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Streets of Rage 3/Regional Differences

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This is a sub-page of Streets of Rage 3.

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Note: Bare Knuckle III refers to the Japanese version. Streets of Rage 3 refers to the international versions.

Intro

Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
Bare Knuckle III SEGA.png Streets of Rage 3 SEGA.png

Streets of Rage 3 has Trademark logo on SEGA bootup. Small fact: The "TM" uses the same font as used throughout the original Streets of Rage.

In the Japanese version, there's a whole intro popping up before the title screen. In Bare Knuckle III, the Syndicate tests their nuclear bomb in the city, causing a fatal blow on it. In Streets of Rage 3, the story was rewritten: the Syndicate is simply placing bombs to divert the attention of the city police while Mr. X deals with the city leaders one by one. As such, the intro was completely dropped.

Also exclusive to the Japanese version is this Axel Stone punching the camera, revealing the title. This scene is actually a tracing of Rambo tightening a headband in Rambo III, which may be why this is absent in the overseas version as well.

The cut scenes feature sound effects - eg. you can hear Skate running towards the bomb in the cut scene at the very start. These sound effects are missing in Streets of Rage 3.

Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
Bare Knuckle III Title.png Sor3 title.gif

Aside from the name change, the text "Bare" is burning and the trademark is thicker and is colored in the Bare Knuckle III palette. Streets of Rage 3 only features the drop down box of "Of Rage" with each letters popping up with the text sound before the "3" zooms in (which plays a life up sound). The Bare Knuckle III title sound was left unused in the game's Sound Test in Streets of Rage 3.

Menu & Modes

Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
Bare Knuckle III Main Menu.png Streets of Rage 3 Main Menu.png
Bare Knuckle III Option Menu.png Streets of Rage 3 Option Menu.png

Like in the title screen, Streets of Rage 3 de-colorized the numbers on the menu. Also, "Option" was changed to "Options", and "Players" was changed to "Lives".

Character Select Screen

The stats bars are measured differently, as are the measurements for a character's weight and height. The characters' height & weight is given in metric in Bare Knuckle III. Also, the blocks that represent the fighters stats are shown using the star sprite (as in Streets of Rage 2) rather than the yellow block used in Streets of Rage 3. The fighters stats are given using 10 stars (as in Streets of Rage 2) instead of the bizarre system used in Streets of Rage 3.

Battle Mode

Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
Bare Knuckle III Battle Mode Result.png Streets of Rage 3 Battle Mode Result.png

Bare Knuckle III has character-specific win and lose quotes in the battle mode, which was removed entirely in Streets Of Rage 3. Also, somebody made a spelling mistake in the Japanese version. Can you find it?

Audio Changes

Many sound effects were changed in Streets of Rage 3.

Axel
blitz move
Axel says "Ground Upper" グランドアッパー in Bare Knuckle III when he does his blitz move, just like in Streets of Rage 2.
In Streets of Rage 3, he says "Bare Knuckle".
Blaze
blitz move
Blaze says "Hishōsōzan" 飛翔双斬 (literally Soaring Double Slash) in Bare Knuckle III when she does her blitz move, just like in Streets of Rage 2.
In Streets of Rage 3 she says "Terra Shield".
Blaze
special move
Blaze says "Kikōshō" 気功掌 (literally Qigong Palm, Qigong as in the Chinese martial art, or more literally Life Energy Wielding Palm) in Bare Knuckle III when she does her forward special move, just like in Streets of Rage 2.
In Streets of Rage 3 she says "Soul Fire".
Zan
every move
Zan says "Spark" スパーク in Bare Knuckle III for every special and blitz move.
In Streets of Rage 3 he says "Power Up".
Shiva
The boss of level 1 Shiva says "Final Crash" ファイナルクラッシュ in Bare Knuckle III, just like in Streets of Rage 2,
but "Ninja Attack" in Streets of Rage 3.

The ninja enemies say "Ninpō" 忍法 (literally Ninja Technique) in Bare Knuckle III when they do their evasion move, much like in Streets of Rage 2 where they were yelling the full incantation "Ninpō Kage Bunshin" 忍法・影分身 (literally Ninja Technique - Shadow Clone). They don't say anything when they do their evasion move in Streets of Rage 3.

The boss of level 4 Yamato fights as 3 clones:

Yamato
clone 1
The first one says "Ninpō" 忍法 in Bare Knuckle III
and "Magic" in Streets of Rage 3 when teleporting.
Yamato
clone 2
The second one says "Ninpō Kagami no Mai" 忍法・鏡の舞 (literally Ninja Technique - Mirror Dance) in Bare Knuckle III
and "Magic Decoy" in Streets of Rage 3 when cloning himself for a multi-directional attack.
Yamato
clone 3
The third one says "Ninpō Yami-gakure" 忍法・闇隠れ (literally Ninja Technique - Hiding in Darkness) in Bare Knuckle III
and "Magic Invisible" in Streets of Rage 3 when becoming invisible.

When Yamato has been defeated, he disappears using the famous self-exploding ninja technique from Return of Shinobi by yelling "Ninpō Mijin" 忍法・微塵 (literally Ninja Technique - Fine Dust) in Bare Knuckle III and "Magic Mijin" in Streets of Rage 3. While everything else has been translated, "Mijin" is the only digital voice sequence that remained intact between every version of the game.

(Source: Ripped audio from [1])

Graphic Changes

The character artwork for returning characters Axel, Blaze and Skate was redrawn so that their outfits use different colors from within the standard player color palette.

Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
BKIII-Axel.pngBKIII Blaze.pngBKIII Skate.png SOR 3 Axel.pngSOR 3 Blaze.pngSOR 3 Skate.png

Zan and the secret playable characters did not have their artwork redrawn in this manner.

Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
BKIII-Break.png SoR3-Break aka Axel clone.png

Break, the robot boss Axel, had his color palette altered slightly. His gloves are now purple instead of blue, and his artwork was redrawn for consistency with the changes made to the colors of the real Axel's outfit. However, his lifebar portrait still uses his Bare Knuckle III palette even in Streets of Rage 3.

Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
BKIII-Axel 2p.pngBKIII-Blaze 2p.pngBKIII-Sammy 2p.png SoR3-Axel 2p.pngSoR3-Blaze 2p.pngSoR3-Skate 2p.png

Axel, Blaze, and Sammy/Skate's "Player 2" color palettes for Duel/Battle Mode were all altered in Streets of Rage 3. Interestingly, Blaze's palette seems designed to mimic her single-player look from Bare Knuckle III as closely as possible within the constraints of her redrawn artwork.

Electra
Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
BKIII-Electra.png SoR3-Electra.png
Garnet
Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
BKIII-Garnet.pngSOR3-GarnetDance.gif SoR3-Soozie.pngSOR3-SoozieDance.gif

The female punks, Electra and Garnet, showed a lot more skin in Bare Knuckle III. Streets of Rage 3 edited the sprites to cover things up, with Garnet's pose changed to be less provocative. One of Garnet's animations was also changed. In Bare Knuckle III, Garnet did an animation where she adjusts her hair. This was changed in Streets of Rage 3 so Garnet instead does an animation where she punches her fists together.

Score points are in different colors, there are also a couple of other minor text color changes.

Several of the cut scene pictures have been slightly redrawn as well as recolored. This is most noticeable on the picture of the team shown at the end of Round 1. Bare Knuckle 3 also has a gray background for cutscenes, Streets of Rage 3 has black.

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.

Miniboss Palette Player Palette
BKIII-Ash Miniboss.png BKIII-Ash playable.png

Ash is a homosexual stereotype miniboss who prances around and can move quite fast. He also laughs femininely after throwing the player and uses the female cry when he's beaten. He has his own music track, as well as a laughing taunt, which can only be heard in Streets of Rage 3 as track 26 and voice 14 in the BGM test. If the player holds 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 Streets of Rage 3 was due to his controversial nature. A playable version of him is still coded into the ROM, but his miniboss coding was removed. In Streets of Rage 3, 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.

Ash was also removed from the Sega Genesis Mini 2 release of Bare Knuckle III. Rather than being removed and replaced as he was in Streets of Rage 3, the harbor section of the stage was skipped altogether, and instead the player is sent to the alleyway straight after leaving the warehouse.

To play as Ash in Streets of Rage 3, use Game Genie code BAWA-AAA0.

Shiva

Shiva's color scheme was altered for the Round 1 boss fight. In Bare Knuckle III, he uses a dark green color palette like the one he uses in Round 7B. In Streets of Rage 3, the colors of the players' palettes were copied to his Stage 1 boss palette (which makes him have a blue outfit). Interestingly, pre-release screenshots of Bare Knuckle III show Shiva using the player's colors in the Round 1 boss fight.

Name Changes

Aside from Sammy being changed to Skate like in the previous game, many names were changed.

Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
Items
[Katana/Lumber/Paper.K/Fruit.K/Knife.K/Army.K] [Sword/Plank/Blade/Blade/Knife/Machete]
Enemies
[Mr.A-Z/Galsia/Thundra] [Robot/Garcia/Lorena]
[Garnet/Rubby/Diamond] [Soozie/Grace/Emma]
[Slum/Casino/Harlem/Vice/Sway/Nasty] [Goldie/Stud/Dick/Zack/Mac/Jack]
[Bronz/Silver/Gold] [Mcbride/Maclean/Macleod]
[Signal/Angle/Bongo/Heart] [Scarab/Jools/Dwight/Ike]
[Z/Fernand/Cyclone/Typhoon] [Muscles/Bono/Wings/Wheels]
[Phenix/Dragon/P-1/P-2/P-3] [Fabio/Leopard/Xp-1/Mark2/M-5]
Bosses
[Break/Dr. Zero/Robo X/Neo. X] [Axel/Dr. Dahm/Robot X/Robot Y]
[Danch/Victy/Yasha/Onihime] [Bruce/Roo/Mona/Lisa]
Battle Levels
[Sun Set/Belt Conveyer] [Sunset/Conveyer Belt]

Technical Differences

  • In Streets of Rage 3, bosses often have several life bars more than their Bare Knuckle III counterparts. Some enemies also have different amounts of life bars between Streets of Rage 3 and Bare Knuckle III.
  • Bare Knuckle III features a Very Hard mode which is missing from Streets of Rage 3. Streets of Rage 3 moved all the difficulty settings up one, so Normal mode in Bare Knuckle III is the equivalent of Easy in Streets of Rage 3 (this is proven if you load a Bare Knuckle III save state into Streets of Rage 3).
  • In Streets of Rage 3, enemy attack damage rises with difficulty levels, while in Bare Knuckle III, it remains the same.
  • The sound when a Signal enemy hits the player with their slide attack is a light hit sound in Bare Knuckle III, while it is a hard hit sound in Streets of Rage 3.
  • The health penalty for using a special attack without a full power meter is much heavier in Bare Knuckle III compared to Streets of Rage 3.
  • In Streets of Rage 3, Blaze's throws and quite a few other of her attacks are stronger that Axel's, in spite of him having a higher strength rating .
  • All the playable characters roll much further in Streets of Rage 3 than in Bare Knuckle III.
  • In Streets of Rage 3, Roo jumps nearly twice as high as the other characters, but in Bare Knuckle III, all of the characters jump at the same height.
  • In Streets of Rage 3, Roo's first two attacks of his combo attack each do two hits, whereas in Bare Knuckle III, they each only do one hit.
  • When an enemy dies, it flashes in Bare Knuckle III (like the previous games), but just disappears in Streets of Rage 3.
  • The motorcycles' sparks are always the same color as the bike sliding in Bare Knuckle III. In Streets of Rage 3, this has been fixed and the sparks are always yellow. In addition, sometimes the bikes in Bare Knuckle III defy the laws of physics and slide backwards. This bug appears to have been removed for Streets of Rage 3.
  • In Bare Knuckle III, there's a glitch where the regular enemies sometimes won't let out a scream after being defeated. This was corrected in Streets of Rage 3.
  • For Battle mode in Bare Knuckle III, the winner is free to move after they have won.
  • When playing as Shiva in Streets of Rage 3, a shock from the enemy Electra's whip shows his bones; in Bare Knuckle III this doesn't happen.
  • Streets of Rage 3 has 3 extra frames of hit pause on the players' third attack in their combos. This is easiest to notice with Axel as his combos feel slower in Streets of Rage 3.
  • In Bare Knuckle III, Skate's standard blitz attack doesn't hit until he's curled up into a ball. Streets of Rage 3 makes the attack hit earlier, while he's still headbutting, like in Streets of Rage 2.
  • In Bare Knuckle III, the name entry appears each time you run out of lives with a high enough score (as in Streets of Rage 2), but in Streets of Rage 3 the name entry doesn't appear until you either get game over or finish the game. There are also 3 cheats that work only in Bare Knuckle III by entering specific names on game over:

Name Effect
H M Axel Super Kick
SUP Axel Super Combo
K W Extra Credit

Levels

Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
Bare Knuckle III Round Start.png Streets of Rage 3 Stage Start.png

In Bare Knuckle III, the levels are known as "Rounds", while in Streets of Rage 3, they're known as "Stages". Funnily enough, Streets of Rage 1 had the "Round X Start" moniker for all versions while Streets of Rage 2 had the "Stage X Start" moniker for all versions.

Round 1

Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
Bare Knuckle III Bomb Detonation Warning.png N/A

This intermission screen, indicating the location of the second bomb in Wood Oak City, is removed in Streets of Rage 3. The screen reads:

Rakushin will explode.
Urgent that you come.
Place is south pier warehouse.
Place is south pier warehouse.
Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
Bare Knuckle III Round 1 Warehouse Wall Crack.png Streets of Rage 3 Round 1 Warehouse Wall.png

In Bare Knuckle III, there was a cracked wall at the end of the warehouse, which led onto the harbor area. This was removed for Streets of Rage 3, which makes it look like part of the building was for aircraft cargo.

Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
Bare Knuckle III Stage 1 Boat.png Streets of Rage 3 Stage 1 Boat.png

Ash in Bare Knuckle III is replaced with Shiva in Streets of Rage 3. Also, after sending off his last minions, Ash in Bare Knuckle III jumps into the stage and joins the fight. Shiva in Streets of Rage 3, however, drops off "Bono" a stronger version of "Donovan" from his boat and just drives away. Shiva serves as a main boss of the first stage in both versions, so the developers might've thought having him fight twice in a row was a bit too much. Also, the amount of enemies Ash and Shiva drop off from their boats is different.

Round 2

Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
BKIII Round 2.png SOR3 Stage 2.png

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

Round 3

In Streets of Rage 3, the barrels drop more frequently based on the difficulty setting. Also, Streets of Rage 3 added one more place where barrels drop - this place is located right after you get the chicken between the 2 pits.

The bulldozer stage has more walls to break in Bare Knuckle III than in Streets of Rage 3. The count for each is: 14 walls (Bare Knuckle III), 11 walls (Streets of Rage 3). Also, in Bare Knuckle III, you can destroy the second wall before the screen starts scrolling, but Streets of Rage 3 sets it further away, making it impossible.

The bulldozer takes one hit to retreat in Bare Knuckle III, whereas in Streets of Rage 3, it requires several hits to back off. Oddly enough, the bulldozer inflicts slightly more damage in Bare Knuckle III than in Streets of Rage 3.

The barrel that hits the Donovan driving the bulldozer remains onscreen in Bare Knuckle III, but not in Streets of Rage 3.

The endboss Axel is a bit more red when it's almost dead in Streets of Rage 3.

After the endboss Axel is defeated only a robot skeleton remains. The difference is the blue knee joint that was recolored to gray. This change also extends to the ending cut scene for Round 3.

Round 4

In Bare Knuckle III, the rails will rumble for a couple seconds signaling that a train engine part will zoom through that rail. However, in Streets of Rage 3, you're given less visual warning that a train engine part will zoom through.

In the second part of the stage (the part where there's only one railway track), there was originally an apple and a chicken that could be picked up in Bare Knuckle III. In Streets of Rage 3, the apple was removed leaving only the chicken to be picked up.

In Bare Knuckle III, the ending cut scene for Round 4 is extended to show the bomb blast from the intro while Axel and Zan talk.

Round 5

Streets of Rage 3 ends on Round 5 under Easy (and Very Easy if the game is hacked to choose that difficulty setting). An ending cutscene exclusive to the Western releases plays.

Round 6

Streets of Rage 3 gives you less time before poison gas is emitted.

Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
BKIII General.png SOR3 Chief.png

General Ivan Petrov is known as the Chief of Police in Streets of Rage 3, and you must stop his duplicate speaking at the White House instead of City Hall. The general wears brown and has a beard, while the chief is clad in gray and has no beard. As well as the plot, the dialogue is often altered.

When you meet Adam at the end of Round 6 in Bare Knuckle III, his top is orange; in Streets of Rage 3, it is yellow just like in the first two games.

Round 7A

In Round 7A's factory, Bare Knuckle III has three crates at the beginning (containing points and two chickens). Streets of Rage 3 removes the crates containing the chickens.

After Neo X is defeated, Bare Knuckle III doesn't let the players enter their initials, whereas Streets of Rage 3 does.

Round 7B

Round 7B in Bare Knuckle III is the White House instead of City Hall. This is pretty obvious even in Streets of Rage 3, despite the localization team attempting to hide it with a sign reading "City Hall".

Just like in Round 7A when Neo X is defeated, after defeating Shiva; Bare Knuckle III doesn't let the players enter their initials, whereas Streets of Rage 3 does.

Ending

  • In the bad ending where Mr X looks at a TV monitor of the players, in Bare Knuckle III the text on the bottom says "END...!?" while in Streets of Rage 3 it says "THE END?".
  • In the ending where you find Mr X but do not defeat him in time to defuse the bombs, the pictures are different. In Bare Knuckle III, a shot of the devastated city appears, and the scrolling text found in Streets of Rage 3 doesn't appear. Also, you still get to see the credits and pictures of the characters with this ending - in Streets of Rage 3 the credits are only seen if you beat Mr X and defuse the bombs.
Bare Knuckle III Streets of Rage 3
Bare Knuckle III Blaze Ending.png Streets of Rage 3 Blaze Ending.png

In the Good Ending, Streets of Rage 3 gives shoulder straps and more clothing underneath to Blaze's swimsuit, which makes it look like a one-piece swimsuit.


(Source: Streets of Rage Online)