Streets of Rage 4

Streets of Rage 4
Also known as: Bare Knuckle IV (JP) Developers: Dotemu, Lizardcube, Guard Crush Games Publisher: Dotemu Platforms: Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch Released internationally: April 30, 2020 This game has unused animations. This game has unused playable characters. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused abilities. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. This game has regional differences.

To do: Cherry has numerous unfinished frames The Switch version on launch was a beta build with some differences, most notably it had different sound effects and voices.

After 26 years, Streets of Rage 4 heralds the return of the franchise, now developed by French studio Dotemu. Series mainstays Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding team up with newcomers Cherry Hunter and Floyd Iraia to clean up the streets (once again), this time from Mr. X's white-haired children. Also, Adam Hunter is finally back and playable again, sporting some sweet sunglasses to boot.

Unused Items

Walkie Talkie

Unused walkie-talkie items in cop and military variants (with unknown use) are found among the other pickup items.

Unused Frames

Axel Running

An early unfinished frame of Axel running (a feature not present in the final game, save for Cherry and the Streets of Rage 3 characters) can be found among his final frames. The full animation can be seen here, on a Lizardcube tweet.

Unused Retro Characters

Shiva (Streets of Rage 2) and Victy/Roo

To do: Add images.

Placed in the internal playable character folders are a complete rip of the Streets of Rage 2 version of Shiva (sprsor2shiva), and a partial sprite rip of Victy/Roo (sprsor3roo) from Bare Knuckle 3/Streets of Rage 3. While this version of Shiva is encountered as a hidden boss fight, only the third installment's version is selectable. Victy/Roo just makes a cameo appearance (in newly drawn sprites) in Stage 5.

Unused Enemies

To do: Check if these variants have any different behavior from the used ones. Keep an eye on the new DLC "Mr. X Nightmare", as it introduces new enemy variants, a lot more unused ones can be added and the ones listed here might get to be used on the new stages.

Goro Variants

Two complete variants of the Goro enemy, named karate2 and karate_tiger respectively, go unused.

Murphy Variant

A red variant of Murphy, named sprsor4elite_l3_gold exists.

Unused Abilities

Original Blaze Air Special

Shown in early gameplay footage, Blaze's Air Special was originally a powered singular dive kick before being replaced with an upwards, repeatable kick, presumably for greater combo potential. The assets and code to enable the move still exist in the finished game.

Shadow Shield Dash

Murphy's variant, Shadow, an enemy that only appears on the last stage, has an unused dash attack with his shield. In the game, he only uses the shield to quickly defend himself from weapons thrown at him. It was left unused probably because it did not fit with his speedy in-game behavior at all.

Unused Music

Stage 1

A early version of "They're Back", hidden in the game files as 273746065.wem. and refered to as 20191129_SOR4_Stage01_bgm01-07_B812F123.wem on the Nintendo Switch version. Probably left on the game files as a mistake.

When asked about this version on his Twitter, Yuzo Koshiro said: "That's a demo version that once I sent to Dotemu to check if it's ok. All the instruments in it are plugins at the point. If they love it, I record live instruments and replace them. I didn't know it was hidden."

Stage 5

Named as 103994451.wem in the game files (stage5-3_BOSS_SOR2-v2-01 on the Switch). Judging by the name, it was probably an early alternative boss theme meant for Barbon or Abadede's secret boss fight, though the latter is less likely since most of the classic boss battles just use the current stage music.

(Source: Merusu Surume)

Unused Sounds

To do: There are probably more of these hiding in the game files.

Sound 0089

Max shouting his iconic voice line, similar to Streets of Rage 2. It could have been used for his flying kick attack but goes unused for whatever reason.

Sound 0488

An announcer-like voice line that does not fit anywhere in the game and cuts out rather abruptly. Maybe it was planned to appear in Max's boss fight?

Sound 0488

Mr. Y's old laugh, which was changed in the final game in favor of a younger-sounding one. This version of his voice can actually be heard on some gameplays of the Switch version.

Sound 0632

One of the defeated enemy sounds from the original Streets of Rage, which has no secret stages based on it.

Sound 0138

An extra-life sound...? It feels like it could have got some use on the Pier stage.

Sound 0665 and 0844

Two voice lines that don't seem to belong to any characters in the game.

Unused Text

Internal Names

Internally, some enemies are referred to by early or placeholder names.

Internal name	Final name
Kalaas	Beyo
Mariah	Riha
Electra	Belle
Georgia	Caramel
Janet	Candy
Tin	Iron
Karate	Goro
Karate_masa	Dokuja
Elite	Murphy
Elite_l4_dark	Dunphy
Elite_l5_shadow	Shadow
Elite_l6_light	Sand
Cop	Feroccio
Cop2	Dick
Copbad	Barney
Copbad2	Lou

Regional Differences

Move Name Changes

The Japanese physical version of the game came with a big poster ala Bare Knuckle III: its backside compiles all the move sets of the 4 initially available characters. The names of the blitz and special moves are also available in-game in the Extra section. The move names in-game in the different languages are all direct translations of the English names. But the big poster does give different names for some moves of Cherry and Floyd.

Move	In-game Name	Poster Name
Cherry's blitz	Flying Knee	Cherry Kick
Cherry's special	Sound Check	Elec Shock
Cherry's forward special	Townshend Smash	Guitar Strike
Floyd's blitz	Thunder Twins	前方衝撃波 Zenpou Shougekiha (Forward Shockwave)
Floyd's special	Thunder Sphere	Shock Wave
Floyd's forward special	Magnetic Grab	Rocket Arm
Floyd's grabbing special	(no name assigned)	Power Spark

Logo Changes

Changing the game's language to the Asian ones also changes its logo to "Bare Knuckle IV" on the menu, story mode intro, and credits, in a similar way to the previous entries in which the game name changes to "Bare Knuckle" when playing the Japanese versions. The cinematic intro, however, stays with the "Streets of Rage 4" logo regardless of the language chosen.

The menu.

Streets of Rage 4	Bare Knuckle IV

And the story mode intro.

Streets of Rage 4	Bare Knuckle IV