TLDR: This is the most underrated game in years. You need to buy it NOW.
Everyone has a precious, childhood game that made many life-shaping, cherish-able memories for them. Mine was Double Dragon 2 on NES. I nearly burnt out that old cartridge. The music was unforgettable, the gameplay: classic, the difficulty merciless and punishing, the graphics and level design were priceless, andTLDR: This is the most underrated game in years. You need to buy it NOW.
Everyone has a precious, childhood game that made many life-shaping, cherish-able memories for them. Mine was Double Dragon 2 on NES. I nearly burnt out that old cartridge. The music was unforgettable, the gameplay: classic, the difficulty merciless and punishing, the graphics and level design were priceless, and coop to round off the joy. It was an embodiment of all the trends in the 80s-90s with masculine dudes roughing up gangsters and hooligans on the streets, which gave it a special appeal to me: a 90s kid and 80s nerd. I might even crown it THE greatest game ever made, however, the series didn't age well including many a black sheep entries and passed into history.
FF to 2015. I briefly hear about a reboot of the series and shudder. Reboots don't exactly have glamorous reputations; more like reputations of butchering classics and ignoring source material in the name of $_$. DDN did NOT look charming at first. I was especially turned off by the "fanservice" and Billy's possessed-zombie visage, but all the reviews for the game seemed harsh, and I finally gave into my inner dragon's urge.
The rockin' 80s style remix of the theme roused my hope. After head bangin' for a few min, I started the game. It felt a little slow, but that didn't bother me. They introduced the grunt of the baddies as "Cartwheeling Fodder: Williams" and I was hooked. Here I not only saw how the game didn't take a pixel of itself seriously, but it was also true to the source material; a refined blend of old and new. The plot, characters, and cheesy lines are corny, silly, and one big love letter to my favorite 2 decades, all full of references to pop culture of the time and surfer-dude talk (bro, tubular, bodacious, ect). Every mission even ends with the bros AIR GUITARING!
The gameplay is punishing and brutally difficult at first. The secret to mastering it is Sosisetsu (magic), Stances (passive buffs, both illustrated as your "mixtapes", my favorite being Spin Kick and Desperation), upgrading them wisely with $ and boss-loot mythril, and use of crouch-dodge. If you dodge correctly, you will "gleam"; doubling your damage and increasing your battery power regen (mana). It's overwhelming at first, but when you get into the rhythm of gleaming, then counterattacking with a mix of your magic, and the killer soundtrack is kickin, followed by a cheesy line from the bros, it all creates a silly, clean, and wonderfully entertaining experience (pistol whipping and shouting I HUCKED A LUGER!)...sadly, I have no one to play the coop with, yet it looks hella fun, but very easy. You can high5 your bro for on-demand gleam, which seems game breaking, but fun.
Speaking of the soundtrack, I'd be p**d if I played a DD game w/o phenomenal music and Jake "virt" Kaufman blew me away. I'm so addicted to DDN's OST, that I can't go a day w/o Billy and the Breakers Firebird. It takes me back to that inspirational music the 80's classics had, when we had a positive definition of "to be a man".
It does have cons. Hit detection can be a little finicky, stunning an enemy causes players animation to freeze; leaving you open to attack unfairly, but most of all is the excess fanservice. Nearly every female in the game is half-nude, and Linda is the worst. Every line from her is tacky innuendo, and her outfit is ridiculous. I'm all for sex appeal, but we gotta curb this. It's getting out of control. My brothers are married men, and its offensive to their marriages for a toon to be so over-sexualized, so they refuse to play it. We're in an age of evolving games, right, so where is the option to curb some of these more "adult" themes? What if I like Bulletstorm, but can't stand the saturation of lewd remarks? Where's the middle ground between Counting w/ Hello Kitty and Lollipop Chainsaw?
I also want to address the unfair criticism this game gets like "dated gameplay that we have progressed past". What progression are we talking about; $120 updates to failure/skill-free console shooters with 0 replay value to their copy/paste, gimmick-ridden campaigns and toxic communities, or 16yr olds on twitch with 3 viewers; riding on delusions of grandeur? DDN takes us back to a time when games were actually difficult and had skill based mechanics you had to learn and practice. Now, kids throw DS's away after dying once on Mario 3, and demand a mobile game. They aren't used to enduring blood/sweat/tears of failure as you slowly got better at a difficult game. I had my @* kicked about 4x ON THE 1ST MISSION. Now, I can breeze through Very Hard mode with no deaths. The process was rough, but I can't express how rewarding the feeling is of conquering your fears and obstacles.
Epic soundtrack, classic gameplay, coop, great characters, near limitless replay value, and delightful humor FOR TEN BUCKS?! That is a STEAL! Hopefully we'll get a sequel instead of the devs bein so busy with their arab chick...… Expand
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