"If the developers of the past had modern technologies, they would not have made pixel art"

This phrase was dropped in an interview with VentureBeat designer Cyril Lagarick (Cyrille Lagarigue). With her help, Cyril explained his approach to the development of Streets of Rage 4, which he is currently working on.

“We are trying to understand what if the developers of the original trilogy in the early 90s had our current technologies?” asks Lagarik. “What would they do? That’s why we don’t use pixel art when developing a new part. They wouldn’t resort to it.”

At the same time, the developers want the experience of playing the new part to remind players of the experience of playing the original parts of the series. For this reason, the team is very attentive to timings.

“We start from the original timings, from how they feel and build on this gameplay,” explains Lagarik. Some of the blows of the main characters in the new Streets of Rage differ by only a couple of frames — and then this is done for the sake of smooth animation.

When working on the sequel, Cyril plays two games in parallel — one on the emulator and his own. This is done, among other things, in order to achieve a common gameplay experience for the series in the novelty.

But then the developers clarify that they are not making a remake. Streets of Rage 4 is still a separate full—fledged part, which nevertheless should feel like part of the series.

Recall that the announcement of Streets of Rage 4 took place in August of this year. It is published by Dotemu, known for the remasters of Heroes of Might & Magic III and the mobile adaptation of Titan Quest. Two teams are responsible for the development — Lizardcube and Guard Crush Games. The first one released a great remaster of Wonder Boy 3 a year ago. The second one had previously worked on her own Streets of Fury bitendup.

“Streets of Fury” is a cult game series, the last part of which was released on Sega Mega Drive in January 1994. In the games of the franchise, the user acted as a fighter who handed out punches to street bandits.

Source: VentureBeat