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I understand the desire to give people a hit of nostalgia, and we’ve seen games like Mega Man and Sonic did well to return to their roots. It takes a truly impressive job to take a beat ’em up and then somehow provide a narrative worse than what was in those arcades of yesteryear, and yet that’s what has happened here.įurthermore, releasing the game so it looks and plays like a dated NES game is an odd choice. By this time, I found it hard to care about anything going on in the game, except I had to punch faces in, which seemed honestly like a more interesting narrative to go with anyhow. Not even three levels into the game and it’s revealed that Marian is somehow magically alive with no real explanation, and she’s been kidnapped again, or whatever.

This is why Double Dragon IV is so hard to swallow. Billy and Jimmy sought revenge and overcame all kinds of odds in what was probably the pinnacle of the series. Double Dragon II saw cut scenes and a small narrative introduced into the series, most notably beginning with the shocking death of Marian at the hands of the Black Warriors gang. The sequel, Double Dragon II: The Revenge, is what Double Dragon IV is mostly based on. The original Double Dragon saw the brothers on a quest to save Billy’s girlfriend Marian from the Black Warriors gang. Nick’s review of Double Dragon Neon here.īilly and Jimmy Lee return to beat up countless gangs of thugs in an old-fashioned side scrolling beat ‘em up. Related reading: Double Dragon when modernised is a lot of fun. Double Dragon IV falls into this category. Others simply shouldn’t be revisited at all. Some of these games proved that it was worth exploring the past, especially when their franchises have long since fallen from grace (Sonic and Castlevania, we’re looking at you).

Many of these games are born due to a series not being able to reach the lofty heights set by their originators and continue to modernise as generations came and went. A myriad of games looking to replicate the glory days of the Nintendo Entertainment System have come and come again, like a freight train that can’t stop. Philosopher George Santayana once mused “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I swear Santayana somehow predicted Double Dragon IV.