Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons Co-op Review

Play as the Lee brothers, their friends, and even their foes in this exciting beat 'em up.

Way back in 1987, the arcade version of Double Dragon was the first beat ‘em up to feature co-op. All these years later, it’s still a big deal when the series gets a new entry, despite the uneven quality of games like Double Dragon IV and Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons. Thankfully, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons from Secret Base and Modus Games stands among the best games in the series. Borrowing elements from the four main games in the series and injecting its own fresh style, Gaiden ends up being a very fun and unique beat ‘em up.

The story here is a retelling of the first game’s – with a bit of Double Dragon II thrown in for good measure. In a post-apocalyptic future, New York is threatened by four violent gangs. The new mayor recruits Billy and Jimmy Lee to stand against the thugs. Joining them are Marian, who is a gun-wielding cop in this version, and Uncle Matin, a military veteran and friend of the Lee family. The cinematics that bring the story to life between certain stages are a bit on the plain and serious side, but they fit the series’ tone and easily outclass the aggressively boring story sequences from Double Dragon IV.

When starting a new game, one or two local players will select their difficulty settings and then choose the two members of each player’s tag team. The game is not drop-in, drop out, but you get four save files, so you can keep separate solo and co-op saves. To start with, only the four heroes are available, but nine bosses and minibosses can be unlocked over time. Like Double Dragon IV, everyone gets unique special moves. Even Billy and Jimmy play differently from each other as a result; Billy specializes in kicks and Jimmy does the punches. Matin is a slower, grab-focused character who can also use his shield against some attacks. Marian mostly fights by firing a pistol or rockets. Naturally, this ranged-focus makes her a great character for beginners.

Combat is one area in which Gaiden differs from its predecessors. There’s only one primary attack button instead of two like in most Double Dragons. This has the effect of streamlining combat while also reducing the focus on regular combos. Instead, the focus is on finishing off enemies with special moves or weapons to earn greater rewards.

Each enemy defeated with a “Special KO” will drop extra gold, and Special KO-ing three or more foes at once counts as “Crowd Control,” resulting in a health-restoring food drop. Thus, players are encouraged to whittle enemies down a little bit, group them together, and then let the special moves fly. The special meter takes time to charge, though, so you can’t rely entirely on specials, either. The only downside to Special KOs at present is the visual that pops up whenever a player accomplishes a Crowd Control (see screenshot above). The visual is cool, but it slows the action down for both players and becomes slightly repetitive over time. Someone already released a steam mod to speed the animation up, but an official update would be nice.

The special meter is also used to tag out characters. Gaiden is a tag team game that doesn’t give the option of playing only one character, so in co-op games, both players select two of their own fighters. A character who is tagged out will slowly recover a portion of his or her health, just like in the Marvel VS. Capcom series. However, because tagging out requires a full special meter from the active character, you can’t actually tag in and out on a whim. This restriction cuts into the fun of the tag team system, so I’d love to see the meter restriction removed in the future.

As for weapons, Gaiden offers a fair selection of armaments such as baseball bats, bottles, swords, and knives. These can be wielded melee-style or thrown. Weapons wear out after a while, but they’re fun to use for their stopping power and the fact that weapon KOs count as Special KOs. Other combat options include the ability to run, a double jump to help with the occasional platforming, and a grab button. There’s no blocking (outside of Matin’s shield run and some buyable perks that automatically negate damage), but who needs blocking in a Double Dragon game?

Gaiden consists of five missions (stages), the first four of which can be played in any order. The catch is that beating each mission will increase the length and difficulty of the remaining missions. For instance, the first mission contains only a single section and ends with the fight against the gang’s boss, but later missions will last for two or three sections with mini-bosses leading up to the gang bosses. Later missions also gain extra bonus objectives. This structure is a clever way of creating an increasing difficulty curve, and it piles on the replay value since players won’t see all that most stages have to offer during a single playthrough.

The stages themselves span a relatively diverse array of environments despite all taking place in one city. The team will fight through numerous city and industrial environments, inside a subway train (à la Final Fight), on top of a cargo train, a cliffside, through a junkyard, on top of an exposed elevator/helicopter landing pad as it climbs through the sky, and more. Not only that, but the actual design of the levels is far more creative than most modern beat ‘em ups. Rather than just walking from left to right like in Jitsu Squad, players will explore forked paths, weave in and out of rooms, and climb and descend vertical pathways. The occasional need for platforming never feels unfair like it does in Double Dragon IV; it just adds variety to the experience.

In our developer interview, the game’s director told developer told us that his Double Dragon experience came primarily from the NES games. Those games had larger, more interesting levels than the arcade games, and that influence really pays off in this one.

While Gaiden has sometimes been touted as a roguelite, it really just incorporates a handful of roguelite elements into a traditional game structure. For starters, the game is only as hard as you want it to be. When starting a new save, players can tweak six different difficulty settings. The easier you make it, the more expensive the tokens that are used to unlock things become. If both of a player’s characters die, continuing will cost gold, reducing how many tokens you’ll get at the end. Thus, pretty much anybody should be able to beat the game, but stronger players can unlock things faster.

The metagame element that encourages replay is the token shop. The shop offers four categories of unlockables: Game (characters), Tips, Art, and Music. Characters are obviously the most desirable unlocks, so they cost the most tokens. Tips are cheap and offer decently useful advice. Art includes 28 pieces of concept art, and the music category contains 28 songs (some of which don’t appear during the actual game). There are no permanent upgrades to buy, just perks that cost gold last for the remainder of the run, for better or worse. How enticing you find the token shop's unlockables will likely affect the replay value you get from the game.

Gaiden doesn’t just play a bit differently than other Double Dragons; it looks different too. The sprites are drawn with a big-headed, “chibi” art style that somewhat resembles that of TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge (although the style here is actually an evolution of Secret Base’s work on Streets of Red). Gaiden’s slightly cartoony visuals have attracted online criticism and trolling from a vocal minority that would prefer a more realistic style.

The argument over style is both silly and frustrating. Nothing about Double Dragon precludes the use of stylized artwork, and developers should work with whatever styles come naturally to them. That said, the character selection/cinematic art for Billy Lee, the main character of the series, is pretty derpy here. Given that nearly every other character’s face is drawn more attractively, it’s surprising that Billy’s derp face made it through development.

As for the soundtrack, it’s amazing! Nearly every song is a high-quality remix of a classic Double Dragon tune. As explained in our developer interview, Secret Base contracted songs from several different musicians rather than just one or two. The result is one of the best soundtracks in the series, and I deeply hope that the album gets a digital release someday.

The developer has described Double Dragon Gaiden as an “All-stars” version of Double Dragon, which isn’t a bad description. Using the first game as a starting point, this one brings in enemies, bosses, and references from all four numbered Double Dragons. Some of those boss battles, like the final version of the Machine Gun Willy fight are incredible! The gameplay is creative and tight (other than limitations of the tag mechanic), the level design is some of the best the genre has seen in years, and the music rocks. Adjustable and totally fair difficulty and lots of stuff to unlock make the game both approachable and replayable. The age and enduring popularity of the Double Dragon series has resulted in some unique games over the years, and Gaiden numbers among the best of those interpretations.

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons sells for $24.99 digitally on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and Steam. Physical versions for Xbox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Switch cost $29.99. The Steam version is fully Steam Deck compatible.

Xbox and Steam download codes were provided by the publisher for this review.