It’s always a good time when a new Double Dragon game comes out and Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons keeps that streak alive, albeit with a twist that may divide die-hard fans.
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons
Developer: Secret Base Pte Ltd
Price: $24.99
Platform: PC / PS / Switch / Xbox
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for review
Everyone’s favorite brothers, Billy and Jimmy Lee are back to do what they do best: dish out copious amounts of violence on the local gang population. The year is 199X and nuclear war has left New York City ravaged and susceptible to four gangs taking control of the city. In perhaps the perfect example of government incompetence, the newly hired mayor decides to recruit the Lee brothers to handle the problem for him, which they’re happy to do. Besides that there are some fun little tidbits about each of the four gangs you’ll rub elbows with that each have their own gimmick, but it’s the triangle cult who worship their leader Anubis that steals the show.
If you’ve played one beat ‘em up you’ve likely played them all, but Double Dragon Gaiden might be one of my recent favorites to play. Everything about the core of its combat is incredibly tight and satisfying to play. Getting a crowd of goons lumped together as you juggle them in the air before unleashing a special move, causing them to explode in a shower of coins is endlessly entertaining. Aiding in keeping the combat stimulating is the inclusion of a tag-team system; before you start a run you’ll select two characters that you can swap between at the touch of a button. This opens up a variety of combat possibilities as you start a combo with Jimmy Lee perhaps, using his dragon fist to launch a group of enemies into the air before tagging in Abobo who brings everyone slamming back down with a thunderous force. It’s a fantastically fresh mechanic in a genre that has stubbornly refused to evolve much.
The other interesting twist to the game is how you choose to approach the four zones available to you. You’re open to choosing which of the four gangs you tackle first, however, which gang you don’t pick will get increasingly more powerful. Not only that but whereas the first gang you pick will only last a single level, each next gang will increase the number of stages required to get to the final boss. Speaking of, the boss will also change depending on what level of difficulty you fight them at. In my first run I chose the triangle cult first and my fight with Anubis was pretty straightforward as he was just a regular fight similar to one of his normal goons. After I had died later in that run, in my next one I saved Anubis’ stage for last, and by the time I got to him after his multi-stage gauntlet, unlike the first time I fought him this time he was this huge godlike being using supernatural spells and flying around the arena. It’s an interesting way to make you want to replay the game to see every variation of these boss fights that I don’t think I’ve seen a game do before.
Now the line in the sand for Double Dragon Gaiden will be with the roguelite elements the game is introducing for the first time in the game series. Essentially whenever you start a run you’ll be able to change aspects of the game such as your player health, the cost of upgrades, and even if you want the run to be permadeath or not. These adjustments will affect how much it costs in gold acquired to afford a token that can then be used in the token shop to unlock new characters and whatnot. Gold is also used between stages to purchase upgrades for your two characters as well, such as increasing the damage efficiency of a combo, or making you immune to certain attacks if your special meter is filled. Sometimes however, Double Dragon Gaiden almost seems to want you to try and make a “hard choice” of choosing between buying an upgrade or saving your cash for tokens, but the items in the token shop aren’t enticing enough to want to gimp a run I’m on.
And therein lies the issue with Double Dragon Gaiden: besides seeing the different boss fight variations, its core loop isn’t interesting enough to really make you want to run through it multiple times to unlock a bunch of superfluous items. The playable boss characters you can get are cool and all, but by the time you’ve gotten them all you’ve likely run through the variations of the game you can go through and there’s no real point to going through it again after that. Besides the unlockable characters, there are some pretty pointless “tips and tricks” to unlock, music tracks and artwork you’re just never going to touch. The game is just *barely* tiptoeing into the roguelite genre but not fully committing by offering justifiable reasons to keep running loops of the game.
The Final Word
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons is a fantastic addition to the series with some of its most satisfying combat yet, but I just wish it either fully committed to being a roguelite or abandoned the idea altogether for a more traditional experience.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
