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As a lifetime fan of this genre & this series, I've played this game to death for the last twenty years, starting with the GameBoy Advance handheld version & then moving onto the big screen with emulators. This has always been the best Double Dragon game, only being held back by its lack of local co-op due to it being a link-up GBA game (something emulators struggle to emulate), an issue that has finally been resolved with this new version.
While recent games in the series like Double Dragon Neon & Double Dragon Gaiden are lots of fun, they never attempted to recreate the feel of the original arcade game, whilst modernising the mechanics & ironing out the issues expected in a game made back in 1987. in 2003 Atlus did just that, with what could be considered an Extended Edition remake of the original Arcade game. They just took everything that was great about the original Arcade game & married it with extra levels, enemies, weapons & moves introduced in later sequels, the NES home versions & Super Double Dragon. The result is what to me has always felt like the definitive Double Dragon experience.
The graphics may look a lot more rough than modern beat em ups but the sprites are huge & dynamic. Gameplay in beat em ups hasn't hugely evolved in the last twenty years & you'll struggle to find a game in this genre with tighter controls than DD Advance. The fighting mechanics & button layout may appear strange at first, but unlike most beat em ups that rely on single button combos & special move buttons, DD Advance has a deep, engaging & highly versatile variety of moves for every situation. While it lacks the visual flashiness of recent beat em ups, it more than makes up for it with highly-efficient combat mechanics. Skilled players can really put on a show with the fighting moves on offer here. Probably the only beat em up I've played that really makes you feel like Bruce Lee.
There's some improvements that could be made. No online multiplayer, survival mode is only single player & at the end of the day it is only a port of the GBA game, but for the price point you can't argue with it. Arc need to patch this as the Scoop Moto billboard on Stage 1 has been greyed out (presumably for copyright reasons) when they could have literally replaced it with a picture of a different car. Anything would look less ugly & lazy than a grey box.
So a must-buy if you're at all a fan of beat em ups. If you know the game well you'll be happy to finally play it co-op without the restrictive GBA link-up, & new players will get introduced to a far more accessible & fun version of the most influential beat em up of all time.
Now if only Arc Systems can release the 2011 iPhone game, or Double Dragon Zeebo.