Ah, Double Dragon Neon (DDN). Man, oh man, do I love this game. Which is not something I ever thought I’d say, regarding the Double Dragon series.
I’ll set the record straight, right away (as I always seem to do in these things…). I’ve never harbored any ill will towards the Double Dragon series. The only problem I ever had with it was, that as a kid, if a brawler did not feature anthropomorphic amphibians/reptiles, or my characters from a favorite TV show/comic book, I simply had no interest in it (yup, not even when they teamed up with the Battletoads was that enough to catch little Matt’s interest, I was a finicky kid). So, as a tyke, when I saw a game box cover featuring a couple normal looking dudes, I passed right by it without ever giving it a second glance.
Thankfully, as I grew, my tastes broadened. Unfortunately, as I grew, the brawler genre seemed to have dried up. Brawlers, and the arcades that housed them seemed to have gone the way of the dodo. Then, Double Dragon Neon appeared, out of nowhere. What’s more, it was free to PS Plus members (which I happened to be through sheer dumb luck of a friend giving me a few months’ worth of free membership coupons). So, I took advantage of the offer, and tried it out.
Now, before I go into the actual analysis, I need to address something about the game, or rather about the game’s reception, that irks me to this day. When it was first released, most of the big gaming sites gave it mostly positive reviews. Averaging a 7 out of 10. Good, not amazing, but good. IGN, however, made the horrible mistake of having some guy who clearly knew nothing about brawlers, review the game. He started off by saying he “loved brawlers” then proceeded to tear down and complain about every aspect that makes a brawler a brawler. He wasn’t ever critiquing the game, he was just whining about how he hates the genre. It’s okay to not like a game. I’ve complained about plenty of those in my time. But own up to why you don’t like it. Don’t claim to love a genre, then proceed to complain about everything about the genre. Other game sites even started releasing articles along the lines of “how to not write a game review” using this joke of a review.
Now, seeing as I quite appreciate this game and the brawler genre in general. I feel like I need to do it justice and analyze it properly. Okay, soapbox moment over, let’s get this thing going already!
Being a brawler, there isn’t a ton of dissection necessary when talking about the game’s basic mechanics. It plays very much how you would think a brawler would play. You take control of Billy Lee (or Jimmy Lee, if you’re player two), and you wander through a series of levels beating the tar out of anyone and anything that gets in your way.
Unlike some brawlers, all of your basic attacks are available to you right from the get go. You have light attacks (quick, weak punches), heavy attacks (slow, more powerful kicks), grabs, air attacks, crouching attacks, and so on. Your basic brawler layout. It’s simple, and it works. I’ve seen better, I’ve seen worse.
I will note that the one brawler staple that seems to be missing is a block. Instead, they use dodging. While this works most of the time (and can even give a temporary boost to power when done at exactly the right time), a straight up blocking option in addition would have been nice.
I will note that the game does not go out of its way to tell you any of this. There are no tutorials. The action doesn’t grind to a halt so you can read some annoying text box telling you that pressing square will let you punch. And this is a very good thing. Can you imagine playing in an arcade, playing some classic brawler, and the game suddenly stops to tell you, “Use the joystick to move!”? That would be awful. Brawlers are simple and intuitive, and that’s how they should be.
All that said though, the moves list can be accessed at any time through the pause menu. And in spite of everything I just said, I do highly recommend checking it out at least once while playing, because there are some things that are not so intuitive, such as the special high-five moves that can only be performed in co-op, er, sorry, “Bro-op.” Or the “forbidden moves,” which are mostly useless, but hilarious nonetheless (who wouldn’t want to take a break from beating up baddies to do a breakdance routine while your Bro beatboxes?).
While I’m discussing moves and controls, I think now would be a good time to discuss probably my biggest complaint with the game. The movement. When controlling Billy (or Jimmy) it feels just ever so slightly wrong. It’s too slow for it to be comfortable. And while there is a run button, that doesn’t really help the issue, as running is unwieldy and uncomfortable in its own right. That said, it’s pretty much my only major complaint about the game
Well… that, and the fact that virtually all the female characters in the game are barely dressed… I might be in the minority, but I think a little modesty still has a place in the world. But that’s a topic for something other than a game analysis, so, moving on.
DDN starts out pretty simple, pitting you against the lowest level lackeys the game can throw at you: Williams. All of the low-level, male lackeys are called Williams. Doesn’t matter what they look like, exactly, or how many of them are on the screen at a given time, they’re all Williams. And, as the big bad of the game will point out, you’ll be murdering “countless Williamses.”
Of course, the game doesn’t stay simple. In fact, the difficulty can ramp up pretty quickly, throwing whip-wielding Lindas and gigantic, musclebound Abobos your way, to shake things up.
Thankfully, there are plenty of strength boosting weapons to be found throughout the levels. Be they baseball bats, knives, throwing fans, shuriken, or the undead heads of defeated Japanese vampires, there’s weapons a plenty. Unfortunately, all weapons are temporary. They break after too much use (dang game balance…). But they are a delight, when you do have them. If for no other reason than to hear the hilariously bad puns the Lee brothers make when using them (a personal favorite happens when using the knife: “Observe the stabbath!”). Of course, once the weapon breaks, the game goes right back to being pretty tough. Especially when the enemies use the weapons against you. You aren’t the only one who can use them, after all.
And yet, although it’s tough. And although you may die occasionally while learning the ropes (as long as you still have lives, you’ll just respawn right where you died). I don’t feel as though the game was ever cheap or unfair in it’s toughness (at least, not on the normal difficulty setting). Health drops (which come in the form of sodas) and other goodies always seemed plentiful and spaced out in just the right way.
In brawlers, you don’t often think about level design. But laying out health drops is a crucial part of level design in brawlers. And as far as DDN’s level design is concerned, they had an almost perfect balance of what items could be found where.
One small tangent on level design. I will note that it has not one, but two elevator levels! And what brawler would be complete without an elevator level, eh? Okay, back to health drops.
Naturally, defeating enemies also has the chance of them dropping health pick ups, along with other types of drops: money, batteries (for energy, more on that in a bit), and mix tapes.
Yes, I said mix tapes. In case you hadn’t caught on yet, this game is drenched in 80’s goodness. But mix tapes are more than just short songs you can listen to in the tape menu (yes, really). They also serve as the game’s form of leveling up and special abilities. They come in two different varieties: Sosetsitsu and Stance.
Sosetsitsu mix tapes are the game’s way of giving the Lee brothers “magic abilities.” In other words, a powerful special attack that uses up energy (see: batteries). These abilities can vary greatly from a powerful flying knee kick, to summoning lighting to strike your enemies. It all just depends on what mix tape you have equipped (note: you can only ever have one Sosetsitsu mix tape equipped at any given time).
Using these abilities is fun and can sometimes get out of control. As you need energy to use the ability, and every ability requires a different amount, it’s nice to know when it is, in fact, usable. Thankfully, the devs made the energy bar (a bolt of lightning, naturally) glow when you have enough energy to use an ability, and gray it out when you don’t have enough for that specific ability.
Next up, Stance mix tapes. Stances are a little more straightforward (and easier to spell) than Sosetsitsu mix tapes. Stances give passive buffs to the player’s stats. And depending on what tape the player has selected, those stats can vary widely. One tape might focus on a high defense, another might sacrifice physical strength for a high magic attack. And other’s still might give boosts to things like weapon attack and durability. Again, only one stance tape may be equipped at any given time, so choose your stats wisely.
In essence, Stance mix tapes determine how the Lee’s level up in game, as there is no XP to be had or levels to gain.
Mix tapes can be upgraded, though. By acquiring duplicates of the same mix tape (either through it being dropped by defeated enemies, or purchasing it in the curio shops), that tape will instantly become more powerful. The more powerful the tape, the more powerful the player.
Unfortunately, the maximum number of upgrades a tape can receive is ten. Which, you’ll quickly notice is really not that great.
Well, have no fear, for the Tapesmith is here!
By using rare mythril (dropped only by bosses) you can take your tapes to the Tapesmith (a heavy metal viking with a huge hammer) and he can expand your tapes’ maximum upgrades to a total of fifty.
So, here’s the catch though. Bosses don’t drop much mythril. And with each tape upgrade (ten at a time) it gets more and more expensive. If you hope to max out the upgrade potential of every tape (of which there are twenty, in all) and then actually upgrade them all, you’re going to be replaying levels and re-fighting bosses you’ve already beaten, a lot.
This is, of course, all purely optional, as the game can be beaten without going overboard on completionism (although the final boss can be a bit of a jerk if you’re not properly equipped…).
If you do max out your tapes, though, the game’s difficulty goes right out the window, as you’ll have practically god-like power.
On a final note, I’ve just gotta say, it’s painfully obvious that Wayforward had nothing but love and respect for the Double Dragon series, and brawlers as a whole.
This game is so much fun. It’s beautiful to look at (in an era where gray and brown dominated the industry, it was nice to see so much color in a game). The music is absolutely amazing, in fact the only proper way to describe it would be “totally bitchin’!” if you’ll pardon the expression. It’s full of (unobtrusive) juice (the “GO” arrow is actually an NES Power Glove-style glove). It has one of the best ways of presenting a “you beat the game” trophy that I’ve ever seen. And it never takes itself seriously, allowing for a goofy, fun time to be had by anyone who has fond memories of the brawler’s glory days in the arcades of old.
I haven’t heard much word on if Wayforward will ever be making a sequel to this amazing game, but I certainly hope to see the Lee brothers again, sometime (preferably not just as cameo dojo masters in the recently released River City Girls, amazing as that was). In the meantime I’ll just have to settle for my nostalgia of a game seeped in nostalgia of its own.
