Streets of Rage Saga: Difference between revisions

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The ten stories are listed in order below:

According to the Streets of Rage Online website, the saga has since been translated into Spanish and is available in hard-cover format.

 

 

 

(NOTE: This page is solely about tropes related to ''Streets of Rage Saga''. Therefore, please do not post any tropes related to ''Bare Knuckle: Ghost Precinct'' here, as that is considered a separate continuity altogether.)

 

* [[Adaptation Expansion]]: In this continuity, the main protagonists and several major villains are given back-stories (whereas in the games, they didn't have any beyond Axel, Adam and Blaze being ex-cops who quit the force because of its corruption). As prominent villainous examples, Mr. X's full name is George Xetheus, California's state senator; and Shiva ([[The Dragon]] in the games) is given the first name Leon.

* [[Adult Fear]]:

* [[Blood Knight]]: Shiva.

* [[Bond One-Liner]]: Adam delivers one in ''The Rise of Dreadnought'' at the climax of his fight with Zamza after the latter gets hit by a subway train.

** After seeing Beano get impaled with a flying surfboard, Busta quips "Wipe out."

** Rudra mutters "Checkmate." after killing two soldiers who were playing chess.

* [[Chick Magnet]]: Axel gets plenty of attention before Blaze comes along.

* [[The Chessmaster]]: Mr. X. As Shiva says to him during a flashback in ''Duality'':

* [[City of Adventure]]: Los Angeles, where the story is set in the first two books (in the original games, the city was unnamed). Later adventures feature Chicago and locations in foreign lands such as China, Japan and Germany.

* [[Cloning Blues]]: ''The New Syndicate'' provides an inversion of the trope: {{spoiler|Blaze doesn't react well to the revelation that the Syndicate created clones of her with DNA they stole from her during her childhood}}.

* [[Cowboy Cop]]: Axel, during ''Cygnus Threshold'' and ''Origins''. Adam, too, but not to quite the same extent.

* [[Crazy Prepared]]: Mr. X [[Genre Savvy|had all sorts of contingency measures put in place]] in case some of his major plans failed, including making provisions for the potential failure of Project Y. {{spoiler|A bio-genetic resurrection was one such backup plan}}.

* [[Critical Failure]]: Adam makes the mistake of kicking Shiva in the legs, having forgotten they were robotic.

* [[Crossover]]: Later books feature [[Shinobi|Joe Musashi]] as a recurring character and the cast of [[Final Fight]] make an appearance in ''Shadow Dancer''. (Notably, both the ''Shinobi'' game series and the ''Streets of Rage'' series share developers from the same company, Team Shinobi.)

* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]: Shiva delivers one to the protagonists in ''The New Syndicate'', despite being outnumbered five to one by them (though to be fair, he ''is'' using [[Artificial Limbs|prosthetic legs]] [[Took a Level In Badass|that have increased his combat skills significantly]]).

* [[Cut the Juice]]: Adam somehow manages to stop a fast-moving truck by shooting the engine, and somehow not blowing it up.

** Dr. Zan, of course, is a heroic example.

** Karl Haupstein, the titular villain in ''The Rise of Dreadnought'', is an interesting, if macabre, case. According to Team Firestorm's briefings, he surgically removed his own eyelids, jawbone, fingers and toes and replaced them with mechanical implants in an effort to achieve physical perfection; at the time the story begins, he's been given a prosthetic body, with a steel rod to replace his by-then broken spine, and a metallic heart with a hydrogen power cell.

* [[Genius Bruiser]]: Max Hatchett, the wrestler from the second game, is the chairman of a pharmaceutical company in this continuity. Also, Onihime and Yasha (Mona and Lisa from the third game) are Syndicate scientists as well as fighters.

* [[A God Am I]]: Mr. X expresses this view in ''Project Y'', despite being a [[Brain In a Jar]] by this point. One can't blame him, though, since he's remotely and mentally controlling a ''20-foot-tall'' [[Humongous Mecha]] that has the heroes [[Oh Crap|running for their lives]].

** The Twelfth One, one of twelve perfected [[Super Soldier]] projects, makes a similar declaration even as she's beating the crap out of the protagonists in ''The New Syndicate''.

** Socharis makes this declaration twice in the same scene in ''Shadow Hand''.

* [[Good People Have Good Sex]]: Axel and Blaze have [[Their First Time]] together [[It Makes Sense in Context|in a sewer]]. Don't worry, [[Fan Service|it's not as icky as it sounds]].

* [[Grey and Gray Morality]]: Shiva's self-description in ''Duality''.

* [[Groin Attack]]: Joe Musashi punches the Hand right in the family jewels during their clash in ''The New Syndicate''. Shortly afterwards in the same story, Shiva kicks Adam in the same location.

** Axel pulls this rather effectively on Socharis by kicking him in the groin in ''Shadow Hand''.

* [[Guns Akimbo]]: On both sides of the war with the Syndicate.

* [[Guns vs. Swords]]: [[Discussed Trope|Discussed]] between [[Shinobi|Joe Musashi]] and his sensei Harada, during a flashback the former has while meditating in Chapter 12 of ''The New Syndicate''.

'''Harada:''' But that doesn't mean that the old ways are useless. Didn't Sun Tzu say, "When you know your enemy and choose your battlefield carefully, the smaller force is always able to overcome the larger"? If you must fight a man with a gun, strike him from behind when he least expects it.<br />

'''Musashi:''' But, Sensei, [[Honor Before Reason|that is not the way of a warrior]], that is not Bushido...<br />

* [[Leeroy Jenkins]]: Skate would rather rush headlong into a fight than surrender or heed others' warnings to wait; however, this attitude almost gets him shot in ''The Rise of Dreadnought'' {{spoiler|and ''does'' get him shot in ''Shadow Hand''}}.

* [[Lightning Bruiser]]: Abadede.

** A realistic subversion occurs in ''Origins''--when Axel has to temporarily leave Blaze by herself, he leaves a pistol with her. She admits she's never held one before, so he shows her how it works. The explanation goes over her head, though, and when the time comes for her to use it, she tries to pull the hammer back...and ends up spilling all the bullets out of the gun instead. She has some difficulty getting the bullets back into the clip, but manages to work the gun correctly on the second try. Later, she gets better with firearms after receiving some basic gun-training from Adam.

** Played straight with Skate--he's never stated to have had any prior firearms training, yet the first time he's given a high-powered weapon the narrative doesn't outline him having any difficulty using it. (Although one could make the case that Adam, a cop with extensive firearms training, might have given him a few pointers outside of the narrative.)

* [[New Neo City]]: Neo London is christened the capital of the New World Order.

* [[Nightmare Face]]: Dreadnought, as a result of his self-mutilations prior to the events of the story; he usually keeps his face hidden behind a skintight mask for this reason. The narrative paints a [[Sarcasm Mode|lovely]] picture for the reader.

* [[No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine]]: In Chapter 22 of ''Origins'', Mr. X treats the captive Axel and Blaze to dinner.

* [[Not So Harmless]]: Though it's already established that he's a Syndicate member, when first introduced Ash appears to be nothing more than a [[Depraved Bisexual]] who runs a BDSM-themed night-club. Turns out he's a [[Lightning Bruiser]] who keeps a gun hidden in his cap and knows how to use it.

** Beano, a mini-boss character from the second game and an [[Elite Mook]] in ''Cygnus Threshold'', has such a moment during a vehicular chase in which the tow truck he's commandeered crashes into a car with a surfboard mounted on top--specifically, right before said surfboard gets propelled by the impact through his windshield to [[Impaled with Extreme Prejudice|impale him]].

** Shiva and Mr. X share a collective moment of this during ''Origins'', when the X-Robot (fueled by three tablets of the drug Fire) goes berserk and [[Gone Horribly Right|utterly brutalizes Shiva's soldiers]] during its training demonstration. [[It Got Worse|Then it looks in their direction]]...

*** Both of them get separate moments later in the story--{{spoiler|Mr. X before being [[Hoist by His Own Petard]], Shiva before the base gets blown up}}.

** Axel has this reaction in ''Project Y'' when [[Humongous Mecha|Robot Y]] shows up during the final confrontation.

* [[Precision F-Strike]]: Various times, even within the narrative itself.

* [[Rape as Backstory]]: {{spoiler|Blaze, in this continuity}}. It's disconcerting that [[Angst? What Angst?|she can so casually talk about what she experienced in her childhood]] while switching back and forth between banter about the food she's eating.

* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]: Captain Jack Wyndam in ''Cygnus Threshold'', and the U.S. President in ''The Rise of Dreadnought''. In the latter case, Blaze disobeyed direct federal orders for Team Firestorm not to pursue Dreadnought...and the President, heading the subsequent trial, ''only'' fines Blaze $3.5 million and allows her to continue heading the team instead of sending her to prison, on the grounds that her disobedience ended up averting the [[Big Bad|Big Bad's]] intended nuclear war.

* [[The Red Baron]]: In his native China, Haku-Oh was known as "God of the Lance".

* [[Shoot the Dog]]: The protagonists are forced to do this to {{spoiler|Dr. Zan}} in ''The New Syndicate''.

* [[Shout-Out]]: Plenty of them within the saga.

** The prologue of ''Origins'' has a segment that's lifted almost word-for-word from a similar scene in the [[Jurassic Park]] novel.

** The aforementioned crossovers as well as Dr. Dahm being sent to [[Batman|Arkham Asylum]].

* [[That Man Is Dead]]: {{spoiler|Anthrax says this regarding his past identity, Skate Hunter}}.

* [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill]]: The description of Wood Oak City's destruction via bomb explosion in the second chapter of ''Project Y'' (mirroring the destruction of the similarly-named city in the Japanese version of the third game).

* [[Tyke Bomb]]: ''Project Y'' reveals that {{spoiler|Blaze}} was intended to be one for the Syndicate.

* [[Unstoppable Rage]]: Axel unleashes a ''lot'' of this on [[Big Bad|Enigma]] {{spoiler|when the latter kills Blaze}}.

* [[Villainous Crossdresser]]: Ash.

* [[Villainous Friendship]]: Mr. X and Shiva have these moments in ''Origins'', from sharing black-market cigars to sharing little black books.

* [[We Can Rule Together]]: Lucius Hawk makes this offer to Axel and Adam when they confront him, [[Mythology Gag|using the same dialogue that Mr. X would make to the player in the first game]].

* [[Weapon of Mass Destruction]]: The Gargantua in ''The Rise of Dreadnought'', a modified Globemaster cargo airlifter with enough space to house the Rakushin Diffusion Engine (designed by the titular [[Big Bad]] during World War 2), and armed with a multiple-launch nuclear rocket system and the latest stealth and deflection-shield technology. Additionally, the diffusion engine itself is capable of storing fifty-five Rakushin nuclear warheads, of which one alone has enough power to destroy a major city. In Dreadnought's words, the aircraft is "a destroyer of worlds."

** The World Devastator in ''Duality'', as described by Shiva, is a ship capable of air travel and orbital deployment, with its primary function being a singularity cannon capable of creating a black hole in the Earth's core that will grow large enough to create an inverted [[Earthshattering Kaboom]].

* [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]: Dr. Henry Dahm in ''Project Y'', regarding the creation of the X-Robots.

'''Dahm:''' Fascist obsessions? Is that the limit of your vision? Mr. X is a revolutionary. Combined with my scientific genius, we are going to usher in a new era for humanity! Lives will be lost in the process, but it's for the greater good, I assure you. The time has come! Project Y is the key, Gilbert. You should know this...more than anyone. }}

* [[Wham! Episode]]: The fourth story, ''The New Syndicate'', is the first one to show the death of [[Anyone Can Die|a main protagonist]].

* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: In ''Duality'', Blaze calls out Adam upon finding out about his role in covering up Axel's disappearance during Enigma's [[Mad Bomber]] spree in the past {{spoiler|because Axel and Enigma are the same person}}.

'''Adam:''' I… I don’t know. I was following orders. And so much time has passed... }}

* [[Whip It Good]]: Electra, just like her game counterpart. Also, Bruce the Kangaroo Master in ''Shadow Dancer'', again just like his game counterpart.

[[Category:Streets of Rage Saga]]

[[Category:Fanfic]]