Double Dragon IV having (18?) playable characters for story mode = the ultimate Double Dragon ever

General Discussion
1

It’s coming for PS4 and PC. Double Dragon is finally thinking outside the box. Just as Street Fighter II onward isn’t just about Ryu and Ken (it woulda sucked if the series just stuck with those 2 characters. Just like Art of Fighting 1 sucks with just Ryo and Robert, and Fatal Fury with just the trio.), Double Dragon series can be much more, making everyone playable and expanding its playable selection

developer interviews

trophies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJM21W2ACPU

Fighting games aren’t the only ones that benefit from larger selection of playable characters, beat em ups benefit also and enhances their charisma, replay value and play incentives.

the story mode has to be beaten to unlock Tower, and Tower progression unlocks the extra playable characters,

“finishing all stages unlocks Tower Mode. Play this mode to unlock enemy characters for use in Story Mode.”

but it is still great at least there is a means (without cheating) to have a large selection of playable characters for not only vs. but also for the entire story mode as well, practically turning it into a Free mode. Urban Reign making all its npcs and enemies playables and more, sure made it more epic.

“Progress in this mode and you may even unlock a certain fan favorite character!”

it must be Marian. It’s the 30th anniversary and she deserves to finally kick ass in an official Double Dragon beat em up.
Willy would be boring, just shoot/rifle smack enemies, lame, no contest. Double Dragon Neon did tease a badass Marian in the climax.
Even though storywise Marian was killed (wasn’t she revived in the arcade version afterwards?),
we know there are tons of games an examples where killed characters still become playable characters to choose from.
(even in some fighting games stories)

the lack of online lobbies hurts it a bit (ASW you have some of the greatest netcode talent in the industry!
what are you thinking shortchanging DDIV’s online?) well it has Share play, does that mean after the hour session, players group up again and can continue share play?

Perhaps if Double Dragon IV does really well, ASW could use Double Dragon IV features as a foundation and rejuvenate the series as a new ongoing beat em up series. There is controversy about the retro graphics, but hey, at least they aren’t chibis (Phantom Breaker Battle Grounds) or some tacked on flash game graphics (Power Rangers).

Overall, more optimistic about DDIV than any Double Dragon before it. ASW’s Hard Corps Uprising did surpass Contra III in every category, although if it had Contra III/C:HC retro graphics, it probably be more well liked. but I dunno, I like both the retro and ASW stylized art. Maybe later they might do a new Double Dragon with at least Sailor Moon Arcade tier graphics. and expand to 4 players co-op and stuff. there’s lots of things they can do for the series. and in my opinion, what Double Dragon IV is doing is really making Double Dragon series much more interesting.
now all that remains is the overall level design, soundtrack, story content length, challenge, learning curve, and more.

2

Tons of playable characters usually means a lack of focus, but we shall see.

3

its a beat em up. it’s easier to balance and focus on tons of playable characters especially since gameplay wise, a beat em up’s priority is PVE gameplay more than PVP competitive. plus beat em ups don’t require as deep movesets compared to fighting game format, so it’s fundamentally easier to focus on more playable characters in a beatem up, than it is in fighting games.

beat em ups actually are closer to shooters than fighting games are. notice how globally popular shooters are despite how similiar each character is (even customized soldier), really are, there’s still depth to be found there despite boiling down to “aim here, shoot that”. beat em ups are basically lining up and hitting and defeating enemies in various ways. all the while avoiding damage, so stick and move, combos when its safe, evasive tactics when being overwhelmed. each character will provide a different flavor to the action.

and with something beat em up martial arts based, its even easier to make each character stand out more, and overall enhance the experience and make it practically like a different game with each different playable character. and the more selection, the more ways to enjoy the content.

if even high budget, state of the art fighting games for its time, like Marvel vs Capcom 2 can turn out broken, extremely unbalanced, but still widely played in pro competitive tournaments, then something intended for casual entertainment, has no pressure with its balancing and depth of its characters movesets and fighting style uniqueness.

plus there is always quality within quantity, especially for the series that had been haunted and restricted by its “clone” siblings previously being the only ones available (with exception of Double Dragon 3, though the way it handled playable characters was dumb with no option to do full playthroughs as specific characters, and its amount of playable characters was still lacking.)

With these 18 playable characters, even if some or most play similiar, they still will be very refreshing styles and more fresh faces compared to the usual Sousetsuken masters beating up everyone. the series desperately benefits from this expansive selection, and I’m glad they are smart and open minded enough to support this for the core story stages content, besides vs.
they should be playable in Tower mode too. they are playable in story and VS. might as well Tower support anyone too.

4

None of thatreally discounts what I said. I’d rather the main characters be robust then having a shit load of characters with tiny move sets.

Marvel 2 is a shit example because 99% of its assets are reused, nothing about that game is high budget or state of the art. It’s game made of 15 years worth of other games content.

5

But can you get 50,000 on it?

And does steam have better online at least for this game?

6

this is Arc System Works we are talking about, the movesets for each character will be adequate,
I don’t think they are going to pull a Guardian Heroes and leave some characters with only one move (the Guardian Heroes villagers deserved more).
plus considering there is a VS. mode, all characters must be designed to be quite formidable and as deep as anyone else in the selection, or at least have all the fundamentals to not feel like an uncared for character.

especially since they don’t have to deal with highly expensive sprites and animations, they can get more quantity completed in less time for characters and movesets.

not expecting DDAdvance depth, but movesets don’t have to be that deep to be cool.
even a sidescrolling platforming shmup like Hard Corps Uprising has more depth compared to all the Contra games before it, though yea in that case moves are generally shared, except Sayuri, she basically makes it feel like a whole different game.

7

Huh, I didn’t know Double Dragon 3 took place before DD2.

8

Whenever I see a thread for a video game, if it has a question mark in the title it always means it’s an affinity thread. This thread title has validated that concept

9

I was onboard until I see they reusing the same horseshit graphics they used since the 60s.

10

the art direction is more true to the classic series than the lame art direction of Double Dragon Neon, which left a bad taste for some fans. Some fans even hated Super Double Dragon’s art (and of course DDV’s looked terrible). and of course the fanbase was totally divided on the Neo Geo fighting game and Rage of the Dragons character designs and art styles, which totally alienated the series despite how advanced the sprites were compared to the NES games.
Megaman 9 uses the same general NES graphics, and the fanbase is ok with that. and some Contra fans preferred Hard Corps Uprising to look more like the NES Contras.

Look at Bloodstained Ritual of the Night, the graphics are totally advanced, but some fans feel that retro graphics, even the 8 bit games, had more life, depth and essence to them, despite the simplified details. Even some Street Fighter fans prefer the SF2 games than the 2.5D games, and feel the classic graphics have more likeable designs and art to them.

11

Not some SF fans… I haven’t met a single person who says they prefer Capcpom’s current ugly-ass style over something like 3rd Strikes sprites.

But DD looked bad even back then. We just rolled with it.

12

If I wanted to play a NES game, I would boot up DD on my NES Emu, not pay 20-40 dollars to play a new DD game that looks equally as ass.

Into the trash it goes. Same for everyone who insists on using outdated as fuck graphical styles cuz of “Muh nostalgia!”

13

Yea plus Hard Corps Uprising looks great, it will hold onto that for a good while yet.

Why they went with block art for this is a mystery because they could have gave us some silky smooth high res 100k frame animation and all would have been well with the universe.

But what we getting? Lol wouldn’t even pirate this shit.

14

Oh yeah. Forgot that Double Dragon is in its 30th as well.

Can someone move this to they FGD

Speaking of characters. Jeff is the green palette swap of Spike and Hammer.

Funny how 3 characters pretty much have similar, almost the same names.

Billy, Willy, Williams

Does this also mean that DDII will get retconned or will Marian get killed?

EDIT: why didn’t they just use arcade graphics and music?

Every pizza place had this and Shinobi. Mountain Mike’s, Round Table, Pizza Hut, Straw Hat, etc.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=jtY5JfJ6cHw

https://youtube.com/watch?v=etHkRaVjCiI

https://youtube.com/watch?v=d4rLtxzle6k

15

I really wish they didnt straight up use NES style. Like Po said, DD is ugly thats why Im surprised ASW didnt do anything to change it up.

Even them animefying it wouldve been fine

16

7$ seems like a rather fair pricetag for this

17

haha it’s amusing to me that “multi-platform release” now means “except Xbox 1” :lol: Last gen it meant “360 + PS3, possibly PC.” and everyone already knew the Wii was excluded by default.

Anyway, I just wish they’d at least bump it up to some 16-bit visuals. It’s tough to go back to NES/Master System-caliber graphics, when it terms of “old 2d”, 16-bit level graphics are simply the better choice, at least in my opinion.

18

I know right, Jion! my siblings and cousins played the heck out of the Double Dragon games in arcades and NES! train stations had it, some airports, amusement parks school went to, the pizza places were the best, though!!!

The graphics look fine, I think ASW just isn’t in touch with the right artstyle updated Double Dragon graphics should look.
I mean come on, even DD1 on NES still looks great to this day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTsyEnm3e6Q

these days, TMNT updated the look of the TMNT turtles and they look HORRIBLE! so bad the new movie isnt even worth watching.
the art shouldn’t be messed with.
modern american cartoons look like junk compared to classic cartoons. better animations =/= better art direction.

It’s great DDIV plays it safe with the art. ASW must be self aware their flavor of character designs and art direction doesn’t gel right with things like Double Dragon and Contra.

it’s like if DC Comics or Marvel dared to attempt to make their own version of Dragon Ball, Fist of the North Star, Akira, Project A-ko, Ghost in the Shell, the art would be all wrong, lol.

instead of nitpicking graphics, I would be more skeptical whether the amount of stages/missions, overall level designs, enemy distributions, difficulty, soundtrack and other things are above average.

19

What they are doing with this one is a million times better than the half-assed brand of art that they used for Neon.

Double Dragon Neon looks like any generic Clash of Clans, Game of War, Dragon of War, War of Dragons, Clash of Dragons, bullshit that a mobile game developer can vomit up in his sleep.

20

At least it’s cheap.