If you've ever met me, you'd know I'm a HUGE fan of Streets of Rage. I don't know how else to describe my formative years with video games other than by cutting my teeth on Streets of Rage 2, and then later Streets of Rage (1). The series has ALWAYS been in my heart, and it's the exact kind of fun (but also challenging) experience that I live for when I'm playing a game. Even to this day, SoR2 holds up SO well, in both the gameplay and the sound department. It's just... such a good game. Unlike most people in the community, I don't like SoR3, but moreso than the gameplay, it's the music that rubs me the wrong way. I think it's a fine game, but in my opinion it's just not as good of an overall package as Streets of Rage 2 was.
When Streets of Rage 4 was announced, I absolutely went nuts. And then I heard about the original limited edition physical releases (no one knew about the Signature Games or whatever they are other physical releases at the beginning) from Limited Run Games, I went BONKERS. I was so damn excited, not only did I set alarms for the releases' sale times, I made sure to ask no less than three friends to remind me when the sales went live so that I'd be sure to grab one for the Switch and one for the PS4 (If you're wondering, I got the Classic Edition for the Switch and the Limited Edition for PS4). Then I went ahead and bought the game on Steam on release day because I just COULD NOT WAIT TO CONTINUE MY CHILDHOOD.
Well let me tell you, I played the hell out of Streets of Rage 4 on Steam. I got all the characters, played online with a friend that also got a copy, and then I started getting my friends to join me for 4 player mode via Parsec... Man, we had an absolute BLAST! There also was a patch released a day or so ago that has tweaked a LOT of the gameplay, so I'm super excited to jump back in and see what's changed. ... I won't lie, I'm mostly looking forward to SoR4 Axel not being garbage. He was definitely the worst of the SoR4 characters at launch...
My original plan for the Switch Classic Edition from LRG was so that I could put the Genesis case on my shelf with the rest of my Genesis games. It would have helped me fill up my collection, but also this way I could add the game to its... Well, it's rightful place in my collection. It belongs with the rest of its kin, even if it came along 25 years later! The Limited Edition version comes with a host of items, and I'm super excited to display all of them somewhere (If you've seen my room lately, it's pretty much a disaster...). I also know that I will play SoR4 on console, because that's where it belongs. I actually so far have been using a Genesis controller via adapter to play on Steam, but I'm sure the experience will be just as fun on the PS4. And I know, with absolute certainty, that other friends will get it there, so I can play with them too!
Okay, but what does me gushing about Streets of Rage have to do with the pandemic? Okay, I'm getting to that. The Classic Editions from LRG were shipped and I've actually got my Switch Classic physical release here with me. But... When it arrived, I wasn't happy to see it. I haven't played the game in a while sure, and it's going to be a pain to unlock all of the characters a second time (I'll have to do it three times altogether, but WHATEVER, IT'S STREETS OF RAGE DAMNIT), but something else about it bothered me. I kept staring at the box, which I still haven't actually taken out of the mylar wrapping, and feeling somehow like this was wrong. It wasn't wrong in the sense that I felt like I didn't deserve it, as if you know me, it's very difficult for me to splurge on something for me. I don't have very many issues buying things for other people, but when it comes to nice things for myself, I have a real problem listening to the voice deep inside that says
Me putting in all this effort to grab them, and here I am, somehow upset that this new package arrived on my doorstep. All the steps involved up until that point were great, but upon actually holding it in my hand, I just felt bad. On top of that, I could not for the life of me figure out why? After a little bit of introspection I realized what I was actually feeling was that the Switch version wouldn't see nearly as much action as the PS4 will, and the Steam version already has. But that's to be expected, considering of all my consoles, I absolutely use my Switch the least. So that still didn't explain why I felt so bad holding this brand new game in my hands.
But thinking about playing the Switch version got me thinking about why I originally was excited to play it on the Switch in the first place. My original intention was to take part of my childhood with me on the go-- Except that realistically I only bring my Switch with me when I'm on vacation, or at NYCC. And then it finally dawned on me, the reason why the Switch version in particular upset me so much, whereas I love the Steam edition and will adore the PS4 version, is because I feel like I won't have a chance to play with anyone.
Yes, clearly people can still come over, and it's not as though I never see my friends! But the pandemic has fundamentally changed the idea of "going out." I'm sure eventually there will be a vaccine and we'll be able to speak of coronavirus in the past tense, but for the here and now, it's disrupted a whole hell of a lot of people's lifestyles. I'm sure eventually NYCC and other large cons will be back, but maybe they won't? Maybe this changes everything. In this particular case, NYCC is a particularly dubious case because of the idea of what us con-goers refer to as "con plague." There has not been a single year that I've gone to NYCC where I haven't come home and been sick, or gotten sick right as I got home. This is going to change the way we do things, whether we like it or not.
I hadn't even thought of anything remotely close to that, but the virus sure has put a damper on gaming for me, and it's even impacted situations that I thought were a given when it comes to gaming. Every year that me and my friends have gone to NYCC, each of us has packed a handheld console and while we wait, or take the train to and from, or we're sitting in a panel that someone else picked, we play. That has been the primary use situation for both my Vita and Switch on-the-go for years. And now all of a sudden I feel like it's gone forever. I didn't feel bad because I thought I was going to play the Switch version less than I've played SoR4 on other consoles, I felt bad because I feel like I'm not going to play this game as it was intended (WITH FRIENDS!) at all. That turned something I'd been looking forward to for 20 years into something to dread.
Now I'm sitting here wondering how arcades are supposed to survive this? I actually stacked a bunch of stuff on top of the Switch classic edition so that I wouldn't have to look at it. Every time I look at it, I'm faced with a new dreadful thought, and that's no bueno! I'm sure a lot of people have already realized how their lives will be different from this point out, but I needed something to hit a little bit closer to home for me to realize what I was actually dreading. I just want to have fun with my friends and now I'm worried that's going to be taken away from me... I know some semblance of the normal I knew will stick around, but I hate change.
I've tried to rewrite that last paragraph at least 12x so that it felt like I was teaching some lesson or imparting a moral... I don't think there is one though. I just want to share experiences and have fun in a way that I've done pretty much my whole life! They do say "Modern problems require modern solutions," but I like doing things the way I've always done them. Change sucks.
