Double Dragon Revive, which follows Ninja Gaiden‘s own 2D revival with the fantastic Ragebound, sounds more like a series tribute band than a formal reunion tour. It puts its own twist on everything, including how it looks, sounds, and plays, rather than playing the hits the way you remember them. After hours of its off-key wandering, all of those elements not only fall short of my admittedly low hopes for a new Double Dragon, but they also begin to solidify the notion that perhaps we should take a little more time between tries to bring this series back to life.
Despite having played these games for the majority of my life, Double Dragon Revive’s simplicity is a little startling. This arcadey, “belt scroll” type of side scroller has discovered numerous ways to add flavor to the “punch your way to the right” formula, and Revive is eager to keep as much of that new seasoning off its plate as possible. It’s a simple protein with eight non-branching levels and a satisfying, starchy combat with very little sauce.
With basic attack strings that can be hammered out on a single button, special strikes, and hyper blows that can be used to punctuate these combos—or, in certain cases, stretch your offense into wall-bouncing juggles—picking up any of the four playable characters is easy and intuitive. Each combatant performs each of these movements differently. The differences between Billy and Jimmy Lee aren’t mechanical, but the attacks of ninja rival Ranzo and erstwhile damsel-turned-headkicker Marian are a bit more ostentatious and practical. However, on Normal difficulty, I hardly ever found the need to use anything more than simple combo loops.
An enemy was always open to a good old-fashioned fist to the face, provided they weren’t shielded by an unpleasant shield or super armor, which were common in the latter levels, when they were preparing a massive strike.
They all rely on bouncing adversaries off walls to keep them in the air long enough to string more hits together as they come down, but there aren’t many options for those who do want to try to style on these street thugs. After a launch or throw, enemies frequently seemed to go wherever they wanted rather than where you instructed them to go. This made it difficult to set up basic combo extensions, jam enemies into background environmental hazards that instantly eliminated them from the fight, or use the extremely potent wall strike and wall crash options.
On Normal difficulty, it hardly seemed necessary to use anything other than simple combo loops.
Chasing a hurled bad guy skyward just gives you a single, dismal smash down to earth, so you can wait for them to stand up and let you hit them again, because there are no air combos to be had either. If you can figure out the tricky button prompt that is unresponsive and inconsistent, you can give everyone a free hit on foes that have been taken out. Even getting the wall kick off that’s necessary to gain the proper height is a dice roll, but if the correct sort of wall is nearby—the right kind being the one they determine is right based on no trustworthy context clues—you can perform a supersized air dropping strike.
Everybody possesses strong, screen-clearing final blow assaults that are fueled by all the fisticuffs. You can get boosts when you dodge an enemy’s large strike in time, counter their big attack, or increase your combo meter. However, no selectable character—not even Marian’s charging knee or Ranzo’s awesome explosive kunai—can make Revive’s fighting feel particularly unique or captivating for extended periods of time. My initial playthrough took about three hours to complete, and I became disinterested much before that. I went on to do three further playthroughs, one for each playable character.
Nevertheless, enemy variety is at least varied and efficient in forcing you to make use of your limited range of choices. Older villains join the younger ones as stages go on, creating a kind of street thug gumbo that can get a touch hot near the end of your run. It’s mostly a numbers game, and the sheer volume of attacks coming from all directions can easily overwhelm you.
Though it wasn’t captivating enough to make me forget that taking down these guys was still a pretty boring task, I enjoyed the little brainteasers that required me to determine which threat was the most dangerous to eliminate first or how to best organize as many people as possible into a large attack. Even the assortment of limited-use weapons, such as sledgehammers, knives, and two-by-fours, are typically robust instruments that are worth the effort to obtain if things turn hairy.
Some of Revive’s jank turns into its own enemy as the difficulty gets more difficult. Little things, such as your character’s direction occasionally switching to the opposite direction for no apparent reason, become the reason you lose a combination or are punished rather than being a quirk to get around.
Breaking guys down is still rather boring, but the enemy diversity is at least varied.
By providing slightly more interesting stage hazards and pattern rules, such as Linda, who you must shake off the pillars she’s hiding on top of before you can attack her directly, bosses break up the monotony a little. However, these become quite harsh towards the finish, especially the boss of chapter seven, which has to be the most annoying battle I’ve ever encountered in one of these games. It’s a true test of stamina against an endless barrage of the most dishonest cheaters Revive has to offer.
Also, there isn’t much visual flare. The majority of character models have a fine appearance, but the dragon, wind, and fire effects that emanate from their limbs when they channel their chi appear to be of lower quality. The combination of sound design and camera work is sufficient to make massive hits sound decent and all that. With a few unique riffy rockouts and remixes of classic series songs that sound wonderful in the moment but kind of fade away as soon as they end, the sound track is passable. Overall, Double Dragon Revive lacks the visual identity of its peers, such as Shinobi: Art of Vengeance and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound from this year, as well as that of the 16-bit Double Dragon Gaiden and even the pastel-punk Double Dragon Neon.
There is a far wider range of stages that you thrash your way through. Even though it ends with a wrestling ring, a beautiful Japanese pagoda-style tower with a playful little perspective shift halfway through is straightforward but far more moving than a dull freeway level. Some of these areas need platforming, which I never liked to see, but thankfully only in brief spurts. The fact that the majority of these stages are merely reimaginings of series mainstays with little original flare this time around is a bit of an eye-roll, but it’s really disheartening how many of these settings are really drab and lifeless.
And I don’t intend to seem like one of those weird people who think “the story in this beat ’em up sucks,” but it does. It’s more that Revive lacks the self-assured, chaotic energy required to sell this kind of material in the first place than that the plot is ridiculous, the characters are uninteresting, and the writing is bad. Neon’s post-apocalyptic antagonist, Skullmaggedon, was a gang-leading demon knight that looked like he belonged on the cover of a heavy metal album. Gaiden’s gang conflicts gave the impression that the city was a Gotham City, complete with gangsters who were color-coded and named for their bizarre rulers.
Verdict
Double Dragon Revive feels more like a police sketch of someone attempting to recall the appearance of the beloved series than it does like a return to glory, as its title might imply. None of it feels unique or special, and the parts where it’s passable are hampered by jerky, unresponsive controls and frustrating difficulty spikes. The key features you’d need to recognize it by are simple combat with big super attacks, peacocking bad guys of all shapes and sizes, and the elevator, casino, and subway stages that are legally required in games like this. Revival implies revivification, yet it feels more like a shambling corpse being exhumed.
