Keen to rinse the taste of the risible Double Dragon IV from our collective mouths, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons has punched and kicked its way onto PS5 courtesy of developer Secret Base and based on my early impressions of the first ninety minutes from the game, it’s absolutely shaping up to be the best Double Dragon in decades. Bringing legendary brothers Billy and Jimmy back into the fistic fold, already at this early stage it’s abundantly clear that Double Dragon Gaiden absolutely nails the fundamentals.
The figurative meat and spuds of any side-scrolling brawler worth its salt is naturally the combat and in Double Dragon Gaiden the scrapping is both surprisingly deep and challenging to master. Much like previous games in the series (and, well, pretty much any side-scrolling brawler since) you have access to a broad range of all manner of punches, kicks, throws, jumping strikes, weapon attacks and special moves, but as it turns out Double Dragon Gaiden has a couple tricks up its digital sleeves to help it go blow for blow with its immediate competition in the genre.
One of these tricks comes in the form of a tag-team feature which enables you to switch fighters mid gameplay, not only allowing you to drop a fresh fighter into battle but also providing the fighter that has tagged out some time to regenerate a chunk of their health.
Where things get especially interesting with this mechanic however is that unleashing special moves and tagging out to a waiting partner both use the same blue crystals which are dropped from vanquished foes – meaning that you’re very often thrust into making a choice between landing a devastating special move or tagging out to your partner to keep the game going. It’s the sort of added layer of sophistication that the side-scrolling brawler genre could do with more of.
Perhaps the biggest addition that Double Dragon Gaiden brings to its classic formula is the surprising inclusion of roguelite elements. By amassing money looted from smashing up crates and defeating enemies, you can use your accumulated funds to purchase various buffs and upgrades after each level, such as stronger attacks, improved health regeneration for tagged out partners to name just a few. Where things become somewhat spicy is that you can also use money to resurrect our fallen heroes should be defeated – the catch however is that each time you do this the resurrection cost increments by $1000 and again represents just one more risk/reward dynamic that Double Dragon Gaiden brings to the fore.
While those new features certainly help to provide welcome layers of added complexity to the proceedings, it really is in the fundamentals that Double Dragon Gaiden truly shines. Combat is satisfyingly crunchy with blows landing with palpable impact, while the retro character designs and other visual flourishes make Double Dragon Gaiden look closer to something like River City Girls than any one of its franchise predecessors.
Based on my brief time with Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons, it certainly seems as if developer Secret Base has managed that rarest of feats, successfully bringing back a classic gaming property from the past all the while meaningfully augmenting it with a range of new mechanics and features. There’s so much more I would like to say about Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons but for that you’ll have to catch our review when it drops on Thursday, July 27 at 12:01am PT. In the meantime take some comfort in knowing that Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons is shaping up rather well indeed to say the least.
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons releases for PS4 and PS5 on July 27, 2023.
Preview code kindly provided by PR.