Double Dragon 4 brings throwback beatdowns
BIF!
"They don't make 'em like they used to!" croaks some dreadful sketch show character. Perhaps their name is Harold, or Maude. Each episode, they visit a shop - a china shop, a car showroom, an ironmonger, etc. - and forcefully 'test' products in ways that ultimately trash the whole place. Shelves fall, cabinets collapse, windows break, and the teapots/cars/hammers lie in pieces. After Maude (or Harold) is shoved out the door, they sigh to the camera and croak: "They don't make 'em like they used to!" This awful joke dies over eighteen episodes.
The Double Dragon gang very much do make 'em like they used to. Double Dragon 4 [official site] launched yesterday and the beat 'em up looks oh so very 1988.
This is the first new Double Dragon since Arc System Works bought the series up along with the Kunio-kun games in the catalogue of now-dead developer Technos. Arc have gotten the band back together, though, recruiting the original game's director, its animator, and its musicman for the small team making Double Dragon 4.
The end result looks an awful lot like the old games, for good and bad. Perhaps that's exactly what you want. If so, you can pick it up on Steam for £5.54/6,99€/$6.99.
The last Double Dragon round our way was Double Dragon Neon, a radtacular faux-eighties glowfest. That was made by WayForward rather than Arc, who hadn't yet gobbled it up. I quite liked how silly and colourful Neon was but retro beat 'em ups don't hold my attention as much as when I was a kiddywinkle.