I love this game. It's got probably my favorite soundtrack of any game out there and it's just endlessly replayable with a great amount of challenge no matter your skill level. Streets of Rage 2 is probably my favorite Genesis game because those reasons.

There's a part of me that is considering picking up the normal difficulty speedrun with Max at a casual level at some point just because I like playing through this game multiple times already. Who knows if I'll follow through with that, but just letting it be known that I might upload more of this game eventually :)

There isn't too much to cover on the run itself I think. Max is just a powerhouse that can delete healthbars if you grab enemies from behind. Slide kicks can get you into this position pretty often if you get good at the spacing needed for it. It helps to understand how enemies react to situations in order to do it effectively though. I've done a deathless playthrough offline before, but this is the first time I had it recorded, which I also streamed on Twitch here!:   / 1952158777  

This was played on a Sega Genesis Model 1 console with a VA7 motherboard that I installed a "Triple Bypass" on to improve the audio & video quite a bit. The VA7 is notorious for having terrible audio, and this mod effectively puts the audio quality on the level of the early Model 1's which are mostly agreed upon to have the "ideal" audio for the Sega Genesis.

I had mentioned in my last video that I've taken up soldering as a hobby, and this console took quite a bit of work to get working. My friend from Australia sent this to me after having an honest accident trying to install the Triple Bypass, where he dripped solder on the chip which is effectively the brains of the Genesis, which is the VDP. Effectively, some legs got soldered together and they became fatigued enough to where when I tried to correct them, they just broke off.

Undeterred, I decided to attempt taking a dremel to the top of the VDP to expose the broken legs inside the chip as a last ditch effort to save the console. I hadn't done this before on a Genesis, and accidentally went too far and the legs I needed to solder magnet wire to were in pretty awkward positions now. Because I had nothing to lose at this point, I attempted the repair anyways, which you can see in this Twitter thread:   / 1714810965047566803  

My idea was to use UV curable solder mask to cover up previously soldered legs so I wouldn't accidentally undo them as I continued along in the repair. I also opt for this mask instead of some kind of glue because if something breaks, I can at least go back and clear off the mask easily for repairs, whereas I'd be screwed if I had to get under superglue or something, which would probably cause more damage if it needed to be cleared.

Once I got the repair completed to the best of my ability, I decided to test it, with the complete expectation that I was probably not going to see any life out of this Genesis again, due to how many things can go wrong in a repair like this. You can see the first time I test the console here:   / 1714812523877433731  

From there, I installed the Triple Bypass mod that was originally intended for this console in the first place, and it works great! I've streamed this console over the last couple of Twitch streams I've done, and I've seen absolutely no issues with it whatsoever, even beyond offline testing which has also been extensive.

There's just something really cool to me about taking a console that was destined to be unusable junk, and making it not only fully work against all odds, but also making it something actually desirable.

Thanks for watching!