Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons (PlayStation 4) review "Rogue Dragons"

It is the year 199X and the world is still recovering from nuclear war. Particularly, New York City's law enforcement struggles for stabilization as four major criminal gangs do battle with one another for control. Out of desperation, the new mayor visits the Sousetsuken dojo, with an injured officer Marian in his arms, in the hopes that Master Lee can use his martial arts to liberate the city. Instead, he finds his two sons: Billy and Jimmy Lee. Fearing for the worst and carrying a strong sense justice, the brothers, along with Marian and friend-of-the-family "Uncle" Martin, set out to stop the gangs and restore peace.

Touting itself as an alternate story, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons is the billionth retelling of the original Double Dragon plot. But you don't come into a DD product for its storytelling, you come to beat up punks donning mohawks and leather vests! The Singapore-based Secret Base, previously known for developing Streets of Red, has thankfully stayed true to this DD "mythos," as you'll get a sizable group of Hokuto no Ken-influenced 1980s-influenced goons to pummel within a colorful pixelated world. Familiar tunes from the original game blare and rock in remixed glory as bodies litter the ground. But perhaps the most surprising thing is that the game actually feels more like a spiritual successor to, of all things, Double Dragon 3 and III.

Taking a cue from the third games' globetrotting vibe, each stage has a drastically different atmosphere, from a pyramid base made of landfill trash housing thugs in Ancient Egypt-inspired apparel, to a casino business connected to a Japanese castle with ninjas. As you beat down waves of baddies with differing attack patterns, like typical jobbers, foes that parry your first attack, and fools playing with dynamite, you can do so with another player during couch co-op. Playing solo? If that's the case, RotD incorporates a tag system where you can switch between two characters, each with their own health bar, but only when a specific meter is full to prevent simple exploitation. That's fair because, while the game is mostly competently-designed in terms of combat, it's easy to get battered during certain waves and boss fights.

The combat system itself is pretty easy, as there's one main attack button for straightforward combo attacks, with the rest acting as "support" buttons. The jump button can help stomp foes from above, the "grab" button can serve to toss enemies into a crowd with certain characters, and then you can perform powerful attacks once your special meter fills up; you have three special attacks that can activate with motion inputs, but they have dedicated buttons if you want them instantly. Each selectable character also has their own unique ways of attacking, with Billy specializing in kicks, Jimmy in punches, the projectile-based Marian with her gun, and Martin being the towering slow-moving muscle that deals brute force.

With progress, you gradually face stronger opponents as normal encounters, making for a tougher journey towards the conclusion. This is where RotD's roguelite elements come into play. At the end of each boss portion of a stage, you enter a "shop" where each character is allowed one upgrade, ranging from increased strength or health, less incoming damage to normal hits, and faster special meter regeneration. These cost coins, which are earned during fights by performing a Special K.O.; the catch here is that this is done by finishing an opponent with a special move, whether with special attacks or using a dropped weapon like a knife. A grateful far cry from the US arcade version of DD3, which want players to use real currency for upgrades. While you can try punching, kicking, or shooting your way to the climax without such feats or upgrades, it's going to be an uphill battle.



However, there are other incentives for a Special K.O execution. No amount of upgrades can shield you from an untimely beat down, leaving one or even both your characters on the brink of failure; but a nicely-timed Special K.O. that takes out three or more enemies simultaneously will materialize a health item! You'll want another reason for obtaining coins: they can be traded for continues and the price rises after every use. So depending on how good you are with beat'em ups, you'll either make it to the end with a ton of monies or next to nothing. Or worse, you don't have enough to continue, thus being forced to quit and forfeit the remaining coins while a familiar old fortune teller stares you down.

But why bother having money by the conclusion? Tokens. When you beat the game, coins get exchanged for tokens. In turn, you can then use them to unlock stuff in the main menu's token shop, such as music, artwork, and, best of all, more characters to play as. Here, you have the opportunity to play with series staples like the hulking Abobo, the whip-wielding Linda, the machine gun-toting Willy, along with the other new boss characters. Without a doubt, Secret Base has constructed quite a roguelite template around a classic beat'em up core, and you'd think there wouldn't be any issues playing the game over and over to unlock some goodies. But here lies a problem: RotD is an adequate beat'em up, but it's not exactly something you would realistically replay immediately upon beating it.

The game typically takes a bit under two hours to complete which, for that length of time, is a lot of people to beat up. The genre in general has a tendency to get repetitive, which happens quicker for poorly-designed ones, so devs actually have to try with variation and engagement for non-arcade, console-only platforms. RotD has varying enemy types, but it usually sticks to the aforementioned three specific types, jobbers, parry fighters, and dynamite tossers, and mostly reserving other types for mid-boss battles and late-game areas. So the length time here is just about right, as you're starting to feel monotony towards the end as you fight wave after wave of basic enemies. If anything, the combat system fused with the incentive for obtaining coins and food is what's preventing this from getting more repetitive.



The devs also tried being clever with how they handled its stage select method. If you pick any stage as the first, then that area will quickly conclude after only one boss encounter, but stages yet unpicked will grow in size, offering two and eventually three portions. This is smart from a replay perspective, since you're encouraged to pick stages in different orders, thus seeing new content you missed out on. The execution here is hit and miss, regrettably. When it works, the payoff is the difference between fighting Willy in a quick one-portion standoff and fighting him on the rooftop of a building as he shoots you from a roaming helicopter. But when it doesn't, you get stinkers like constantly entering rooms where you fight one or two enemy types for three to five minutes straight, or pointlessly wandering through several empty corridors in the pyramid stage.

Now imagine that, after beating the game or running out of continues towards the end, you're pretty much asked to replay it again to unlock more stuff. That's to be expected from a roguelite design, but are you eager to replay the whole thing again when you just barely escaped boredom from settling in? You might be able to get through a second playthrough soon after, but anymore after that in such a short time will burn you out. RotD the roguelite doesn't completely click together, but RotD the beat'em up is a nice little romp. And considering the prior two modern DD releases, 2013's Wander of the Dragons and 2017's Double Dragon IV, are absolutely dreadful games, calling this remotely fun is the best compliment one can give Rise of the Dragons.

Community review by dementedhut (September 04, 2023) The good type of grinding.