Nerdgasms
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DAN-isms.com
Double Dragon NEON is a remake
of the 80’s arcade classic Double Dragon–a franchise which as a child took more time
and money from me than my last divorce settlement.
What you need to know about the remake is that graphics are
amaze-balls, emphasis on balls. I mean that the graphics are fabulous but the girls, who in the original wore
leotards, have now upgraded (downgraded?) to G-strings.
“But Dan–aren’t you the least prudish person on earth?”
Yes I am imaginary voice inside my head! But I’m also a dad.
I played the 80s version of this with my seven year old and
was really excited to tell him there was a remake. We were super pumped to sit down and play a
modern take on this classic, family friendly, cartoony-graphics, beat-em-up that
that I played at my sons age, when suddenly the game turned way sexier than I remembered it
being. My son seemed oblivious to the
attire but I felt more and more uncomfortable as we played, and as a result,
after 10 minutes I turned it off.
See 10 Mins of the game here and preted I'm a Twitch Streamer :)
That being said, that is totally my fault. The game is rated ‘T’ for Teens which I assumed meant because of animated violence, but the label does say that it includes partial nudity and suggestive themes—so that’s my fail.
Short version, don’t expect to play this with your kids.
If you’re a nostalgic flash-back gamer like myself, you’ll
want to be aware of two things:
From a visual and story progression point of view, this game
sticks pretty nicely to the original, so that is a big plus.
The game is way more complex than the original.
The original double dragon used a punch and kick button that
could be combined to do fly kicks, spinning kicks, elbows, head-butts and
throws.
This has dodge, punch, kick, throws, sprints, jump, special
move and combo buttons–that’s before you add stances, power song combo’s and
partner combos.
If you’re new to the franchise this will probably stop the
game from getting old and boring quick but as I just wanted to get in there and
just smash things with my son, this was another downside as it meant the game
actually included grinding concepts and a learning curve when I’d specifically
picked this game so I didn’t need to think.
Regardless, the animations, the music, everything had a nice
80’s almost Miami Vice with modern overtones kind of feel. The movement and button responses on a
control pad were smooth, there was nothing sluggish about it though the default
keyboard mapping seemed a bit silly as it reversed which hands you would
normally use for directional control for almost every console and pc game. Those keys can be remapped, but again it was
another thing that stopped me from being able to just get into a game and play.
SUMMARY
If you’re a fan of the Double Dragon franchise, despite my
personal annoyances (which are easily overcome) I think this is definitely a
game worth getting as it’s only a couple of bucks on Steam. If you’ve never played a Double Dragon game
before and don’t have any happy feelings attached to the franchise, you may
want to wait until it’s on special before you commit to it.
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