izigame.me

I don’t even know where to begin with this one. There have been so many Double Dragon titles along the years and it’s easy to get lost with what works and what doesn’t. Back in the day we were limited by hardware and machine specs albeit the 8-bit or 16-bit sprite graphics. Double Dragon 1 was what set the trend back in the 80s followed immediately by DD2 and the DD2 NES game setting the standards very high for TECHNOS. When DD3 (arcade) was introduced, it suddenly felt like the series was going down a sinkhole and with good reason. It was the first game to ever introduce micro-transactions. YES! You read that right, you needed to spend quarters (coins) to ensure you unlocked special moves, extra lives and characters. Not only that, the gameplay absolutely sucked and by the time DD3 NES was released folks had moved on to better beat ‘em ups like Final Fight and Streets of Rage series and even though the Return of Double Dragon was released it was a commercial failure. TECHNOS went bankrupt and the Double Dragon IP got tossed around a lot since the past 2 decades, I stopped playing any DD game since RODD as everything looked like garbage until Wayforward introduced DD NEON and that raised the standards and not to forget the amazing Skullmageddon who seemed to be a cross between Skeleror and the Shredder. Following that there were cameos by Billy, Jimmy and Skullmageddon in the River City Girls series which was a spin-off of another TECHNOS game River City Ransom. When I heard the announcement for Double Dragon Gaiden, I didn’t know what to expect as the developers decided to go back to the pixel graphics, I was hoping we’d see a Double Dragon game that had the art style akin of SOR4 and Mayhem Brawler but instead seeing the Pixel graphics it seemed like a page torn out of the TMNT Shredder’s Revenge.
I recently bought the game on sale and I started with BILLY and JIMMY as they are the unlocked characters and you get to control them both via a TAG SYSTEM in game. Once you get too acquainted with BILLY you won’t want to use JIMMY (unless BILLY is dying). Let me explain – See, unlike previous games in the franchise BILLY and JIMMY have their own respective sets of moves. If you’ve played DD2, DD3, RODD you’ll notice a familiarity with the way the characters use their martial arts (Sousetsuken) however in DD Gaiden, their fighting styles are very different, BILLY seems to use more of his feet and JIMMY uses his fists (WHY???) Given that the game has a roster of so many unlockable characters why would the developers change their fighting styles so much. There is much argument about the game being a prequel to the original DD timeline, which is understandable but having such a varied move-set alienated both brothers drastically. Anyways, moving on to the other characters, every main boss is unlockable which is great if there is a certain character that suits your style of play, there’s uncle MATIN, BURNOV and ABOBO who are wrestler type grapplers and heavy hitters and there’s MARIAN, MG WILLY who are more ranged combatants, then BILLY and JIMMY the only characters that are well balanced and can carry throwable weapons off enemies, and lastly the main bosses and some special DD2 and DD3 characters (not gonna spoil it for the rest of you). With that being said the combos are very effective and every character can use 3 types of specials and along the way you can upgrade / buff your character through every playthrough earning you tokens (in-game money tokens) that help you unlock more characters, artwork and music.
Can I say this game pays homage to the Double Dragon Series? The answer here is YES, in terms of all the characters and the amazing music that’s been retrofitted in to a modern environment. The only downside here is the longevity of the playthrough being too short, you can complete the main campaign in barely an hour and a half, it’s the unlockables that’s adds to the replay value and by the time you’re on your third playthrough you’ll find yourself waltzing across the screen wiping the floor of baddies unless you take the difficulty up a few notches in the campaign menu. Overall a great game, highly recommended if you’re a Double Dragon fan and are tripping on the Nostalgia train otherwise this can be skipped (unless it's on sale). If you’re looking for a more complete beat ‘em up experience, there’s SOR4 and Mayhem Brawlers and not to forget TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge.