{"id":16193,"date":"2017-03-10T00:01:09","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T00:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=16193"},"modified":"2017-02-10T05:56:29","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T05:56:29","slug":"double-dragon-iv-ps4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/10\/double-dragon-iv-ps4\/","title":{"rendered":"Double Dragon IV (PS4)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Double Dragon was one of the first arcade side-scrolling beat \u2018em ups, and when I was a kid, it was very popular.\u00a0 It got tons of sequels, spin-offs, and home ports.\u00a0 At one point, there was even a Double Dragon cartoon, toys, and even a live action movie!\u00a0 (The movie was awful, but also funny in a B-Movie, MST3K sort of way) But you know what\u2019s strange is that while there were games after Double Dragon 3, they were all spin-offs, like Super Double Dragon, BattleToads and Double Dragon, even a one-on-one fighter<\/strong><\/a>, and more recently: Double Dragon Neon<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 But there has never been an official sequel to Double Dragon 3.\u00a0 Until now, with Double Dragon IV, downloadable on PS4.<\/p>\n

Double Dragon IV takes a different approach than what the last DD game did.\u00a0 A few years ago, Double Dragon Neon<\/strong><\/a> came out and featured updated graphics and gameplay, as well as a more humorous style as it made fun of the 80\u2019s era the original game came from.\u00a0 But similar to other retro revival games like Shovel Knight, Axiom Verge<\/strong><\/a>, and Mega Man 9 & 10, Double Dragon IV looks like it came straight from the NES days.\u00a0 You can even change the music to sound more 8-bit, which I recommend doing because it fits and sounds better anyway.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think the NES could handle as many colors and enemies on screen as this game does, but other than that, it\u2019s very authentic.<\/p>\n

Gameplay is pretty basic.\u00a0 You can punch, kick, and jump, as well as pull off special moves with combinations of those buttons.\u00a0 There is a Story Mode with 12 missions, and once you exhaust your 3 lives and 5 continues, it\u2019s Game Over.\u00a0 Luckily there is a secret code you can enter that\u2019ll let you start on the last mission you completed.\u00a0 You can also play this mode co-op, and even switch to a mode where you can hurt the other player.\u00a0 There is also a two-player duel mode, where you can select unlocked characters to play as and fight each other, similar to a mode in the original NES game.\u00a0 And if you can beat the story mode, you\u2019ll unlock a Tower Mode as well, so there is plenty of replay value.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the game has the same problems the other titles in the series had.\u00a0 The hitboxes and hit detection are bad, and the platform jumping sections are even worse.\u00a0 And it can get real frustrating when a bunch of enemies gang up on you from both sides.\u00a0 One more minor complaint is the sound effects are grating.\u00a0 Me personally, I prefer Double Dragon Neon<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 But I can understand why some may not like it if they take their Double Dragon games more seriously than I do.\u00a0 But if you have fond memories of playing the NES games, then you may want to check this one out anyway.\u00a0 As a kid, I wasn\u2019t into Double Dragon as much as others were.\u00a0 I played the first two games at a friend\u2019s house when he rented them on the NES, but I prefer the more cartoony four-player beat \u2018em ups like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Simpsons, and I have better memories playing other arcade titles like Final Fight.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Double Dragon IV is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Violence, Blood, and Language.\u00a0 You do punch and kick all manner of bad guys, but the 8-bit visuals keep things from looking too graphic.\u00a0 Some of the story sections have people\u2019s faces all beat up with red spots and boo-boos, so that\u2019s probably where the blood descriptor comes from.\u00a0 But I don\u2019t remember reading any bad language.\u00a0 Speaking of which, reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary just to play.\u00a0 Younger gamers may find the difficulty too high, especially in the later levels.\u00a0 But luckily the secret level select code and two-player options help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Double Dragon was one of the first arcade side-scrolling beat \u2018em ups, and when I was a kid, it was very popular.\u00a0 It got tons of sequels, spin-offs, and home ports.\u00a0 At one point, there was even a Double Dragon cartoon, toys, and even a live action movie!\u00a0 (The movie was awful, but also funny […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16193"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16195,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16193\/revisions\/16195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}