What are you playing?

[rabidtictac]

I put a credit into Fight N Rage on normal. Got to the Atari Jaguar guy and got bodied. Fun game. I did a little playing around in the game before this, but not much. Guy and Haggar are pretty much stolen 1-1, except with greatly expanded movelists. Nice. Not sure who Tits McGee is supposed to be. The game has a unique visual style, but the cool thing about that is you can turn all that shit off if you want. I disabled the scan lines and fake crt tilt and the game looks much better.

[rabidtictac]

Double Dragon 4. It looked like shit but I figured I'd try it. Actually kinda based, not gonna lie.

SpoilerShow

It controls like double dragon 1 nes, not like 2. Big difference. 2 had horrible directional controls that meant you could only punch when pressing the button corresponding to your CURRENT facing. So if you were facing right, then you press "A" and get a punch. If you faced left and press "A," you got a backwards kick.

In practice, Double Dragon 2 nes had a very small moveset as a result, and I don't believe there was any way to get (for example) a forward-facing kick or a backwards punch. Double Dragon 4 has DD2 graphics, but controls like Double Dragon 1 nes, which is a good thing. 1 button for kick and 1 button for punch. As it should be. Since it's a "modern" game, you also get additional button shortcuts for headbutt, backfist, jump and flying kick. You don't have to use these, as the old nes inputs still work. But you can. It makes some moves a lot more reliable, like the famous hurricane kick, which used to require A+B into B in the air with the right timing. I'd say I use about 50/50 button shortcuts vs old inputs. The dedicated jump button is a godsend for the platforming btw.

Level design in double dragon 4 seems very basic and bland. If the game didn't control so well and wasn't so fast-paced, I'd be pissed off. There's a pointless raft section in stage 1 for no reason. You just sit there while a raft moves, with no enemies. This game would benefit greatly from mods to add in stages from past double dragon games. Double Dragon 1 nes' first stage is a banger compared to dissu shitto. But the important thing is, all the enemy types are here. They all fight as expected and you can punch/kick the shit out of them. I don't like the DD2 sprites as much as DD1, but they mostly look fine for everyone except Billy and Jimmy.

Weapons feel horrible to use, so it's exactly like every other Double Dragon game I've played in that respect. The throwables are fine but enemies will always counter or preempt the melee weapons. Just like the other games.

I'm making the game sound awful. Well, did you know that you can unlock every enemy and boss and play through the story mode as them? I bet you can also cheat the game to unlock this early with mods/emulation. Bimmy and Jimmy have pretty large movesets, too. I dunno, man. It's a fun, but very jank game. Most of the online coverage of this game has been deceptive. They either shilled the game (back when it was new) or dumped on it hard. I don't think it merits that much of either lavish praise or extreme hatred. It's fun. Double Dragon has always been a flawed series. DD1 was probably the best in the series and it still had obnoxiously shitty platforming segments iirc. This game is just like all the other (good) Double Dragon games. It's fun, but flawed. It controls well, it's responsive, has fun enemy variety and is brutally tough at times. But it gives you level select, some continues (not infinite) and a lot of unlockables.

I went into this game with a pre-formed negative opinion based on what I'd seen online, but changed my opinion once I got my hands on the game. Good controls do matter.

[Kugelfisch]

Eh, never even liked good Double Dragon games. Too basic.

[mad bum]

The music in DD is fantastic though.

[Complicity]

Eh, never even liked good Double Dragon games. Too basic.

One button to punch, another to kick, press both to jump? Disgusting!

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Jumping in beat-em-ups is overrated.

[Kugelfisch]

Eh, never even liked good Double Dragon games. Too basic.

One button to punch, another to kick, press both to jump? Disgusting!

That'd be fine if you had some more variety in your moves.

[rabidtictac]

Like I said, they expanded the movesets and added shortcuts in 4, along with the ability to play as every enemy and boss in the game with their own movesets.

Edit: how is streets of rage 4 going?

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Man, if you're playing Cyber Sleuth: Hacker's Memory (aka "I can't believe this is better than modern MegaTen") for too long you start to forget that all the Digimen models are scaled down to fit the dungeons and streets (a sacrifice you have to make I guess, considering how house-sized mons are pretty common even on the Champion level).
And then it drops a boss Digimon in proper scale.


And that's not even its final form, though I don't remember if it can get as big as Examon (a dragon with a lance whose boss version is kaiju-sized).

Also I have to say that character customization is pretty lame. There's a school uniform (which is crap, because instead of a simple gakuran the school boys in this game run around with a cream-colored abomination), and you can buy shirts like in the previous game, though that's still a bad choice. It was bad in the first game because the protagonist has a distinct black-and-yellow getup that doesn't really mesh with any shirt except the default one, and it's a bad choice here because you can't have a different shirt and keep your trenchcoat.

[Kugelfisch]

Edit: how is streets of rage 4 going?

Pretty well. I have just unlocked all alternative moves for Max, two of which are pretty much considered superior to the regular ones.

The wall bounce mechanic is a big change to previous titles but feels like it's always been there. It just makes sense.

Max is really good in this game. Both his power slide and his heavy attack hit and bounce up enemies on the ground. That makes it pretty easy to re-start a juggle.
I'm still not any good at the game but it's a lot of fun. Making a long, hard-hitting combo stick on a boss feels great. Doing the same to a weak enemy that's already dead, just to rack up the combo counter and because you haven't beaten the guy enough yet feels even better.