Streets of Rage/Fridge

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Fridge Brilliance

  • The Streets of Rage Remake has an ingenious difficulty set-up: most of the playable characters are noticeably stronger than their main game counterparts. The game stays fairly balanced, though, as a good chunk of the enemies have lifebars as long as the player's. All of this means that when you play, the game remains fun while still being challenging.

Fridge Horror

  • Streets of Rage 3's Easy Mode Mockery in the North American version--the game cuts you out of the last 3 stages on Easy. Easy in the North American version is the equivalent of Normal in the Japanese version. You get punished for playing on the Japanese version's default difficulty.
    • If this doesn't sound so bad, consider that the last three stages involve saving the city from being controlled by the Big Bad and his army of robots who look like high-ranking officials, sparing the Chief of Police (who is to be killed so that his robot double can operate with impunity), and (in the Good ending) disarming the time bombs scattered throughout the city. Now consider a future of the city in which these life-saving actions are never committed...hell, where the plans of the Big Bad are assumed to be prevented already until it's too late, because the characters have defeated Mr. X's clone. Now go back and read the first part again; all of this horror ensues when you pick Easy Mode, and can be prevented if you can beat the game on Normal...which is harder than even the Japanese "Hard" difficulty.