Streets of Rage 4 (New Patch) - Mania No Death Clear (Blaze)

0:00 Stage 1
7:40 Stage 2
15:39 Stage 3
20:45 Stage 4
27:08 Stage 5
35:45 Stage 6
44:47 Stage 7
48:56 Stage 8
56:44 Stage 9
1:04:20 Stage 10
1:11:24 Stage 11
1:20:26 Stage 12
1:32:43 Credits

The new balance patch was released a few days ago, so it seemed like a good time to go back to this. Blaze didn't change much, but I wanted to play her because she's my favorite. I still need to try Axel and see how much he's been improved. Maybe I'll do a no death run with him too.

As far as the rest of the game goes, most of it hasn't been changed much. The biggest differences are probably in stages 9 and 12; the extra healing items in 9 makes it easier, and the removal of the spike ball in stage 12 makes the fight before the last series of bosses a lot more dangerous. Stage 7 is also quite a bit easier thanks to the nerfed Commissioners and their lack of armor moves, but this fight might actually be harder if you relied on infinite combos, which I believe have been removed. Armor in general has been toned down a lot, which makes dealing with some enemies (like the fatties) a little easier. I wasn't keen on the idea of a balance patch to begin with, but the difficulty curve feels smoother now. I think it turned out well.

Another thing you may notice is how hitting shielded enemies and blocking kickboxers will now keep your combo active, so you're able to get bigger chains in a couple of the stages. I'm still not sure what the cutoff score for an S-rank is, but this makes it easier to reach (unless they've raised it lol).

PS. There is a fairly reliable strategy for the fight against the fatties before the last boss, I just screwed it up badly here. The main thing to take from this video is that the left side of the screen is pretty safe against the last wave of rolling fatties in particular. Definitely take advantage of that.

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