Recently, Dotemu announced a bunch of retro content for its upcoming beat 'em up sequel, Streets of Rage 4. The game is set to include 12 unlockable characters in their original pixel art style, as well as lots of past music from some of the older titles. Courtesy of IGN, we now have a much better look at all this in action, and it's kind of bizarre.

In this five-minute gameplay video, we get to see the old fashioned fighters punch their way through a couple of levels. However, the mix of 16-bit character models with the much sharper, cel-shaded modern look is pretty jarring. While it's fun to see three different versions of Axel fighting alongside each other, the clash of visual styles is very unusual. We do like how the light from each scene catches on the old-school characters, and it's clear the gameplay will feel largely the same across the board.

Whatever you think of the retro content, Streets of Rage 4 looks to be shaping up nicely -- we just need that release date now, please. Are you excited to hop into this one? Punch a phone box in the comments below.

[source ign.com]