Beat ’em up fans have been eating well here the past few years. I am not talking about a nice three-course dinner with a fancy dessert, no, I am talking Lizzo going to the Chinese Buffet good. Just to name a few – Streets of Rage 4, TMNT Shredder’s Revenge (with an honorable mention of The Cowabunga Collection), Final Vendetta, and I could go on, but we’re here to talk about Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons, the newest DD entry and what I am assuming is a soft reboot of the franchise.

Featuring a pixel art style that blends old with new, it’s just as easy on the eyes as any of the other modern brawlers from the past few years. Visually, it reminds me more of a modern River City Ransom (not the remakes, but a re-imagining of the original). The animations are fluid, it never gave me any frame rate issues no matter how many enemies swarmed the screen, and is easily the prettiest in terms of the modern Double Dragon games.

What really sets this apart from other similar games is the tag team gameplay, where even playing solo you can pick a team of two characters to kick ass and eat hamburgers. With a suite of 14 playable characters, 8 of which are bosses or mini-bosses from the game complete with their full range of attacks, there is a lot of variety here and none of it comes at the sake of re-skins or alternate color options for the brawlers. Sadly, there are no alternate color options which makes having 2 of the same character on the screen problematic at times. Each character has their own pros and cons, such as having a grapple attack or being able to shoot a gun, but at the sake of not being able to use dropped weapons or being much slower than other fighters. Additionally, there are a wealth of difficulty modifiers that allow you to fully customize how easy or difficult you want the game to be, allowing you to tune the enemy’s health and aggression as well as your own health and so forth, which in turn modifies how many coins you can unlock to redeem within the post-game store.

The game offers a Mega Man style map that allows you to pick which of four areas you wish to tackle first, with your selection adding a bit of a roguelike element to the gameplay. This is enhanced by upgrades after each level that you can either use cash for, save for revives, or even the coveted unlock coins I mentioned previously once you wrap up the game. As you progress through the map, the areas get longer and more difficult, and change the end boss’ abilities drastically. All in all, you’re looking at about an hour and a half of time per game, which is a little longer than I was expecting based on the number of areas.

Each area looks distinct and features some unique mechanics, such as traps and hazards that will take massive amounts of health away from you. If you’re a veteran of the series, you know that this is nothing new, and this is where the most challenging aspects lie, almost to a fault. There were a few areas with rolling spikes that shot out of the floor – whenever this happened, I could feel some digital being taking great glee as it rolled my ass back to the beginning of the segment after one misstep, leaving me with a sliver of health from my previously full bar. There is also some platforming that is just downright brutal and requires you to really plan your jumps accordingly.

The combat is great, but nowhere near as solid as the likes of the reigning beat-em-up champ, Streets of Rage 4. You get a basic attack, a special attack that can be modified by pressing it in conjunction with a directional button, a jump attack, and then either a dodge or grab depending on the character. Everything controls as it should, but the game failed to really explain how to tag in or out, outside of obviously depleting one of the character’s health bars. Most of the strategy comes from zoning the enemies into clusters, using a special or weapon attack for a fancy clearing animation and a health drop. The health pickup was one of my biggest annoyances simply because it pauses the game to do this retro-looking screen pop with a hot dog on it, and it just becomes tiresome after you do it 50 times in a level.

I only received this code with less than 24 hours until embargo, so as of this writing, I have completed the game once in co-op with my son. It was easily one of the most enjoyable co-op experiences we’ve had in a long time. Normally, if we finish a game he’s ready to move on to something else, at least for a while, but in his 10 years on this planet, this was the first game he immediately asked to play again once the credits rolled. If you have someone to play couch co-op with, since online isn’t an option (yet, it’s planned later on), this is easily something I’d recommend for your next session.

If you want a great beat-em-up that is a full meal, but will leave you wanting seconds – both in terms of playing it again, as well as wanting something a little more filling then Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons delivers, even if it’s not a perfect plate.

9 out of 10

Pros

• Great Pixel-Art Presentation
• A Staggering Number of Playable Characters
• Replayability

Cons

• The Crowd Control Animation Gets Tiring
• Lack of Alternate Color Palettes
• No Online Play

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons was developed by Secret Base and was published by Modus Games. It is available on NS, PC, PS4, PS5, X1, and XSX. The game was provided to us for review on XSX. If you’d like to see more of Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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