In honor of Double Dragon's 30th anniversary, Arc System Works actually did a cool thing: they brought together core members of the original games to make Double Dragon IV. In addition, the NES version of Double Dragon II was chosen as the visual blueprint, an apparent favorite of that console's DD titles. Considering the very topsy-turvy history of the beat 'em up franchise, how irrelevant it's become in recent years, and how many times the license's been mishandled, I wasn't expecting this much thought and care to be placed into a release that came out of nowhere. Seriously, the project's existence was announced only a month before its release! Sur... surely that shouldn't have hinted at the game's overall quality.
But not even five minutes into Billy and Jimmy Lee's latest adventure, I questioned why I was stuck on a raft where nothing literally happened for 19 seconds. I counted. It didn't help that, when the stage started, the first five enemies wandered on screen, one at a time. Worse, all those thugs can be knocked out in one hit because of a knife that never vanishes from the area... It wasn't the best start to a supposed "return to form," but I let it slide for being the first stage. The second stage, however, upped the ante... two enemies on screen! When I first played through this area, I legitimately worried if the returning developers were taking this whole "retro" gimmick a bit too far; the original NES titles had so few enemies on screen because the console couldn't handle any more without the field turning into a flicker-fest. Were they intentionally copying the limitations??
Community review by dementedhut (February 04, 2017)
Woody Pop: you know you're playing a video game from a different era when you come across an alcoholic beverage within a colorful setting with whimsical music playing. |
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