PAX East 2012: Double Dragon: Neon: Hands-On Preview

On the mean streets of urban ghetto, we find the sultry but innocent blonde by the name of Marion, who runs afoul with the wrong people and gets one swift punch to the gut for her troubles. Bursting on the scene are Billy and Jimmy Lee, ready to exact their vengeance in the name of justice against any two bit hood or flunky that stands in their way. WayForward strikes the scene again as a contracted developer for the renowned beat ‘em series with Double Dragon: Neon. Catie and I took the time to punch continually to the right and high fived every step of the way in our Hands on preview play.

While the build was fairly limited in terms of providing the core elements of gameplay, Double Dragon: Neon was definitely able to showcase what to expect with the combat. The game shamelessly applies its roots, and WayForward delivered with authentically emulating the rush of Double Dragon’s combat. The fighting is mostly the same, with weapons making a return and a variety of stage hazards to use against your enemies. There are, however, subtle touches added like interchanging high or low strikes in your combination attacks, which are effective against different enemies on the screen. Furthermore, there are certain attacks that will work towards juggling your enemies in the air and chaining more attacks in order to give your opponent the most damage you can before they can even hit the ground. Instilling these layers of depth to combat that demands tactical approaches when you’re fist-fighting street gangs that manage to feel nostalgic and deceptively refreshing all at once.

The visuals are a little more than the usual WayForward fare of being sharp and bright. The character models are fully rendered and realized and the settings are done to resemble a pastel brushwork design. The aesthetic centers itself around an 80s Flash art motif, filled with several visual references from mix tapes showing when reviving your partner to a Power Glove appearing on screen to urge your forward to continue right, and even some allusions of the game being one big secret love letter to the film Big Trouble, Little China. Double Dragon: Neon found a way to include something that speaks to everyone who grew up in that era, and somehow never feels trite or contrived. Rather, it reinforces the nostalgic feelings all the more.

Though these features were missing from the build we played, we also learned that the cash earned from busting faces will be used to purchase upgrade in the form of a song. These “songs” will be attacks mapped into the track list of your mix-tape representing their placement for the combos that would be used and swapped out anytime during gameplay when purchasing new songs. Additional track slots and overall health upgrades are available for the mix tape system which, overall, if implemented seamlessly could resonate with the upgrade system found in Godhand for the PS2, which proved to be vital in creating engaging play for the all too susceptibly repetitive nature carried with the Beat’ em genre. Mulitplayer will also be simple to where it may either be local or online modes allowing players to drop in and drop out via automated matchmaking.

Double Dragon: Neon has a lot of potential with everything we were able to see so far. Hopefully the game will see more tweaks and polish to refine the combat and sluggish movement before we see it hit PlayStation Network and Xbox Live this summer. Overall, it definitely deserves your attention when the game releases this summer.