminds me of people shitting on the genesis because they only played it for five minutes on horrible emulators.
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Is there something other than horrible emulators people play games on?
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I found Zan to be a bit boring to play as personally. I’ve not played BK3 though, only SOR3 back in the day. I wish they had a character like Max in there to play as. I found him so much fun to use and found the return of Skate to be a tad annoying.
I also didn’t like the music so much, but the sound effects were pretty good. Difficulty was a real turn off.
I don’t know why, but, Jap version is way faster than US version. Plus some plot twists in Bare Knuckle III makes game more menacing. Music in some stages are excellent, some not that great (SoR 3 & BK III)
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