Streets of Rage 3

Streets of Rage 3 is the third and last game in the Streets of Rage series. Despite offering many new play mechanics over the previous sequel (running attacks, special moves with weapon and even a charge gauge that allows players to perform special attacks without penalty), it was not as well received as Streets of Rage 2, mostly because the higher difficulty in the overseas versions led to the game being considered too hard for the wrong reasons.

The amount of unused content within the game may indicate that the game as a whole was pretty rushed.

Motorbiking Levels


Two unused motorbike stages exist in the game: one where you are on a bridge trying to get to the city hall while trying to avoid Donovan and co., and the second where you ride in the wasteland to get to Mr. X's base while avoiding a biker and his petrol bomb. Surprisingly enough, both of these levels take you to where you're meant to go, depending upon whether you let the general die or not, suggesting that these came after the battle with Jet.

Images of some of the unused stages, and of the actions of the enemies.

However, in Streets of Rage 3 the unused levels are completely unplayable. The pointers for the graphics and the palettes are corrupted. The Wastelands ends almost immediately, whilst the Bridge crashes the game when it ends. There's no slowdown problem in Streets of Rage 3 but, if you make the characters visible, the reason for this soon becomes apparent: the riding graphics are no longer being used. Instead, the normal graphics are being used, which looks very strange.

It is possible to restore the graphics by copying the relevant data from a Bare Knuckle III savestate. However, on closer inspection it appears that large parts of the data for the levels, such as the graphics and palettes, were deleted entirely during the conversion with other game data moved to fill the space (for example, the position where the palette for the Bridge level should be is filled with code that appears after the palette in the Japanese ROM). This certainly explains the graphics corruption, and also means that editing the ROM to play the levels correctly (like in Bare Knuckle III) would be quite complex.

The bugs where the Bridge crashes at the end of the level and the Wastelands ends as soon as it begins also appear to be due to this overwriting of data. If the graphics and other data are copied from a Bare Knuckle III savestate into a Streets of Rage 3 savestate, these bugs no longer occur.

Round 6 Hidden Areas
Round 6 is one of the most innovative stages in the game as, instead of moving from left to right beating up punks as in standard stages, you must move around the various floors and rooms of the Syndicate building to release the Chief of Police in time. As it turns out, there's more to Round 6 than you'd think!

Round 2 Barrier


Present in the graphics loaded into RAM during the first scene of this level. Although it is not present in the final version of the game, it's possible that earlier versions required you to dodge these barriers.

Motorbike Riding Sprites
The motorbike-riding sprites for Axel, Blaze, Sammy/Skate, and Zan are also in the ROM...except the pointers for loading the graphics were altered and the data in the levels wasn't updated, resulting in the game trying to load graphics no longer in that spot of the ROM, causing slowdown.

Early Zan
Zan actually went through a huge change during production, which can be seen in some prerelease shots. The following five frames are found in the Japanese ROM, uncompressed:



Still, for some reason, the second sprite from the left is actually used in the final. Frames of this earlier version of Zan are significantly different from what's usually shown. The early Zan is more muscular, anime-like, and has sprite shading similar to the style in Streets of Rage 2. His feet look more like boots, whereas the final Zan's look more like loafers.

The aforementioned used frame can be seen if the player does a frontal hold attack while holding forward. It's the move that knocks down the opponent. However, if the player pays close attention, it's clear that this frame looks out of place compared to the others in terms of design. His other early frames that go unused have more in common.

The first frame from the left is most likely the first frame of Zan's dashing animation, indicated by the little lines next to his feet. The third, fourth, and fifth frames appear to be part of the same animation, although it may not be a complete one. It may be a jumping attack of some sort or an air throw, which would suggest that he is the replacement for Max.

Unused Sammy Sprites


A couple of sprite frames seeming to relate to the same animation in the ROM. What these would have been used for is unknown.

Unused Final Zan Sprite


The final Zan also has an unused animation, which would have replaced the early Zan frame. It isn't used due to an oversight, but this animation can be seen with Game Genie code.

Bare Knuckle III Title Screen Animation


Bare Knuckle III actually has an animation for the title screen that isn't shown due to the fact that the game cycles quickly into the demos. It can be viewed with Pro Action Replay code.

Unused Sounds
There are a number of unused sound effects and voices hidden within the Bare Knuckle III ROM (which don't even appear on the ingame sound test), which can only be found by hacking the ROM using a hexeditor. Interestingly, one of them includes an unused version of Axel's famous "Grand Upper!" sound.













Regional Differences
Generally, the localization team at Sega of America did a lot of censorship.

Palette Changes
The character palette mappings were changed to "gender-neutral" colors.

Zan and the secret playable characters were the only ones to not get gender-neutral colors, perhaps because most perverted people wouldn't be turned on by an old man cyborg. A US prototype dumped by drx during his February 23, 2008 proto release shows that Axel still has his Bare Knuckle III colors but his portrait had already been altered to his gender-neutral colors and his voice effect was already altered as well.

The build after this one has him in his US colors with his palette remapped to different parts of his sprites like the final US version.

The boss Break, for example, not only had his name changed to Axel in the US, but his color palette was also altered as well. His gloves are now purple instead of blue and the rest of his outfit was changed to match Axel's new US palette:

Axel, Blaze, and Sammy/Skate's "Player 2" palettes for Duel/Battle Mode were altered in the US release.

It should be noted that the aforementioned early US prototype has Axel with his final Player 2 palette, but the mappings for what color goes where in the palette are different and he ends up with a blue shirt and red pants instead of a lime shirt with dark blue pants. His hair has instances of lime color in it, and his gloves are green. Interestly, Blaze's 2P sprite is the exact one used in Bare Knuckle III.

The female punks, Electra and Garnet (the latter called Soozie in the Western releases), showed a lot more skin in Bare Knuckle III. The US version edited the sprites to cover things up, with Garnet's pose changed to be less provocative.

Removed Miniboss
In Bare Knuckle III, there's a miniboss you fight at the pier passing through the level a few times on a speedboat before dropping off punks to attack the player. However, after defeating the last load of punks, Ash will jump out of the speedboat and attack the player.

Ash is a homosexual stereotype miniboss who prances around and can move quite fast. He also laughs girlishly after throwing the player and uses the female cry when he's beaten. He has his own music track, which can only be heard in the US version as track 26 in the BGM test. If the player holds down A when Ash is defeated and loses a continue later on, Ash will be playable from the continue menu. Ash's attacks are very powerful and his punches inflict devastating damage on all enemies, including bosses. His speed is also incredible as well.

His removal from the US version was due to his controversial nature. A playable version of him is still coded into the ROM, but his miniboss coding was removed. In the US version, Shiva (the Round 1 boss and yet another secret playable character) will be driving the boat; instead of jumping out for a fight, he'll drop off a group of punks at the end of the pier and then drive away to where you confront him for the boss battle in the next part of the stage.

To play as Ash in the US version, use Game Genie code.

Round 2
The table that contains an apple was removed, and the third Garnet was moved to the same group as the other two Soozies.

Round 3
In the US version, the barrels drop more frequently based on the difficulty setting and another place where barrels drop was added – the one that appears after the container that has the first chicken in the level.

The bulldozer takes one hit to retreat in the Japanese version, whereas in the US version it requires several hits to back off. Also, you can destroy the second wall before the screen starts scrolling, but the US version sets it further away. The barrel that hits the Donovan driving the bulldozer remains on-screen in the Japanese version, but not the US one.

Round 5
The US version ends on Round 5 under Easy (and Very Easy if the game is hacked to choose that difficulty setting).

Round 6
General Ivan Petrov is known as the Chief of Police in the US version. The general wears brown and has a beard, while the chief is clad in gray and has no beard.

Round 7A
In Round 7A's factory, the Japanese version has three crates at the beginning (containing points and two chickens). The US version removes the crates containing the chickens.

After Neo-X is defeated, the Japanese version apparently doesn't let the players enter their initials, whereas the US version does.