Discussion: Character Tier List for v5.2

I'm curious what people's assessment of how the characters perform relative to one another is, which ones are seen as powerful and which ones are seen as being weaker. To kick things off, I've written up a personal assessment of the characters in v5.2.

This tier list is based on a whole lot of playtime with each of the characters, meant to try and be a general assessment of how capable characters are in the game. It's not to say who's fun and who isn't, and there are plenty of mid to lower tier characters on the list that are plenty enjoyable to play as! This is more to give people an idea of what characters are the easiest to clear Mania with for instance, and which ones will have to work a bit harder to achieve it due to not having quite as effective tools in their moveset. This list is, to some extent, a bit subjective. Your exact assessment may vary, and I may change opinion too as new character specific strategies against certain especially difficult enemies are discovered, but I try to give as detailed an opinion on characters to explain why they're rated as such.

This tier list places a very low priority on how easy or difficult a character is to use. Max, for example, is rated top tier because of how well he can perform when you know how to use him, but also qualifies as very difficult to learn to use since he's on the slow side and plays very differently from most characters. Shiva, is considered an example of a very powerful, but very easy to use character, who relies on simple, but effective long range punches to demolish enemies while boasting a solid all around set of specials, jump attacks, and grabs.

This list assumes you're playing under SoR3 Pause Delay, Meter Type Gauge, and Original damage settings. Several characters with multihit attacks such as Adam, Blaze 1, and Blaze 2's 3 star blitzes become massive liabilities on Mania when using slower Pause Delay settings because they get slowed down tremendously when in their multihit animations (to the point where you can get punched from behind out of them). Pause Delay set to Combined for instance completely ruins Rudra's usefulness due to her using a slow Pause Delay by default. Faster Pause delay makes all the SoR1 and SoR3 characters behave as they originally felt, and it doesn't render the SoR2 characters wildly better than the rest (though Max and Skate 2 would still be very effective with slower Pause Delay, mainly due to tremendous damage output). The Balanced damage setting doesn't actually balance the characters and just reduces most of them a bit closer to SoR3 damage values, without really affecting how they balance vs one another. Combo Type SoR3 also helps reduce your recovery before you can start moving again after jabbing enemies, which is helpful for initiating grabs with poke oriented characters like Zan. I'd also recommend SoR3 exceptions to No (diagonal running is very helpful, moreso than SoR1 characters being able to jab rapidly left and right) and jump type to SoR3 (which makes it easier to control your landing as well as more easily jump backwards while kicking forward). SoR2 or SoR1 type weapons also helps characters who are better with or more reliant on having an equipped weapon, but can be exploited to some extent by characters with an invulnerable weapon special (Blaze's knife special, Axel's sword special). You're welcome to abuse this if you like, or simply don't use their weapon specials if you find it cheesy. SoR3 type weapons allow you to grab enemies without dropping weapons, but weapons have limited health, so while you can't abuse weapon specials (that cost weapon health even if you miss), you can't use a weapon throughout a section like SoR1 or SoR2. X Button type blitz setting allows all characters to always have access to their 0 star blitz as well as their current star level, which is helpful for a lot of characters.

Note: Characters within the same tier are sorted alphabetically. The different tiers are meant to be a relative representation of who's better than who, but isn't necessarily indicative of exactly how much better one character is relative to another. For instance, I'd say Rudra is better than Blaze, but not by much compared to how much better Shiva is compared to Adam.

SUPER Tier: Max, Roo
A Tier: Shiva 2, Shiva 3
B Tier: Adam, Blaze 1, Blaze 2 / BKM, Blaze 3, Rudra, Skate 2, Zan
C Tier: Mr. X
D Tier: Elle, Skate 3
E Tier: Axel 2
F Tier: Axel 1, Axel 3
GAY Tier?! (no idea, probably middle tier somewhere): Ash

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Character assessments:


SUPER Tier

Max: In versions 5.0, 5.0a, and 5.1, I'd put him in his very own tier above everyone else. The reason being is his fully invulnerable 2 star blitz, which is incredibly abusable and enables him to tear through everything in the game safely. Just take a look at this no death run of Mania on a previous version to see how crazy powerful it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLzclefInkA

Version 5.2 toned down his 2 star blitz significantly, removing the invulnerability and unfortunately reducing its range, which I'm not sure was needed, but Max is still arguably one of the best characters in the game. Max's 0 and 1 star blitz are exceptionally safe and effective for rushing in to enemies to initiate grabs, his defensive special is powerful, his grabs deal absurd amounts of damage, his use of pipes and swords is amazing, and he's got very powerful basic attacks, albeit ones that are quite slow. His back attack is actually much faster than his basic attack so if you need to quickly hit something you're best off using that or his 0 star blitz. His jump attacks are also very effective with good damage and hitbox size.

I'm positive Max can absolutely still pull off no death clears of Mania even without his frankly absurdly good 2 star blitz. Case in point, this run of SoR1 Route on Mania by Final Crash, whose only death is getting thrown off the elevator once by a Signal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiKBOh9P9xU

Note: Max in SoRR has a unique powerbomb front grab where you press the special combo button (the one that's used for blitz inputs) to use your special meter in a flashy slam attack. Flashy as it looks, it's not worth using your meter for it.


Roo: In SoR3 I'd say he's easily the worst character. His total inability to quickly release front grabs (being forced to mash them out, vault, or special out of them), his completely garbage blitz, and his inability to quickly throw weapons away from enemies all mean Roo has serious issues that I'm not sure make up for his powerful front infinite combo and longer range back attack combo. However, in SoRR, Roo is a much trickier character to assess.

All of his SoR3 problems have been fixed, and he's now a fully fleshed out character. His grab from behind is still incredibly weak, and his 0 and 1 star blitzes are still the absolute worst in the game, with horrendous startup and recovery time, but his 2 and 3 star blitzes are now very useful, albeit with short range and priority. His 3 star deals massive damage if used on an enemy against a wall, great for quickly killing enemies, and he now has a proper throw on his front grab, allowing him to get some invulnerability by tossing enemies around. He can also use weapons now, and although he generally sucks with weapons it still means you can quickly pick up and throw away weapons, preventing enemies from using them!

Though his jab range as always sucks, he can quickly stun enemies with his back attack attack, then close in to jab and grab them. 5.2's given Roo back the hitbox in front of him with his back attack, making it exactly like SoR3 where you can back attack enemies on both sides, or use his back attack in a rapid frontal infinite against enemies that can't block or break out of stagger (punch, punch, back attack, repeat). His jump attacks are rather poor, and his jump kick suffers from not keeping his legs out the entire time. It's got a good hitbox while it's active, but if you kick early you can get punched out of the air later in your jump by another enemy!

Without his back attack, Roo would qualify as usable, but bad. Indeed, in earlier versions of the game, when I wasn't as good at SoRR, I'd have rated Roo as being in a middle tier at most. I honestly thought his weaker moves were still too much of a liability to rate him highly despite having an incredibly powerful boss killing tool. However, with good play (and memorization of enemy waves) you can work around his disadvantages well enough that he overcomes his vulnerabilities and ends up being amazing. His back attack staggers enemies infinitely and is unblockable, allowing you to setup infinite combos on every single boss in the game, including otherwise terrifying bosses like Barbon, Rudra, and Shiva, making Roo top tier character material in any 1 on 1 fight. With his definitive tail whip, and the problems he had in SoR3 fixed, Roo becomes the epitome of a lethal joke character, one who can utterly crush otherwise dangerous enemies like SoR2 kickboxers. Roo is one of the characters that's now accomplished multiple No Death, No Police Special clears of the game's various routes on Mania difficulty, showing he's more than capable of tearing enemies up.

Roo's only real weakness is in dealing with ranged attackers. Jets, whip ladies, SoR1 and SoR3 karate guys, and SoR1 and SoR3 Signals with their slides really mess up his ability to line up enemies into stunlocking range with his tail whip. But, thanks to his grab and his sorta decent jump kick, you can learn to manage sections with those enemies while crushing basically everything else. You can even toss out his 3 star hoping to hit for big damage and it's fast enough that it can just barely hit SoR2 whip ladies out of their slowest whip swing animation. Roo also has an advantage against certain projectile attacks in that his hitbox is short enough that projectiles fly over him without hitting whenever Roo is moving or in his back attack animation. This includes attacks such as SoR3 Samurai boss shuriken, SoR3 bodyguard gunfire, SoR2 robot lasers, and Mr. X's machinegun (horizontal shots only, not the diagonal or vertical shots).

Roo is great in cooperative play too, as most other characters can cover Roo effectively while he stunlocks high priority targets like bosses. However Roo is the absolute worst as a CPU partner since the CPU doesn't know how to use his back attack for stunlocking, which is central to using him effectively.


A Tier

Shiva 2 & Shiva 3: Both versions of Shiva are functionally more or less the same unless playing on something like Combined Pause Delay, in which case Shiva 3 will be much better thanks to his speed. Their only major differences are their weapon blitz attacks (Shiva 2 has a much better knife blitz, Shiva 3 has a much stronger sword blitz). Shiva 2 also appears to have slightly faster startup on Final Crash, but it still has considerable starting lag before it hits and exceptionally long ending lag, making it generally inferior to simply punching enemies away or using your offensive special. Like other SoR2 characters, Shiva 2 can also use his offensive special instead of just the defensive one during a front grab, though this is generally an ill-advised use of special meter, and you're better off using his throw.

Shiva is a character with an exceptionally long ranged and fast basic attack that also deals huge damage. You can basically poke away at enemies, use your very effective offensive special for knockdowns, and jump attack when things get hairy. In particular, Shiva has one of the best downward jump attacks in the game for initiating grabs. His punch range beats out the attack range of many of the game's more dangerous bosses, and Shiva has very solid grab attacks when you want to get close in on enemies. The standing jump kick that's aimed diagonally downward also has the unusual property of being one of the only standing jump attacks that stays out until you hit the ground, and it's got a massive hitbox, making it perfect for anti-Jet use.

Shiva's also got the special property of being able to throw heavy enemies with all his throws, so the big guys from SoR1 and SoR3 can be tossed around all you like. He also packs a very good series attack (press and hold the attack button or press the button that instantly does the upward kick). It's got ridiculous range, on par with Roo's back attack, and is amazing for a quick crowd control knockdown when your special meter's still recharging. His back attack is also quite decent.

Shiva's only downside is that his 0 and 1 star blitz, Final Crash, flat out sucks due to its low speed. It's on par with Blaze 1 and 2's Hishousouzan 0 star blitz, taking forever to actually hit enemies. It's so slow that enemies can actually escape during the startup unless you input it extremely fast after landing a punch. It's strictly close range too, and takes forever to recover after the jump, meaning it's only useful against individual enemies if you want to hang on to your special meter. His 2 and 3 star blitzes are a lot better, not exceptional or anything, but still decent. Stick to jump attacks, punches, or his offensive special if you need to rush down a crowd.

Note that Shiva doesn't have a true police special. Instead, he's got a use anywhere temporary speed buff which is decent, but not amazing by any means.


B Tier

Adam: Many of the higher tier characters are ones with exceptional crowd surfing blitz potential. While Rudra and Zan have slightly better blitzes for quickly knocking down crowds safely, Adam's 0, 1, and 2 star blitzes are still very effective. His new 2 star blitz in version 5.2 has a lot more range than it appears and has quick startup. He's also got very nice range on his punches for poking enemies, a unique kick finisher that knocks enemies a long distance on his basic combos, solid grabs, and a unique blitz special where he does a fully invulnerable jumping punch that can be very helpful for quickly and safely closing in on enemies.

Adam's offensive special is handy too, his jump attacks are decent, and he's effective with weapons. His weaknesses are a defensive special with a bit of startup time that enemies can evade, his 3 star blitz which looks and sounds impressive but leaves him open and vulnerable, and a very slow walking speed, which means you really want to be running and rolling around whenever possible.


Blaze 1: Features a very powerful version of Kikoushou, her offensive special combines the speed and range of Blaze 3 with the damage of Blaze 2. In exchange for this very effective tool, Blaze 1 loses a bit of speed on her jump kick, has no front grab slam, has a slightly punishable flip kick finisher combo, and a slightly less effective and safe 2 and 3 star blitzes. It's not actually a bad tradeoff, as all three versions do rely a fair bit on their offensive special for damage and knockdowns and Blaze 1 arguably may have the best one. It's even good for stopping Jet dashes! She's also still very effective with jump attacks, has a solid set of grabs, and her 2 and 3 star blitzes are still very decent and safe against many enemies.

If she has a significant downside, it's that like all three versions of Blaze, her 0 and 1 star blitzes are not worth using. She works best at 2 or 3 stars where she can use her best blitzes without needing to input them manually.


Blaze 2 / BKM (Bare Knuckle Mobile): Blaze 2 has a slightly slower standing combo, and a slower but more powerful version of her offensive special, Kikoushou. It's so slow that she can actually be interrupted easily if you just throw out her offensive special without first staggering an enemy with a few punches, so I consider it the worst offensive special of the three Blaze versions.

Her damage output is terrific, and she uses the same 2 and 3 star blitzes as Blaze 3. She's also got a unique 1 star blitz the others lack, a version of Hishousouzan that has early damage frames to make it more useful (it's still not as good as the 2 or 3 star though). Blaze 2 and Blaze 3 also have fantastic, high priority jump kicks. They're possibly the best, longest range jump kicks in the game, definitely longer reach than Rudra's. She's also got slam thrown on the front and back, which is something few characters have

Note that version 5.2 adds Blaze's reskinned Bare Knuckle Mobile version (which was based on her SoR2 appearance redrawn to be clothed like her SoR1 appearance) as a selectable character. Blaze 2 and BKM play identically in SoRR version 5.2.


Blaze 3: The speed-oriented Blaze, with a fast and fully invulnerable offensive special that's great for quick knockdowns so you can get in and go for grabs. Though Blaze 3 lacks the some of Blaze 2's damage, her sheer ability to reliably knock down crowds and follow up with an effective 2 and 3 star blitz, or to crowd surf with her amazing jump kick, makes Blaze 3 a solid character. I actually think she might be the best of the three versions of Blaze by a slight margin, despite being the weakest in terms of damage per hit. That's how good her speed and priority are on many of her attacks. Even though she uses SoR3's lower damage values, her grab damage is still very potent and worth using.

She's the only Blaze that has a quick hitting 0 star blitz, but it's so weak that it's not worth using. Stick to her 2 or 3 star blitzes when possible, but her 0 star blitz will hit far more reliably than the other versions will if you really want to use it.


Rudra: Unique, and fun, but I'm not sure she's actually as good as I've seen her claimed to be. Her jump kick and vertical jump kick are good, but both have worse priority than Blaze 1/2/3 against stuff like Jets or Zamza. Her offensive special (the shuriken throw) is fairly weak, fails to knock down multiple enemies and is strictly single target. Most of the time you'll want to save your meter for using her defensive special.

However, Rudra has noticeably higher running speed than most characters, good basic attacks, very powerful 2 and 3 star blitzes (albeit with risky startup), and a very abusable 0 star blitz that makes for very effective crowd surfing. The 0 star has a bit of startup, but it has massive range and is very safe to use. Her grabs are also fantastic, with a very powerful rear grab that works even on the heavy enemies that'd normally damage you. Rudra also has a use-anywhere police special that lights all enemies on fire for major damage.

Rudra is a dependable character. I'm not entirely sure she's as good as some of the others in this tier, but I'm also simply not being as good with her as Adam or Blaze 1/2/3 so my uncertainty about her ranking may change as I play her more. She's probably the hardest character in this tier to use, as you have to be careful not to waste your special meter accidentally throwing shuriken around.


Skate 2: Amazing damage on his grabs, amazingly useful blitzes with 1 star and 3 star being fabulous standouts, and decent jump attacks along with a decent defensive special. His unique 3 star blitz is great, being both faster and stronger compared to Skate 3, whose 3 star blitz is slower and is lacking some of the diagonal motion that was originally in SoR3.

If there's an area Skate 2 suffers, it's from short range on his jabs, making it tricky to initiate grabs. His offensive special, Corkscrew Kick, is also very tricky to hit with and you can get punished if you miss. Skate 3's weird-looking offensive special is much weaker, but tends to hit more reliably and also works as an escape move. Skate 2 works really well compared to his SoR3 version, and that's in large part because he's got the damage output to make his riskier elements well worth using.


Zan: Below average damage on most attacks, awful jump attacks, horrendous damage on his basic combo. Both his offensive and defensive special perform rather poorly on damage, especially against jumping or flying enemies. What does Zan have to make this worthwhile? Quite a lot, in fact!

To start, he's got tremendous reach on his punches, allowing him to poke to initiate grabs effortlessly. He's got very decent grabs, including the unique property of having two different grab attacks from behind (either a slam or a throw). He's also got ridiculously fast 0 and 1 star blitzes for very speedy and safe knockdowns. Unlike SoR3, his 2 and 3 star blitzes are now genuinely good, where he rushes forward with his arms electrified, and both of them allow for diagonal movement. While fairly weak for a 3 star, Zan's 3 star blitz is one of the safest, most spammable blitzes for rushing down bosses in the game, and is comparable with Roo's back attack for boss takedown capabilities, albeit not quite as abusable. It will punch through blocking enemies like Barbon quite reliably, and is one of the highest priority attacks in the game, not counting ones that possess true invulnerability of course.

Zan also has a blitz special where he can use his meter to toss an explosive fireball, and unlike SoR3 he can actually use weapons now, instead of being limited to fireballs only with them. He's quite effective with weapons, in particular with the reach and speed on his basic attacks.

While Zan's poor jump attacks do cause problems at times, his vastly improved moveset in SoRR from SoR3 makes him a very effective character in many situations, and one of the better boss takedown characters.


C Tier

Mr. X: Good range on his punches, and an incredible defensive special that can mow down the entire screen. The main reason he's not rated higher is that the rest of his moveset is fairly bad in terms of usefulness. His blitzes include a few quick knockdown options but have poor range, making them ineffective against more dangerous enemies. His jump attacks have questionable range, with only his vertical jump attack standing out as effective. Mr. X also has a rather unsafe jump instead of a roll, and his offensive special knocks down without doing full damage if used at close range.

Mr. X is heavily reliant on using his defensive special crowd control, so he can knock down enemies and then rush in for grabs. This leads to rather risky gameplay because you're frequently having to use the special meter, leaving yourself without meter to use in an escape situation. His main strategy is to run around evading and keeping enemies at bay while allowing time for his special meter to recharge, but the problem is that there's some very aggressive enemies like R. Bear that love to stay in your face and are very hard to deal with. Barbon is also nasty, and you don't really have anything that works well against him (or other blocking enemies) other than keeping him at bay by jump attacking to force him to evade until your meter refills. That, or go in and hope you can grab repeatedly. However, his defensive special is arguably the best in the game, if not one of the best specials in the game. Note that if you're playing cooperative, you will frequently hit your teammate by accident if you've got Damage Between Players enabled.

Mr. X is also very unusual in that he can't use weapons (he'll pick them up and immediately throw them), he can't vault (he has a unique invulnerable grab attack whenever you vault), and he has no slamming grabs (use his vault attack against enemies that won't take damage from throws). His headbutt attacks when grabbing are also fairly slow.

He's a gimmick character. His gun is of course a very strong gimmick and I used to think it potentially made Mr. X top tier or even high tier, but the more I use him the more I've seen it doesn't overcome the disadvantages he has against many of the game's bosses. Maybe I'm still rating him too highly here? His submachine gun is most powerful in crowd situations where you have the room to evade and recharge meter in between gunfire, but he runs into issues in elevator fights, such as the one in Stage 8 of SoR2's route.


D Tier

Elle: In version 5.1, she dealt considerable amounts of damage, which made her relatively slow and risky moves very well worth it since whenever you landed a hit you hit very hard. I would have rated her at least in the same tier as Mr. X, if not higher. Unfortunately, version 5.2 made the strange decision to revert her damage values back to what I think were her original and weak 5.0 values. She deals such poor damage per hit on all her attacks that she's simply not worth it.

Her offensive and defensive specials are multihits, making them poor anti-air options. Elle's offensive special is very long range, and hits pretty reliably, but is slow to recover and punishable. Her 0 and 1 star blitz have decent priority but are punishable at the end because of their recovery time. 5.2 has nerfed their damage hard, and jump kicks are better against some bosses. The 2 star blitz has been nerfed in damage and in speed since 5.1, but is still decent for quick knockdowns. The 3 star blitz is awful; it still has a weird hitbox that starts above and behind Elle, with relatively poor range, and no longer has the damage to be worth the risk of using it.

She still has a few useful tools though. Elle's jump kick is very good and is possibly in the same league as Blaze 2/3 in terms of priority and hitbox size. Her standing attack fortunately still has its speed (instead of the slower speed from version 5.0 and is great for initiating grabs and punishing bosses that try to run up and attack you. Her grabs are where most of her damage have to come from in 5.2, so your main plan should be to slap enemies with the whip or knock them down, and start throwing them around. While she has no slam throws, a problem on some bosses, her grabs on front and back are nevertheless effective against many enemies, tossing enemies a good distance away.

Elle's offensive special and all her blitzes now suck for damage, so sadly they're only really there to help her knock down enemies and control crowds. They're pretty decent at that, but their lack of damage in version 5.2, as well as the damage nerf to her basic attack combo, all reduce her to focusing on slapping enemies once or twice with the whip, and going in for grabs on a moveset that lacks the impressive and unique grab attacks Max and Skate 2 have. We really need version 5.1 Elle back.

Like Rudra and Ash, Elle has a full-screen damaging use-anywhere police special that works even indoors. Handy as this is, you only get to use it once per life, and if your gameplan is to keep dying and using your police special to deal with difficult sections, that's a bad gameplan. I'd give it up in a heartbeat for her version 5.1 damage back.


Skate 3: In all honestly, I used to think Skate 3 was the worst character in the game, based on the fact that he has low damage compared to Skate 2, his jab range is quite bad, and that enemies on Mania are so fast that they're tricky to grab as well as throw into each other. This was as massive mistake on my part. Skate 3 actually has several reliable crowd surfing moves, anti-boss options, fantastic jump attacks, and you can get creative with setting up grabs rather than just jabbing and dashing in. All three versions of Axel perform worse than Skate 3 does, in large part due to their poor mobility and lack of any real crowd surfing moves aside from a jump kick.

Perhaps controvertially, I think I prefer Skate 3's offensive special where he flails his arms wildly over Skate 2's Corkscrew Kick. While Corkscrew Kick is definitely cooler, it's prone to missing, whereas Skate 3 can use his as a weak but reliably hitting, half-decent escape move (it was vastly worse in version 5.0 where it had none of the invulnerability it's supposed to have like in SoR3).

Skate 3 is still worse than Skate 2, though. Their moves are mostly the same, the main difference being Skate 2 hits way harder. Skate 2 also has a much better 3 star blitz, whereas Skate 3's doesn't work as well as it did in SoR3 since you can't control it nearly as well. In SoR3 you could actually move up or down at a 45 degree angle during the move, making it capable of attacking diagonally the way Zan in SoRR now can! Lacking that, while having an unsafe recovery time, means it's nowhere near as useful as the powerful new 3 star that Skate 2 has. Skate 3 also has a weak, invulnerable roller kick throw on the front without needing to vault first, whereas Skate 2's version is punishable, but hits very hard.

Decent character, but kinda weak damage output. Would be considerably better if SoRR fixed his 3 star so it behaves like SoR3, giving him an insanely good diagonal attack .


E Tier

Axel 2: High damage and with the ability to infinite poke enemies with his jabs, but has slow recovery on offensive special and blitzes, with poor reach on all of them making them unsafe and unsuitable for quickly knocking down groups. His 0 star blitz, Grand Upper, is unsafe on all 3 versions of Axel, due its sheer recovery time, and it's not as safe to use repeatedly as it was in Streets of Rage 2 (where I think it either had insane hitbox priority or some outright invulnerability?). He's got a decent jump kick at least. The 2 and 3 star blitzes are unfortunately unsafe due to poor range, as well as the punishable jump at the end of the 3 star. The same goes for the otherwise very powerful offensive special.

His defensive special's pretty good, but because his blitz focuses entirely on damage with little regard for sheer crowd control, Axel tends to get swarmed more easily. His grabs also only qualify as decent. Axel also has major problems against several of the game's bosses, especially ones that can block, since he tends to get easily hit out of Grand Upper. Also has lower than average walking/running speeds. Because he simply doesn't have any effective high reach attacks, difficult bosses like Barbon and R. Bear can easily keep poor Axel at bay. An unusual example of a high damage per hit, yet lower tier character.

As far as weapons go, Axel has some very decent attacks with pipes, bats, and swords. All 3 versions of Axel have a sword special that's long range and fully invulnerable.

Note: unique to Streets of Rage Remake, Axel 2 has a jumping spinkick blitz special that resembles the Tatsumaki Senpukyaku from Street Fighter fame. Unfortunately, it's trash. The damage sucks, and the short hitbox starts behind you, meaning it's awful for rushing into a crowd compared to most blitzes or Adam's blitz special. I'm surprised it's not on Axel 3 in a powered up form to buff his damage, or on Axel 1 to give him something to rush crowds to make up for the abysmally bad jump attacks.


F Tier

Axel 1: His version based on SoR1 has a unique 3 hit offensive special that's the fastest of all of Axel's versions and has decent reach. It's pretty good, and Axel 1 has better grab attacks than the other versions do. However, Axel 1 has generally terrible jump attacks with poor range on them as well as his blitzes. SoR1 Galsias can easily stay out of jump kick range and it makes it very hard to control enemy groups. It also goes without saying that Axel 1 performs atrociously when faced with SoR2 Jets unless you manage to quickly attack them when they're low to the ground.

Axel 1 tends to be mobbed easily and struggles to get quick knockdowns on enemy groups or dangerous enemies. You're heavily reliant on his sheer damage to get anything done, and he has the same issues against bosses that Axel 2 has due to having such short ranged attacks. Still, his damage output when enemies are in range is very good.


Axel 3: More or less the same as Axel 2, except with much less damage in exchange for an offensive special that is fully invulnerable. His damage output sucks and you're heavily reliant on the 2 and 3 star blitzes to quickly rack up damage. Failing that, simply be patient and wear down enemies.

The invulnerability on his offensive special may not entirely make up for the damage loss, but it does give him a sheer safety option for scaring away enemies. Many enemies and bosses will wander in during the special, or can be baited into wandering in front of you during the offensive special, where you can punish them as soon as the offensive special ends. Due to a lethal combination of extremely poor damage, and awful priority on attacks, Axel 3 is simply bad. At least he has a decent jump kick, something Axel 1 fatally lacks.


GAY Tier?!

Ash: He gets his own tier because quite frankly, I still can't figure out where he fits. Ash's attacks are such an oddball mix that it's really hard to properly judge how effective he is relative to the others. He's one of the three characters, along with Rudra and Elle, to have a use-anywhere police special for instant damage once per life.

Like Max, he has very slow basic attacks that deal high damage, consisting of two slaps, followed by an overhead punch. However, Ash makes an awkward backward jump after the final hit, leaving him exposed and making his basic combo very slow. Much like Max, he is reliant on an effective back attack that hits all around him for knocking down enemies if he's surrounded.

Ash's jump attacks are also a strange mix of the best and worst in the game. His jump kick and downward jump attack are both fantastic, with the kick in particular having a massive and long lasting hitbox that easily beats out other attacks. However, his vertical jump kick has an atrocious hitbox and the worst damage of any jump attack in the game. He also sports good offensive and defensive specials, and his running speed is very fast, tied with Rudra's.

His blitzes are very awkward, with his 0 and 1 star being weak and tending to sail right over enemies or leaving him exposed to counterattack. His 2 and 3 star blitzes are stronger but have atrocious reach during the initial spin, forcing you to time them precisely so you hit with the kick at the end of them in order to use them safely.

Unlike Max, he doesn't have a slide kick to help get grabs effectively, and he also is sadly lacking in damage on his throws. Both his front and back throws have relatively mediocre damage, his crotch thrust attacks matching his front slam in damage, and his front grab also takes forever to recover from. He'll actually fail to recover faster than some enemies like SoR3 Galsias and Donovans! He's also got a jump instead of a roll, similar to Mr. X and Shiva, but it's way slower and more punishable.

Ash's terrific jump game, his decent to poor ground attacks, and his highly questionable grab attacks all combine to make Ash a very difficult character to properly compare to the others. He's also unquestionably the hardest, most awkward character to use in the game. I'm really not sure where he ends up on the tier list, other than to say he's not top tier nor is he bottom tier. Ash should most likely end up somewhere in the middle, but where exactly I have no idea. I'm interesting to hear other people's thoughts on him.

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As a side note, I'm aware there's a whopping 7 characters I've placed in the B Tier. I genuinely think their performance is very close to each other. I'd say it's a testament to the game balance that so many characters that perform differently feel like they're all very comparable in terms of sheer usefulness for tackling what the game throws at you. There's probably reasonable arguments to put some of them above the others in that tier though, but I'm not sure I can really say definitively who's better and who's worse within B Tier.

It's a shame all the versions of Axel ended up on the bottom, but someone had to be there, and he frankly has too many mobility issues as well as blitz problems to make up for his damage output. He simply doesn't perform all that well in SoRR. I don't even think he was all that good in SoR1 or SoR3 either.

edit: typos

Rudra is definitely A tier. Fastest character, decent damage, amazing blitzes (easy input especially blitz 2 and an infinite combo that can be used to decimate enemies quickly with that blitz), great standing range, amazing Izuna Drop, her offensive special is used to control things from distance while you're busy dealing with other enemies, etc., nice police special, etc.

Axel-1 became a better character with NattyCat's fix on him: she added him the reach he used to have in SOR1 and hands down was the best fix he could get, too bad this fixed version of his wasn't carried over 5.2, which returns him to shit tier.

Those character patches Natty made would've been really useful for 5.2

Am I crazy with rating Axel bottom tier though? I swear I keep trying Axel's various versions and his range and delay issues on his blitzes and offensive special, as well as Axel 1's limited jump attack range all makes it really hard to reliably hit things. I'm fairly confident about Axel being the worst character, but he's also probably the character I've played the least (in part for that reason).

I appreciate the confirmation that Rudra's placement is fairly accurate.

Skate 3 would be a lot better if his three star blitz ended on a forward input. Aside from SoRR having the issue where he can't move at a diagonal nearly as well as in SoR3, because you can also influence how fast or slow he moves his three star works far better if holding forward so you're moving at full speed when you use it, meaning it works much better when you actually have the stars for it as opposed to command inputting it.

I'm feeling more confident about Mr. X's placement. His poor jump attacks and blitzes mean you need to learn better boss specific techniques, but he can sweep groups down with his defensive special and go in for grabs during the recharge pretty effectively. Rolling up and down to evade enemies also works quite decently and his vertical jump attack has surprisingly decent range for keepaway. His moveset's overall worse than Elle's aside from the defensive special perhaps, but the defensive special is so good that even with the lack of a police special I think he's still better.

The more I've used Blaze 1/2/3 lately the more I've thought that it is really possible to categorize them from best to worst, and that there is a real difference in how they rank from one to the other. Blaze 3's sheer speed, jump kick range, and offensive special safety and range are just too good. Her damage really isn't far off from Blaze 2 aside from the offensive special, with her grabs being pretty darn good.

Blaze 1 is worse and probably deserves to be rated in a tier below, either at or above Mr. X's rating. The lack of range and delay on the jump kick as well as the delay on her flip kick finisher on her basic attacks are troublesome compared to Blaze 2 & 3, but her high speed and high damage version of kikoushou is still very useful, and she's a solid character. Her 2 and 3 star blitzes are very decent (they go under a number of attacks) but characters like Adam, Zan, and Skate all have better options.

Blaze 2 is outdone by the other versions. Her damage on her offensive special and her vertical jump kick are noticeably higher, but the offensive special's sheer delay is a huge liability and I found myself being interrupted out of it constantly. You can technically use it during a forward grab, but many enemies will walk up or down out of range if you do so before it hits! Blaze 2's best assets are the jump kick and her 2/3 star blitzes and, but her poor version of her special is a real liability, so much so that I think I've put her way too high. I'd estimate she deserves to be at or below Mr. X's ranking. Are the jump kicks and blitzes good enough to compare to Mr. X's machinegun? I honestly don't know. She does deal way more damage than Elle, and has better attacks in general (that 3 star blitz can handle most bosses in the game by itself), so I wouldn't rate Blaze 2 as low as Elle.

I've done a full playthrough of Mania as Ash and I'm pretty confident in rating him mid to mid-low tier. I'm gonna tentatively edit the original post to put him alongside Elle and Skate. He's very, very tricky to use and quite he's not as good against bosses as I'd hoped, but his jump kick is outrageously good for a lot of enemies. His offensive special is surprisingly long range too, where the tip of his boot can outrange a lot of enemies like R. Bear if timed correctly. I did have a lot of trouble against the SoR2 robots because of his somewhat slow speed, and Ash's massive hitbox means he can be hit out of the air if he tries his jumping down + attack as whip ladies strike at you, but he's far more versatile than any version of Axel is.

My take on all of the characters in this patch:

I will also vouch for Rudra's high placement since she does have her quirks that make her high tier material. Izuna Drop is crazy good, 0 and 2 star blitzes are nice as well having good range, and her offensive special is nice for crowd control (e.x. I like to use it against the lackeys surrounding Barbon at the end of Stage 1 in the SoR2 route). Her special is also universal screen clearer that's useful in a pinch.

Hesitant on where I should place BKM Blaze since I don't play her (or any of the Blazes anymore as a matter of fact), but since BKRoo says that she functions the same as her SoR2 iteration I guess she can be placed in the A- tier.

Also if anymore is interested in the TierMaker that I made for this topic here it is:

https://tiermaker.com/categories/video-games/streets-of-rage-remake-v52-tier-list-1170

Apologies for the 1P "highlights" for the characters that have multiple iterations of themselves. Was finding it difficult to get it without those and gave up altogether. Enjoy!

I will also vouch for Rudra's high placement since she does have her quirks that make her high tier material. Izuna Drop is crazy good, 0 and 2 star blitzes are nice as well having good range

Cool, thanks for this.

Blaze 3 is the best of the bunch out of the Blazes for you too, huh? She really is pretty amazing, though honestly I think she's as good as Rudra, though her 0/1 Star Blitz is nowhere as useful obviously. After having used her more I can confidently reassure you that BKM Blaze is just a redrawn SoR2 Blaze with no changes to damage values or the moves themselves. At least, I can't see anything that's different.

The only thing I really disagree with on your tier list is Zan's placement. He's rated way too low on your list, IMO. His sheer reach/priority on attacks combined with his high speed is just too good at dropping enemies. His 3 Star Blitz is almost as abusable as Roo's back attack is, and is sometimes outright better in situations where you can't line up enemies as easily. I'd easily put him just below Shiva, no problems.

As a Zan player I'd give him at least tier A

Don Vecta wrote:As a Zan player I'd give him at least tier A

Interesting. I'll look into your input as well as BKRoo's and change a couple of placements on the list. The reason why I didn't place Zan as high is because I don't see people playing him as much as other characters. Might as well give him a try someday.

Based Juju wrote:

Don Vecta wrote:As a Zan player I'd give him at least tier A

Interesting. I'll look into your input as well as BKRoo's and change a couple of placements on the list. The reason why I didn't place Zan as high is because I don't see people playing him as much as other characters. Might as well give him a try someday.

I'm not that great but certainly he has some tools for crowd control and mobility that can keep you on the move to avoid being on a pinch. That and his weapon game is also solid and fast.

Skate 2 is S-tier to me, especially when the nastiest bosses are around (Shiva, Rudra, Abadede). Not the easiest character to learn, but good against everything when you do.

And while Roo has the best individual move in the game, it's hard to use with multiple mobs around (including Mr.X, the only boss where the move falls down). I'd put him down as a B-tier with an S-tier move. (a bit like Zan with his 3-star)

Is there a deathless run of Mania using Skate 2? If so I'd be interested to see what strategies exist for it. How easily or reliably a character can do Mania deathless, or how well they can clear Mania on the standard levels seems to be a good barometer in judging a character's relative strengths. Of course individual player skill and familiarity with a particular character is also a factor.

edit: I've located a channel that has no death runs of Mania using Blaze 2 and Skate 2, however they use the savestate function (i.e. alt-f4 out of the game then reload the game) so essentially each level is played separately and we don't see how many restarts or attempts per level were made to no death it. It's an interesting proof of concept that they can beat every level without dying, even if it's not technically done in a single playthrough (and also doesn't appear to be running at full 60 FPS framerate): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS7CYzATG6xDJpalRL1iUMVQfkTYVI-MP

I used to think Roo would be solidly mid-tier material; flawed, but with a very powerful gimmick. However, his gimmick is so powerful and mechanically fairly easy to execute that no death, no police runs have been done with Roo on all the major routes, including the very tricky SoR1 route, and his back attack is very much a factor. Being able to no death Mania while trivializing all the otherwise difficult bosses is basically the reason I consider Roo to be S-Rank material. He also trivializes tons of nasty enemies like SoR2 kickboxers, and his only major threats are enemies who can outrange his back attack that everyone has trouble with like SoR1 karate guys, SoR2 whip ladies, SoR2 jets, and so on.

(including Mr.X, the only boss where the move falls down)

This actually is where the infinite stunlock really shines. If you can keep Mr. X stunlocked indefinitely, and lure the easy mobs into getting caught by the stunlock, Mr. X can't resummon them. Mr. X can only resummon helpers when he's able to move around. In 5.2, where Roo now has his hitbox in front of him during his back attack as with SoR3, it's even easier to pull off. See the Mr. X fight here for an example:

https://youtu.be/-p7hCYUmPa4?t=5121

Roo is the only character to do this as Mr. X will break out of close range stunlocks (including Roo's own punch, punch, back attack infinite up close, R. Bear can break out of this too). Also, I can't remember if this is specific to 5.2 or if Roo could do this before, but in 5.2 Roo also is too short to hit when moving or back attacking with many projectiles, including SoR2 robots, SoR3 bodyguard pistols, and Mr. X's horizontal bullets.

It's also possible to stunlock SoR2 Jets with it after they do a diagonal attack, there's a few seconds where they're open to stunlocking.

Here's the updated list if anyone cares.

bareknuckleroo wrote:Is there a deathless run of Mania using Skate 2? If so I'd be interested to see what strategies exist for it. How easily or reliably a character can do Mania deathless, or how well they can clear Mania on the standard levels seems to be a good barometer in judging a character's relative strengths. Of course individual player skill and familiarity with a particular character is also a factor.

Final Crash uploaded one that has a deathless run with the BK1 route:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vcRHT0KXRU

Skate 2 is crazy good with knives/kunai and bats/pipes/wooden planks. Get your hands on any of these weapons and you are guaranteed safe on almost all attacks hurled your way.

Here's a demonstration using the pipe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-PH3Z37APw

That's a fair point, there's a few characters with fully invulnerable forward weapon specials that can be spammed nonstop on SoR1 and SoR2 weapon type! Even without the pipe that run really showcases SoR2 Skate well. Out of curiosity, why do you rate SoR2 Skate so low in that case? Is he really worse than Blaze 2 for clearing out Mania deathless?

bareknuckleroo wrote:That's a fair point, there's a few characters with fully invulnerable forward weapon specials that can be spammed nonstop on SoR1 and SoR2 weapon type! Even without the pipe that run really showcases SoR2 Skate well. Out of curiosity, why do you rate SoR2 Skate so low in that case? Is he really worse than Blaze 2 for clearing out Mania deathless?

To be honest, I really don't know myself. I feel contemplated putting him above Blaze 2/BKM Blaze since his game plan with the weapons I listed kind of falls flat when you don't have the SoR2 weapon type setting equipped or if you accidentally grab enemies way too many times and lose your weapon in the process.

There's also the fact that Skate 2 is kinda helpless without weapons and struggles in certain stages if they're not available for you to pick up and use. If you use the B-button function for your blitz moves, his 2-star blitz really isn't all that great due to it not doing that much damage. His punches are really all that great due to them lacking damage and range. So you're really going to be relying on the headbutt, his throws, the migrane, corkscrew kick, and his 3-star to do damage.

My opinion may change in the near future and I'll swap his current position with Blaze 2, but I'll need more time for the other routes.