Day 274, Game 274 - Double Dragon Neon

Rebooting a series is a risky maneuver, especially in the video game industry. For successful franchises with a devoted fan base and a successful sales history, the reasons for the reboot may be unclear to the average gamer. Sometimes the developers just need fresh perspective on the games they are creating, or they want to reinvent the character to update overall tone and feel of the game to more modern times, and sometimes, it's just to shake it up a bit and try to reinvent the wheel. 

Rebooting a dead or all-but-forgotten about franchise is usually more of a desperation move, either to genuinely continue a series that fans have clamored for for far too long, or to make a quick buck or two by capitalizing on the nostalgia feeling fans once had.

When you reboot a series, however, you usually want to have some goal in mind. With Double Dragon Neon, I honestly have no idea which direction they were trying to go with this game. Were they trying to update the series and bring the franchise to a new audience in hopes of starting a new series of games? If that's the case, why make it a cheap, sub-par homage to the 80's, filled with neon (of course) and classic 80's style music? Modern gamers won't attach themselves to a new game playing of that decade in style and fashion. 

If they were trying to just capitalize on the namesake of the series alone, they did that for sure. Playing the game I instantly had a flood of old memories playing the original Double Dragon games, with the infamously cheesy Billy and Jimmy Lee brothers. These two rules the streets with sweet martial arts skills that would make Napoleon Dynamite jealous, in games that defined the side-scrolling beat'em-up genre of video games. A few updates have been added in this newest installation, like the ability to evade attacks and some radical tag-team moves. And of course, lots of neon and decor that just screams the 1980's. 

Say this game was just a nod at the past and a thank you to the long-time fans of the series. If that was the case, then I accept this reboot of a genre-defining franchise. If they were actually trying to revitalize the series and breathe new life into the Double Dragon franchise in hopes of this being the cornerstone for new direction of games, then ... well, I'm not sure I support them in that venture. 

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