Billy and Jimmy Lee are back for their 25th anniversary, after a fairly chequered history. This time, however, WayForward are at the helm, and they have a rather good track record in the sidescrolling brawler genre. Can they keep that winning streak going with this one?
Given that the original Double Dragon game was made in 1987, Neon has decided to go for a full 80s throwback style, complete with mullets, denim jackets, 80s rock and New Wave music, not to mention the Saturday Morning Cartoon villian of the piece, Skullmageddon, who hams it up to 11 and is the perfect foil to the idiotic yet heroic bros. This really gives the whole experience an identity and a personality, which really aid your engagement with the task at hand. There is also plenty of comic relief, with the brothers commenting on obvious traps, the enemies shouting ‘Gymnastics!’ as they cartwheel on screen, and some painful one-liners from Skullmageddon.
It also introduces the concept of Bro-Op. As well as the extra interactions between the 2 brothers compared to single player mode, you also get the option of high fives, which each give different bonuses, such as dividing your life totals between you or putting you in increased damage mode. They can also do unique attacks, such as tripping an enemy by attacking them into the other who is crouching so they fall. Little touches like this add a lot to the two player experience. There is the option of friendly fire being on and off, so whether you want to be nice to each other or beat each other up, the choice is yours.
Presentationally, everything flows pretty well. The choice of 3D models in a 2D world seems like a pretty standard one in the current age of reboots, but it works pretty well here. The characters and enemies feel solid and relatively well designed, but the animations can leave something to be desired, especially in combat, but we’ll come to that later. Far more effective in setting the tone, however, is the music, composed by Jake Kaufman, otherwise known as Virt in remixing circles. His work more than most evokes the retro vibe, mixing components of 80s music and old arcade game soundtracks to make a powerful set of backing tracks to the action.
The gameplay is your standard brawler fare with some neat additions. You go from level to level as you would expect, but each level is distinct and lives, of which you get 3, do not carry over per level. This seems beneficial in most stages, as they seem to be designed around the amount of lives there are hidden throughout the level. The question of lives at all these days is a heated debate, but in this genre they kind of make sense. Some checkpoints wouldn’t go amiss, though.
There are some extra moves in your arsenal. Beyond the standard light and heavy attack, you have a duck and a run. The duck allows you to move under some moves. If you time this correctly, you move into ‘gleam’ mode for a short period, where you do double damage. This means counterattacking can be your best plan of action assuming it’s not too hectic to pull off a dodge successfully. You can also roll from a duck to get away from attacks, as well as do a sweep and rising knee attack. Running helps you get through some environmental obstacles, and also affords you a slide and shoulder tackle, which can be useful for breaking through a pack of enemies.
There’s also the mixtape concept, which offers ways to build your character so they are unique to you. This includes 10 Styles, which are basically stat builds, and 10 Special Moves, which you can use by spending meter, fighting game style. Each style can be earned and improved by collecting tapes which are dropped by enemies or found in chests, buying them from shops and the Tapesmith. Two types of currency let you use them, and they’re built into the environment River City Ransom style. These systems certainly afford the opportunity to grind, and basically encourage it for the higher difficulty levels, where the main changes are the health and attack power of the enemies. You can get by in Normal difficulty without it though, thankfully.
For the most part, the control is satisfactory, but it’s certainly not without fault. Everything feels just a little slow and clunky, either with a long starting animation or an awkward transition, and well as no real movement. You also can’t cancel moves with a duck, which would have made avoiding enemy attacks a lot more viable of a prospect. Billy and Jimmy just seem…inflexible, at times. I must say this improves with playtime, and you will get used to using the way the characters play to your advantage, but until then you will feel somewhat helpless on occasion.
Most enemies you come across seem fair, from whip-toting dominatrices to cannon fodder Williamses to brutish Abobos. Some bosses, however, especially the final ones, seem too traditional to old-school brawlers in design, and by that I mean they have cheap moves that you can only really avoid by trial and error lest each hurt you for half a life bar of damage. There is no real place for enemy design such as this in the year 2012, throwback or not.
While it tries to add some freshness to this old and exhausted genre, it doesn’t achieve it half as well as other recent attempts such as the much lauded Castle Crashers. Still, if you enjoyed that, I think you could easily enjoy this. It’s also the perfect nostalgia trip; however, it comes with the pitfalls that lie within that, with numerous nostalgic design decisions that just don’t cut the mustard anymore.