Streets of Rage 2 - Cultural References

Cultural References

• Some levels of the game have references to the Japanese name of the series. In the second half of Round 3-1, there are arcade machines that say "Bare Knuckle", posters featuring "BK2", and advertisements in Round 4 that say "BAREII".
• It has also been said that the background music for the stadium scenes (officially named "Under Logic") bears a resemblance to The Shamen's 1991 hit "Move Any Mountain".
• The Stage 4 boss "Abadede" bears a strong resemblance to that of the former professional wrestler The Ultimate Warrior, who had worked for the WWF in the early 90's.
• The first of the three fat enemies in Stage 5 is named "Heart", as a reference to the popular manga Fist of the North Star (original Japanese name Hokuto No Ken), which featured an extremely overweight martial artist called Heart. Additionally, level 6 features an enemy named "Souther," another character from Fist of the North Star.
• The character Skate resembles the eponymous playable character from the game DJ Boy, another side-scrolling beat 'em up. This arcade game, developed by Kaneko, was later published by Sega on the Mega Drive. In fact, Sega changed the in-game name of the character from "Sammy" in Bare Knuckle 2 (Japanese release) to "Skate" in Streets of Rage 2 (U.S. release); American Sammy licensed the arcade game for U.S. distribution. Skate is the character's nickname in both incarnations; his first name in the non-Japanese versions is given as Eddie.