Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons Reviews

A call back to the Double Dragon series golden days. Gaiden offers a fair beat 'em up experience, but its rogue-lite mechanics aren't well implemented.

There’s some undeniable fun to be had if you can look past the hit collision issues, or the lack of proprietary support for online coop. The roguelite elements are interesting but don’t feel essential in any sense, almost as if a mandatory box to tick and tickle the fancy of some fans. As a throwback to one of the all-time brawler greats, Double Dragon Gaiden is competent, but doesn’t really pack the punch that the series deserves.

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise Of The Dragons is the latest entry in a legendary but overlooked series. Back in 1987, Double Dragon exploded onto the Arcade scene as one of the first side-scrolling beat ’em ups, featuring Billy and Jimmy Lee as twin protagonists taking on street gangs and boss characters to save their girlfriend. The first Double Dragon was the highest grossing arcade game in Japan in 1987 as well as the highest grossing arcade game in the USA two years on the trot and was port...

From the arcadey ‘80s through the modern day, beat ‘em ups are a dime a dozen. But the best of them offers a satisfying gameplay loop with thrilling co-op and unique visual stylings. Double Dragon Gaiden gets some of that right. It’s not the worst beat ‘em up game you could spend your time on. But it’s most definitely not the best, either.

There are many adult gamers for whom Double Dragon represents carefree hours in the local arcade, or maybe a happy, simpler time parked in front of their NES. Set aside the fact that many readers weren’t even alive in 1987, almost everyone has heard of the franchise and played some version of the games. Now we have Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons. It’s a recipe combining one part nostalgia and one part recent roguelike mechanics.

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons blends experimental elements with traditional Double Dragon gameplay. The roguelite design and the changing level structures encourage the player to complete the game multiple times to unlock all the additional characters to create experiences that feel less repetitive. This is a novel idea that works well for a couple playthroughs, but it can't save things from feeling redundant forever. It's fun for a couple playthroughs and does well at recreating the classic beat 'em up gameplay. Unfortunately, it also showcases the limitations of the genre, and even with the innovation approach the developers used to make subsequent play sessions different, most players will likely get their fill long before unlocking all thirteen additional fighters.

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons is the latest attempt to revitalize the beat ’em up genre, which has struggled to stay relevant since its coin-op heyday. It arrives while the genre has some actual momentum, with Streets of Rage 4 and TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge showing that a highly polished brawler can still hit if it’s designed around replayability. Double Dragon’s latest offering adds in roguelite elements to give it some additional structure and camouflage its short length, but it’s not as revolutionary as it should be.

Double Dragon Raiden: Rise of The Dragons is a great beat 'em-up game that takes everything you loved about the series and adds a ton of strategy. With a great retro look and sound, this is a must-play, even though it doesn’t always explain things very well!

Double Dragon Gaiden's got one big problem. It's not what you'd think, but exactly what you should've expected.

The Double Dragon brothers return in this fresh addition to the iconic beat 'em up franchise. With roguelite elements, every playthrough is a chance at new action. Tag in with 2 of 4 starter characters or unlock 9 additional characters, each with their own special moves and unique playstyles. Switch version reviewed.

I think that sort of outlines what a small production Double Dragon Gaiden is. It doesn’t really feel like it’s trying to be revolutionary in any way, nor does it seem like it wants to present you with a glut of content. It serves more as a tribute to the Double Dragon series but more in an aesthetic sense, as the combat system is unlike any of the previous games. You can tell that a lot of love went into making the game, but that doesn’t necessarily result in something indisposable or memorable.

Double Dragon Gaiden isn’t the best brawler I’ve played in the last few years. I wouldn’t even entirely say it’s the best Double Dragon game, but it’s up there. The characters, their attacks and animations, and the sheer nostalgia of returning characters and music with cool new style are massive highlights of this game. I also like the risk vs. reward and rogue-lite systems to a certain extent. However, I am not fond of the game going from manageable to kicking my butt all over the screen at certain ridiculous difficulty spikes. I also don’t like that some characters just aren’t built for the difficult parts and others are or that the loading screens are absurdly long. Thankfully, those who aren’t interested in getting shellacked can rely on those difficulty sliders to make things more fun. All of that aside, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons gives the series yet another fresh coat of paint and I’m glad to see the Lee boys back in action.

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons is a super solid beat ’em up with a steep learning curve but a lot of options to adjust the difficulty and help incentivize replay.

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons comes during a time where we wouldn't mind some good ol' fashioned beat 'em up side scrolling games. A huge roster of characters and a great new tag team feature really push the franchise forward. While it gets everything right, it baffles me that we have to wait for online co-op. Still, that shouldn't deter you. Double Dragon fans should grab this right now.

Visually I wasn’t sure how I felt about the game. Again, it felt like Modus was trying to strike a balance between modernising the look while not straying too far from the look of the original games. While I have no issue with pixel art being used in the genre, the pixel art here felt a little too simplistic for my taste? They strayed a little too far towards “NES” territory for my liking in terms of pixel detail. Having said that, the animation quality is surprisingly high given the simplicity of the pixel art.The environments are bright, colourful, and quite interactive. They want you to try and break everything you can see in order to get as much money as possible to get upgrades or revive yourself if you die. There’s some really nice variety in the missions with unique little touches accompanying each. As an example, the junkyard pyramid has sequences where you’re essentially fighting “in the dark” while your character is visible only under a spotlight so you need to stay on the move to try and get your enemies visible within your light. Again, it keeps things a little fresher and helps alleviate the repetitiveness these games can tend to suffer from.The music and general audio are great. The remixes of classic tunes are well done and respectfully recreate the nostalgic vibes of the originals. The combat audio is punchy and really adds some impact to each hit and blends really well with the slower combat style of the game.Overall I’d argue this is probably the best Double Dragon game yet. It does just enough to modernise the franchise without straying from the path well traveled and alienating fans of the franchise. Which is a particularly tough task given the age of the series and the seemingly directionless path it has taken over the journey. The omission of online co-op is a bummer, but given the state of online co-op in scrolling beat ’em ups, I feel like this complaint loses more and more steam with every game that doesn’t include it. I feel like Rise of Dragons lays a pretty good foundation should they choose to continue making more games going forward. If the next game can tighten and speed up the combat and go back to a more conventional control scheme it could be something truly great.

Are you ready for some classic beat 'em up action? Well, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons is here so let's take to the streets.

The 90s was a wild era, with cartoons depicting Biker Mice from Mars and Street Sharks dressed in ripped jeans and denim shorts. It’s also the decade when I lived my most formative years. Unfortunately, they were also full of hospital visits. That didn’t stop this wee lad of seven years from making the most of his situation, though. I vividly remember sitting in front of my CRT television, playing video games well into the night. My mom would be desperately trying to get me to sleep, but ...

Double Dragon may be one of the original pillars of the beat ‘em up genre, but that foundation has weakened in modern times. Infrequent sequels of varying quality have tested Jimmy and Billy Lee’s modern relevance, but Double Dragon Gaiden does a solid job of reinventing the pair with a neat tag team mechanic. Though as enjoyable as this contemporary throwback can be, it often gets in its own way with frustrating combat design.

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons isn’t dragged down by the classic problem of doing too many things at once and not succeeding at any of them. Instead, we’re left with a solid experience that can stand alongside the best in the series while also being a good entry point for those who might want a less demanding roguelike in their lives. Having accessible entry points into new genres is good. Having fun multiplayer experiences are even better. Don’t ignore Rise of the Dragons, b...

Not a mere reboot or refresh, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons delivers a fiendishly familiar beat ‘em up that will have you hooked on its charming retro styles and clever modern trappings.

With fun, bright graphics and a novel approach to level design, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons refreshes the classic beat-em-up genre, even if it can sometimes feel a bit repetitive.

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.

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise Of The Dragons is a fantastic beat 'em up roguelike that feels like an essential game to have on the Steam Deck.

It’s commendable that Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons tries to do something a little new with the formula – although Streets of Rage 4 did get their first with its Survival mode which also features roguelike elements. There is fun to be had here, but ultimately, the late-game difficulty spikes are a major hurdle to get over – and the moment-to-moment action never reaches the heights of some of the best in the genre.