Double Dragon Resurrection Review – IGN
Blog Andrew Joseph 21 Oct , 2025 0
Hot on the heels of Ninja Gaiden's own 2D revival, Ragebound, Double Dragon Resurrection feels more like a tribute band to the series than a true reunion tour. It doesn't play hits the way you remember them, but puts its own spin on things – from how it looks, to how it sounds, to how it plays. Not only did all of these aspects fall short of my modest expectations for the new Double Dragon, but after a few hours of off-key twists and turns, it began to solidify the idea that maybe we should put a little more distance between our attempts to reinvigorate the series.
Even though I've been playing these games for most of my life, the simplicity of Double Dragon Resurrection made me feel a little uncomfortable. Side-scrolling games of the “tape-reel” variety in arcades have found plenty of ways to spice up the “make your way right” recipe, and Revive seems interested in keeping as much of this new seasoning off the plate as possible. It's a base protein with eight non-branched levels that comes with a fight of starch that's filling but hardly any sauce.
Picking any of the four playable characters is simple and intuitive, and strings of normal attacks can be combined with a single button, while special attacks and super strikes can be used to accentuate those combinations, or in some cases extend your offense into wall-bouncing juggles. All of these moves are unique to each fighter. Okay, so the differences between Billy and Jimmy Lee don't translate into mechanical differences, but former teenage girl-turned-headkicker Marianne and ninja frenemy Lanzo have a more flashy and utilitarian attack style. However, I rarely felt the need to use more than a basic combo loop on Normal difficulty. As long as enemies don't have annoying shields or super armor to protect them when they're under massive attack (which is ubiquitous in later levels), they're vulnerable to good old-fashioned punches.
For those who do want to try their hand at taking on these street thugs, options are limited, but they all rely on bouncing enemies off walls to keep them in the air long enough to pack more hits together when they come down. It often feels like enemies go wherever they want to go after being launched or thrown, rather than where you direct them to go, and trying to set up simple combo extensions that tuck enemies into background environmental hazards that knock them out of combat right away, or take advantage of the super-powerful wall-blow and wall-collision options, is a daunting task.
There are no aerial combos, either, so chasing a launching bad guy through the sky just leaves you with a disappointing hit to the ground so you can wait for them to get back up, allowing you to hit them again. Everyone can hit downed enemies for free, which is unresponsive and unreliable if you can trick the finicky button prompts into doing so. If there's the right type of wall around it – the right type being what they think is the correct one without reliable context clues – you can perform a super-large drop attack, but even kicking the wall away to gain the necessary height requires a dice roll.
Each one has a powerful, screen-clearing finishing blow attack, and all punches enhance these attacks, which are boosted when you dodge in time, counter an enemy's big attack, or increase your combo timer. But not a single playable character, not even Lanzo's cool explosive kunai or Marianne's charging knees, can make the resurrected fight feel special, or even fun, for very long. It took me about three hours to complete my first game, before I lost interest, and I played three more games after that, one for each playable character.
That said, the enemy variety is at least varied and effectively lets you use the small menu you have. As the levels progress, old baddies mix with new ones, creating a kind of street thug soup that gets a little spicy by the end of your run. This is very much a numbers game, and you'll often be inundated with a host of attacks from all angles. I liked the little brain puzzle of having to figure out the most dangerous threat first, or the most efficient way to get as many people as possible involved in a massive attack, but it wasn't enough to make me forget that the process of taking these guys down is still pretty tedious. Even with the range of limited-use weapons, there's your standard fare of knives, two-by-fours, sledgehammers, etc., though the powerful tools are usually worth the effort to grab when things get tough.
As the challenge escalates, some of Revive's lags become its own enemy. Little things, like your character's direction sometimes inexplicably defaulting to the opposite direction, stop being a quirk that needs to be addressed and start to be reasons for you to abandon combos or get punished.
Bosses break up the monotony a bit, introducing more engaging stage hazards and pattern mechanics, such as Linda, who you need to shake off a pillar hidden at the top before you can attack her directly. By the end, though, these all get pretty brutal, especially the Chapter 7 boss, which is probably the most irritating fight I've ever played in one of these games – it's truly a test of the stamina of the game's biggest cheater to keep attacking.
There isn’t much flash visually either. Most of the character models look good, but the fire, wind, and dragon effects that emanate from the limbs when channeling chi seem to be a step behind in quality. The camera work and sound design come together well enough to make the hits and jazz feel good. The soundtrack is decent, with some original jam rock and a mix of old series riffs that sound great at the time but immediately knock your socks off after it's over. Overall, Double Dragon Resurrection lacks the visual identity of the 16-bit version Double Dragon Gaiden Even pastel-punk Double Dragon Neon has one, not to mention its peers Ninja: The Art of Revenge and Ninja Gaiden: Binding of Wrath Starting this year.
The stages you go through are much wider in scope. A colorful Japanese pagoda-like tower with a fun little perspective switch in the middle is simple but more exciting than a nondescript highway level, even if it has a wrestling ring at the end. Some of these areas require some platforming, which I'm never happy to see, but luckily they're short bursts. It's a bit eye-rolling that most of these stages are just staple series locations, not adding much in the way of new flair this time around, but what's really disappointing is that a lot of these locations are just bland and lifeless.
I don't want to be one of those “this beat 'em up games have a bad story” weirdos, but I mean, it is. It's not so much that the plot is nonsense, the characters are bland, and the writing is terrible, it's that “Revive” lacks the confidence and chaotic energy necessary to sell something like this. Neon, this post-apocalyptic villain is a gang leader, the Demon Knight, straight out of the heavy metal album cover of “Skullmaggedon.” The gang wars in Side Story make that version of New York City feel like Gotham City, filled with thugs themed after their eccentric bosses. By comparison, “Resurrection” is just a completely tame and bland take on returning villains Willy and Raymond, who use dark magic and the military-industrial complex to experiment on humans and make life worse for Kusuki Ken's children.