Double Dragon Neon

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I think Double Dragon: Neon can be summed up perfectly using a jingle from one of the game’s Stances, titled “Training Wheels”: “Dad took off my training wheels, boy oh boy how good it feels!“

It isn’t often that you get to use the words “franchise”, “80s”, and “reboot” in the same sentence these days, without feeling a little bit like you’re constructing a joke and that the developer of the title in question is going to provide the punchline. In an era where popstars are turning up on Blu-ray and DVD in financially successful big-budget movie adaptations of board games, the market is clearly open to solid reworkings of beloved properties, so that clearly shouldn’t be the case.

Among these great brawlers, it could be argued that no single game has defined the genre we know and love more then Double Dragon, a game about the Lee brothers Billy and Jimmy, traditional martial artists fighting tirelessly through gangs of thugs and degenerates to rescue their kidnapped mutual love interest Marian.  The game was developed in 1987 by Technōs Japan for Arcades, and then later for a number of home consoles.  Prior to the introduction of the two player co-op mode for Double Dragon’s arcade version, most brawlers featured only single player or turn based multiplayer. Cooperative...

One of the first games I reviewed since the inception of this website was Double Dragon IV. This was a “faithful” recreation of the 8-bit era Double Dragon titles, complete with all of its shortcomings, such as a small length, slowdowns, and collision detection issues. After playing that game, as well as ARC System Works’ collection of Double Dragon and Kunio-kun games, I started wondering if Double Dragon has ever been that good to begin with. I needed to play a few more games to come ...

Let’s address a sad truth nobody wants to hear: The brawler genre is not very good anymore. The beat-‘em-up was built on the back of arcade game design; difficulty didn’t come by design, but by consequence of clunky mechanics meant to scam kids out of more quarters. Double Dragon, much as we all love to remember it, exploited our love of games so we’d keep paying for it. Double Dragon: Neon functions in a similar way. It’s a brawler that’s too focused on amusing you with 80s flair, and it comes at the expense of worthwhile gameplay. Double Dragon: Neon doesn’t bother to keep up with contempora...

Beat-boxing and breakdancing in the blood soaked streets.