« Jake's El Cheapo Christmas List 2003 | Main | Review : Space Channel 5 Special Edition for PS2 »
Review : Double Dragon Advance for Gameboy Advance
If you think of kick ass martial arts video games of the mid 80s there should be one name at the top of your list. Double Mudda Forking Dragon.
Before the days of Street Fighter 2 martial arts in video games were mostly about one or two absolute bad asses beating up groups of not so hot fighters in a steady stream of ass kicking. Taito made the definitive 2d side scrolling ass kicking martial art game of the 80s Double Dragon. Up to now there have been four main Double Dragon games. 1, 2 ,3 in the arcade and Super Double Dragon on the Super Nintendo. There have been Double Dragon game on systems from the Atari 2600 all the way to the NeoGeo. Double Dragon has inspired such games as Sega's Streets of Rage and Golden Axe and Capcom's Final Fight. But for the most part we have not seen a new Double Dragon game since about a decade.
Atlus had done a man's job in resurrecting classic Double Dragon in making a new Gameboy Advance game that was a combination of the classic graphics and gameplay, new levels and composite of the very best of Double Dragon. The gameplay is a mixture of the arcade Double Dragon 2 and the blocking of Super Double Dragon. The music and sound effects are straight out of the old arcade games. The gameplay come out surprisingly well and uses all of the buttons on the Gameboy Advance to pull off a plethora of damage inflicting moves. Unlike the NES version of Double Dragon 1 you do not need to earn the moves and you start the game with all the pain inducing moves at your disposal. The graphics are an amalgamation of the very 80s sprites and new fighters that fit in. Probably the most remarkable new fighters is the Agent Smith looking guys who move like they just walked out of The Matrix. The big bald guys and girls in 80s spandex are still there with whips, knives, dynamite and baseball bats.
Double Dragon was one of the first really groovy 2-player cooperative beat downs and Double Dragon Advance offers this by using the Gameboy Advance link cable. If you have two GBAs, two copies of the game and a link cable you and a friend can join up to lay the smack down on the 80's inspired post-apocalyptic hordes of martial arts loser. I hope that BBQ got his copy so we can try this one today.
I can't wait for the new River City Ransom game for the GBA.
Years have passed but there is nothing quite like beating up a bunch of bad guys really really bad with super elbow punches and blows from a baseball bat. While this game is not going to win any awards by todays standards they respect their roots and will entertain for hours with truckloads of old-school martial arts beat-downs.
Jake at November 23, 2003 
Reviews
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.8bitjoystick.com/cgi-bin/mtype/mt-tb.cgi/451
Comments
Right on. I've been keeping my eye on this one. Sounds like it came out good. I'm about to start a very long road trip so I've been thinking of games to add to my portable collection for my turns in the passenger seat. This looks like it'll fit the bill for my action category. I'm looking forward to River City Ransom as well. That's some serious NES nostalgia. :D
Posted by: ZYirAH at November 23, 2003 6:39 PM
Man.. I've been feenin to get this mutha for a while now, especially River City! I remember beatin mugs down with fist packs and then buying some books to read ;) Another awesome game was some sort of action adventure/fighting game in which you had to pass some levels and then you got to learn how to block various parts of the body and then train for ring matches. I think it has something to do with "dragon kid" in the title or something like that...
I think it sucks that 2 ppl can't play on one cartridge tho :( What about all of us with gameboy players? I guess all can't be perfect.
Posted by: wuji at November 24, 2003 7:26 AM
ps.. you always get the kickin games.. what's up with that! Man.. I need to get myself into the groove!
Posted by: wuji at November 24, 2003 7:27 AM
Well the problem with reviewing games that I bought is that I like them enough to buy them. I need to rent more borderline games and give them a shot.
Posted by: Jake at November 24, 2003 9:25 AM
http://www.allposters.com/IMAGES/MMPH/24814.jpg
Cool little Bruce Lee reference. :)
Posted by: Gavin at November 26, 2003 12:32 AM
