This is a refreshing couch co-op mechanic that, when coupled with the brother-reviving mechanic and life-sharing, means that even with the odd difficulty spike or frustrating level restart never really overshadows the fun. By wiggling the right analogue stick, you can ask a high-five from your sibling, allowing both players to share life meter or boost their attack strength. Co-op not only allows you to better manage crowds of enemies, but also adds the ‘high five’ mechanic into to play. While the single player game is solid and of an acceptable length, finding a partner to play along with truly makes this one shine the brightest. This stellar soundtrack is still wonderful in 2021, offering a great contrast to Streets of Rage 4's equally good electronic anthems. Each mix tape also has a distinct track to go with it, and we found ourselves spending far too much time on the tape selection menu just so we could hear them properly. Veteran composer and video game remixer Jake ‘virt’ Kaufman provided the audio accompaniment that perfectly pulls this whole package together, featuring both old Double Dragon anthems repurposed with a glow rock flair along with a few themes with memorable lyrics you will quickly find yourself humming as you play. It would be a disservice to our readers not to include an entire paragraph in this review discussing the game’s soundtrack. It's a neat and refreshing system with hidden depths as you learn how to use defeated bosses drops to power these up at the local tape-smith. You can only have one of each type equipped, so you will find yourself often pressing ‘-’ to change up your combination of mix tapes mid-level in order to better suit your current needs. The first type allows you to modify the base stats of your Lee family member while the later equips the Dragons with their trademark special moves (that fortunately use up their own bar instead of sapping your energy). These come in two flavours: Stances and Sosetsitsu. Dropped by defeated enemies and bought for a price at the shops you'll come across on some levels are twenty mixtapes (ask your parents) to collect. On the topic of strategy, there is actually quite a bit of it at play in this game. Sometimes the action does get a bit stiff when you find yourself juggling both enemies and the controls at the same time, but eventually it all falls into place as you begin to discover what strategy is best to deal with each type of enemy. Every button on your controller is used to make the Lee brothers do something useful: two attack buttons, jump, throw, run, dodge and special move correspond to a button on your controller of choice, and it will certainly take you a bit longer to master all these moves, along with a few other combo moves that rely on motion inputs to pull off. By not taking itself too seriously, this one pulls off some genuine “feel-good vibes” that, in turn, make it a very welcome and fashionably late addition to the genre list on Switch.Īlso missing are the casual, immediate controls common to most games of the genre. What we're trying to say is that the dystopian setting of the source material has been traded in for over-the-top, colourful shenanigans, caricatured characters and absurd plots which would be more befitting of a '90s cartoon – this game really does live up to the “Neon” moniker. However, conquer the first few levels – that look like straight up reboots of the original game – and you will yourself shot into outer space to meet the true mastermind behind this evil plot: Discount Skeletor! Alright, that is not his real name, but once you look at him and listen to his villainous quips, it is hard to keep Mattel's lawyers away. The game starts with the player in familiar turf, with Marian getting punched in the gut and kidnapped by baddies, followed by Billy and Jimmy embarking on their rescue attempt through the mean streets we have walked timeless times before. Yet despite its age, it is refreshing to discover that Double Dragon Neon quickly climbs to the top of the genre pile without breaking as much as a sweat. Both titles share the same 2.5D cartoon-like aesthetics, rely heavily on nostalgia and offer tasteful fan service. Genre similarities aside, it is perhaps fairer to compare WayForward’s reimagining of the Double Dragon canon to the more recent and surprisingly solid Cobra Kai: The Karate Kid Saga Continues. As 2020 comes to an end, does this over-the-top scrolling beat’em up still glow in face of stiff competition on the Switch from the likes of Streets of Rage 4? It has been no less than eight years since the Lee brothers' Saturday morning cartoon outing, Double Dragon Neon, was released. Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
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