It’s a well-known story — the world’s been decimated by nuclear conflict, and rival gangs have taken over and are laying siege to New York Metropolis. The query is: do you’ve got the abilities, stamina, and pugilistic tendencies to make a distinction? That’s the quandary on the coronary heart of Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons, which we acquired the prospect to play forward of its launch. We have beforehand reviewed Double Dragon IV, and put collectively preview impressions for Double Dragon Gaiden, however how does this new entry within the storied Double Dragon franchise really feel to play as we speak? Discover out in our Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons Overview.
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons Overview – The Common Suspects
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons facilities round a post-nuclear New York Metropolis. As the town holds on to its sanity by a thread, 4 distinct rival gangs are amassing energy. However hope nonetheless stays, as our favourite Double Dragon heroes — Billy, Jimmy, Marion, and Uncle Martin — know simply what to do (punch and kick their manner by way of hundreds of gang goons).
The 4 gangs making an attempt to take over NYC every look vastly totally different from each other, even when their move-sets and talents are very related. First, there’s the Killers gang, led by the machine-gun-toting Willy. This gang makes their dwelling in a burnt-out workplace high-rise, and appears like your typical metropolis gang members.
The Royals are led by the expert martial artist Duke and spruce up the subways with their good duds. Woman Okada and her Okada Gang take their inspiration from conventional Japanese dwellings and magnificence. And eventually, there’s my favourite of all of the villains, the Triangle Gang and their chief, Anubis. Towering atop a pyramid of trash, the Triangle Gang is deeply impressed by Egyptian themes and motifs.
The sport’s artwork course actually does an exquisite job of bringing the 2D side-scrolling style into the fashionable period. The illustrations of every character are vibrant and stuffed with persona, from the lowliest gang member to our glowing heroes. I actually like their animations, too, that are extremely evocative (and generally downright humorous).
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons Overview – The Gameplay Loop
In Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons the core gameplay might be tremendous acquainted to long-time followers of the sequence. This side-scrolling beat-em-up sees you selecting two totally different heroes – one major character and a facet character – to undergo degree after degree, punching foes. You have got a standard assault and a sequence of particular assaults that may be triggered when a meter is crammed, and that particular assault rewards the participant with cash and, doubtlessly, well being (extra on cash within the sport in a bit).
Smaller characters can decide up weapons to deal extra harm, whereas greater, beefier characters are restricted to their very own movesets. When your meter is full, you’ll be able to change between characters, and if one in all your characters dies, the opposite will swap in routinely.
In my playthrough of the sport, it took me some time to get a very good sense of movement between characters. However ultimately, I used to be a grasp of swapping between characters, saving my stronger fighters for the inevitably robust boss fights.
Touchdown that good particular assault feels actually good, and should you can catch three or extra enemies in your particular (Marion, together with her grenade launcher, is very adept at this) you will even achieve a well being consumable. The controls had been clean as silk, which you’d anticipate from such a fine-tuned franchise.
The place this sport actually pivots from earlier incarnations is its roguelike development. After defeating a mini-boss or boss, you will have the prospect to commerce in some money you’ve got acquired for small buffs to your characters.
These might be something from reducing the time it takes to construct up your particular meter, to dealing extra harm while you’re injured, and so forth. Cautious buying, mixed confidently, can result in fairly highly effective characters as you progress by way of the sport.
After you defeat one gang, the opposite gangs sense that energy vacuum and develop in power. This manifests in-game with extra sections being added to their respective levels. If I defeat Anubis first, I will solely see the bottom degree of his spectacular junkyard pyramid. But when I save him for final, by that time I will should journey deep into the internal workings of his pyramid, defeating waves of enemies and mini-bosses.
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons Overview – Tokens Please!
The opposite massive change is available in between runs of the sport. Must you die, the money you earned is transformed into tokens. The baseline alternate charge is 1000 money for 1 token, however this may be adjusted up or down relying by altering the issue of the sport. Need enemies to hit tougher? That’ll make that alternate charge extra favorable. Need extra life on your characters? That’ll make the alternate dearer. It is a enjoyable, fluid system that rewards cautious tweaking.
However what do you spend these tokens on? The sport presents a number of other ways to commerce in your tokens, solely one in all which I discovered particularly compelling. You possibly can commerce in tokens to unlock new fighters.
These new fighters are comprised of the varied mini-bosses and end-level bosses of the sport. I significantly loved bashing heads as Anubis, utilizing my electrical magic and phantasm spells to befuddle and shock my opponents.
The place I used to be much less glad, nevertheless, are the opposite methods in which you’ll be able to spend tokens. Other than buying new characters, I discovered I might solely buy “gameplay suggestions,” which gave quite simple (and, truthfully, non-helpful) little nuggets of gameplay data, paintings, and music. And whereas it was enjoyable to listen to the varied music tracks, together with some unused songs, they do not play by way of when you begin a brand new sport.
For such a cool idea, it is a disgrace that the one game-changing factor I might spend tokens on was extra characters. I might have cherished the chance to spend extra tokens on issues like new enemy varieties, new levels, and even totally different coloration schemes for my heroes.
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons Overview | Closing Ideas
There’s rather a lot to like about Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons. The core gameplay loop of realizing when to bow out to commerce in your money for tokens provides a degree of interactivity and planning unparalleled in earlier Double Dragon video games. And the paintings, fashion, and movement all make this sport a pleasure to play, with the controls dealing with immaculately.
The place the sport falters a bit is, as talked about above, its lack of choices within the token menu. Additionally, although the entire ground-level thugs within the sport look totally different from each other, there are actually solely 4 or 5 several types of enemies, and lots of are re-skinned to suit into the 4 totally different gangs.
This may result in a little bit of a repetitive feeling, however that is regular for the style. The place it relieves a few of that repetition is in how every enemy stage grows in size after different enemy levels are defeated. This left me wanting to return again and check out the levels in numerous orders, simply to see how they shift, change, and develop tougher.
All in all, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons is a lot of enjoyable to work by way of, and should you set your sights on unlocking all of the totally different characters within the sport, you will discover quite a lot of selection and surprises intermingled with its extra repetitive elements.
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons was previewed on the Nintendo Change utilizing a code supplied by the writer over the course of round 10 hours of gameplay – all screenshots had been taken through the strategy of assessment.
