Category: IGN

F1 Manager 2023 takes all the excitement of a race weekend and shifts the focus to behind the pit wall. If you’re a fan of the Codemasters F1 games, you know how stressful the tight turns on some of these street circuits are. I can’t tell you how many times a qualifying lap has been ruined by a “light touch” of the wall at Monaco. In F1 Manager, that’s not my problem; my only job is to tell the driver to watch their tires, fuel consumption, and about a dozen other metrics – on not just one F1 car, but two. F1 Manager 2023 fixes minor mistakes from the series debut last year and adds new ways to play, and it remains a compelling motorsports management simulation that’s committed to helping you grow both your knowledge and love of the sport.

Juggling multiple metrics and managing a pair of the most elite race cars on the planet may sound overwhelming on paper but, in practice, everything feels like an opportunity to learn. And to help you learn, F1 Manager 2023 adds a brand new scenario mode called Race Replay. Race Replay features both full race replays and team-specific objectives for each track. The first moment I tried was a moment at Silverstone that required me to push both McLaren cars up to the podium after a yellow flag restart. It was the very first thing I played, so I was still trying to get my bearings. Despite the text of the challenge telling me that Norris needed to pit, I waited for about half a lap for Norris to suggest the pit stop himself. This resulted in him taking longer to get into the pits, but there was also a pit stop error – which resulted in Norris dropping to 10th position and causing me to fail the challenge. When I restarted, this time I immediately told him to pit as soon as the game let me. On this occasion there was no pit stop error and Norris held track position in fourth, making it very easy for him to overtake and win the challenge.

It’s this ability to A-B test your own actions that makes me feel like F1 Manager 2023 genuinely wants to teach the value of confident decision making and how crucial that is to becoming a world champion constructor. This ethos is the thing that shines brightest in F1 Manager, and is so inviting that I often find myself wanting to play Race Replay more often than the flagship career mode. If any of this sounds interesting, the deluxe edition of F1 Manager 2023 includes 14 additional race moments, including a scenario at the brand-new Las Vegas Grand Prix if you’re itching to see how it drives without simming most of a career season.

That career mode allows you to take control of any of the ten teams on the grid and manage everything a team principal would. You have the ability to design car parts, build or upgrade team facilities, and manage the staff and drivers that work under you. You can even micromanage your pit crew and have them run drills as a unit to help cut down on errors and make them faster. All of these decisions end up producing confidence from your Board of Directors. Keep them happy, and you can manage your millions as you see fit – but if you’re unable to meet their demands, you may see yourself getting walking papers rather quickly.

Which team you decide to manage will determine a lot about how detail oriented you need to be. Red Bull is not only flush with cash, but regularly cleans up race after race; even if you automate an entire weekend, they will do fine. This means that they can afford to take a long-term approach and aim for a locked-up championship at the halfway point of the season. Meanwhile, at the other end of the paddock, you have a team like Alpha Tauri (which, despite having good drivers, just has an outright lousy car). This means that they need to scrap and claw every weekend just to make it out of the first qualifying session. It’s this wide spectrum of challenge that makes F1 Manager stand out.

Even if you manage to have a perfect relationship with your board and amass millions thanks to your sponsors, you’ll eventually run into the Cost Cap. The Cost Cap is a rule put in place so that teams can’t just dump billions into their teams. While it helps promote fairness, as each season has gotten longer and longer, even the top dogs like Red Bull and Mercedes have to be careful not to just burn through car parts. It means that in F1 Manager 2023, you always have to be making decisions. Sure, you can decide to save your money now and not upgrade your car parts, but that might cost you three races down the line.

F1 Manager 2023 also makes sure to keep its authenticity intact by adding the two new tracks that were added to the 2023 calendar, as well as the sprint weekend format for six race weekends. These two simple additions make the strategy layer of career mode entirely different from last year. Sprint weekends forgo a practice session in order to run a shorter-distance race on Saturday for a crack at more constructor points. While it’s caused heated debate among F1 fans, it’s a perfect example of what makes F1 Manager stand out: it’s an opportunity to collect data and feel comfortable.

F1 Manager also goes an additional step further than its Codemasters cousin by including not just F2 drivers but F3 as well. That said, drivers from these feeder categories were also available in F1 Manager 2022; I’d actually love to see this fleshed out more by letting you create custom drivers that you can sign and build from the ground up.

Once you’re ready for a race weekend, you have three main mechanics to push the pace of your cars on track. Asking your driver to increase the heat on your tires will cause them to speed up, at the cost of literally burning rubber. Run your tires too long and too hard and you’ll turn a two-stop race into a three-stop race and likely force your driver and team out of the points. Managing your tires throughout an entire weekend can be difficult if you aren’t careful. Certain tracks are harder on tires than others; if you use up most of your soft tires in practice or qualifying, you might get stuck starting the race on a worn set. It’s an authentic juggling act.

Fuel is a bit more straightforward. Ask the driver to keep his foot on the accelerator, and he’ll also have to hammer on the brake, thus burning more fuel. Because refueling is banned in F1, if you run out of fuel, you literally cannot finish a race.

The Energy Recovery System (ERS) is the internal battery of the car that charges the engine and is, for me, the toughest part of the on-track mechanics to master. While F1 Manager 2023 thankfully doesn’t let you shoot yourself in the foot by draining the battery completely and shutting down the car, it does force you to go back to 1x speed when you hit zero.

You can also give your individual drivers some very basic commands to shape their on-track behavior. While your AI drivers can do a decent enough job of overtaking and defending themselves, mastering when to issue these commands yourself can help you avoid getting stuck in the middle or back of the pack. However, it’s slightly disappointing that there’s no way to design full team plans, like telling your A driver to swap positions with the B driver because the B driver has better pace. Drivers don’t have a relationship with each other but are simply there to take instructions. It stands out because team orders are a divisive but common facet of F1 authenticity, and it’s something missing from F1 Manager 2023. I hope it’s something Frontier can improve on in future games.

Management games have always had a bit of difficulty deciding how to present themselves. Doubling down on intricate systems often means that developers can’t invest as much in stunning visual quality as their traditional sports game cousins. While it’s true that graphics aren’t necessarily at the forefront of Frontier’s focus, F1 Manager 2023 nonetheless looks pleasant in motion. That said, the studio’s level of achievements with this year’s audio is extremely commendable. Getting to hear real pit wall audio from the drivers is an absolute joy. Hearing my favorite driver, Yuki Tsunoda, swear at me after he dropped back to last place genuinely made me cackle – and took the sting out of a race weekend that was otherwise a failure.

The first thing you might ask yourself when you start playing One Punch Man: World is — why does it take so many darn punches to put down basic enemies? It says “One Punch” right there in the title. The reason for this was not made clear during my recent 30-minute play session. Fortunately for One Punch Fans, you’ll find an action game that looks and plays like an interactive version of the anime. Key moments have been accurately recreated in-engine, and you’ll even be able to expand on what was seen in the show. At a glance, you might even think you’re watching the anime instead of playing the game.

My time in One Punch Man: World began with a scene of our hero, Saitama, being rudely awakened from deep sleep in his own bed by subterranean monsters emerging from underground and causing havoc in the streets. This is a beat ‘em up: You can punch, kick, dodge, and even use a couple special attacks you’ll have to build up to. Combos can be ended with a flourish that sends enemies flying into the air — at least with Saitama. Other characters from the anime are playable and presumably have their own combos. Every now and then a quicktime event will occur, asking you to mash buttons to trigger an action set piece. One such event caused a highway to come crashing down, bringing the fight to a new location.

Combat is a little on the simpler side, perhaps because One Punch Man: World is currently only scheduled for mobile and PC — no consoles, unfortunately. If it’s going to work on a phone screen, the controls can’t be that intricate. My playtime was with mouse and keyboard on PC, and clicking the left mouse button at enemies did the job for the most part. While the amount of punches it takes to defeat enemies remains a quandary, I do appreciate the juicy explosions of blood that occur when the requisite number of punches is achieved. These enemies are like big water balloons filled with viscera.

The fight eventually left the surrounding city blocks in smoldering ruin, at which point the gigantic leader of the mole people (the Subterranean King) emerged. He has four arms and wields four laser swords, and definitely took more focus to bring down than his children (his words). He telegraphs his enormous sword swipes, and you must make use of Saitama’s dodge and dash abilities to avoid them, then close the gap to get in a few punches (again, why so many punches? He’s literally the One Punch Man). A couple more quicktime events and the King was dethroned.

Outside of combat you can explore Z-city, which looks very much like a dense area of Tokyo. Convenience stores can sell you meals that provide stat boosts. Arcades are full of One Punch Man takes on classic games like bullet hell shooters and fighting games. At least one of them is playable: Panzer Cyborg, a simplistic on-rails affair where you fly over a city collecting coins and dodging the odd obstacle. (Curiously, it begins by playing music from the NES game Life Force, which is a Konami property. I have to imagine it’s being used as a placeholder for some 8-bit sounding original tune.)

Around town you can take on sidequests and talk to other characters — who might even provide a different point of view of the events of the show.

Other playable characters fans will recognize include Genos, Mumen Rider, Lightning Max, and Atomic Samurai. While you begin the game with just Saitama, other characters will be made available as you encounter them in the story. A PvE raid mode allows you to team up with three other players in order to take down a powerful boss like the Beast King, who first appeared in Episode 2 of the anime.

Mortal Kombat 1 director Ed Boon has announced hat NetherRealm Studios will be conducting a beta test for the upcoming fighter, this one scheduled from August 18 to August 21.

While Mortal Kombat 1 has previously been playable via closed network tests, this one will feature a bunch of new content, including the newly-revealed Li Mei. The official Mortal Kombat 1 account laid out all of the available content:

Fighters: Liu Kang, Sub-Zero, Kenshi, Kitana, Johnny Cage, and Li Mei
Kameos: Kano, Sonya, Jax, and Frost
Stages: The Teahouse & Johnny Cage’s Mansion

August 18th

My mother’s birthday.
Tobias’s mother’s birthday.
1995 MK Movie release date.

and now… the #MK1 pre-Oder beta !!pic.twitter.com/ow8bxNcOKI

— Ed Boon (@noobde) July 27, 2023

The beta will take place ahead of Mortal Kombat 1’s official release date, which is currently scheduled for September.

The announcement follows Mortal Kombat 1’s recent San Diego Comic-Con presentation in which NetherRealm Studios revealed returning warriors Baraka, Li Mei, and Tanya as well as special guests Omni-Man, Peacemaker, and Homelander. The reveal followed a leak confirming their inclusion in the upcoming fighter.

Aside from providing an early glimpse of Mortal Kombat 1, August 18 is notable for a number of other reasons. Boon and co-creator John Tobias’ mothers share a birthday on that day, and the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie released on that day. Truly an auspicious day.

Mortal Kombat 1 was announced earlier this year, with the “1” donating that it’s both a reboot and a sequel after newly-minted God of Fire Liu Kang remakes the universe. It is notably brighter and more colorful than other games in the series, but it still retains Mortal Kombat’s distinctive look and feel, particularly it’s gruesome fatalities.

We went hands-on with Mortal Kombat 1 back in June, and you can find our full impressions right here. Mortal Kombat 1 releases September 14.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

The Payday 3 closed beta is available on PC via Steam and Xbox Series X and S via the Xbox Insider Hub App only, publisher Deep Silver and developer Starbreeze have announced.

The co-op heist first-person shooter runs its closed beta from August 2 to 7. Microsoft said space is available and offered on a first-come first-served basis. “We plan to open more space through the beta weekend so if you are unable to join, please check back later to join,” Microsoft added.
There’s no word of a closed beta on PlayStation 5. Payday 3 launches day-and-date on Game Pass.

In the closed beta you can play as Payday’s four original clown-masked characters (Dallas, Hoxton, Chains, and Wolf), in the heist No Rest for the Wicked. Deep Silver said this is representative of classic Payday heists, and tasks players with stealing from a small bank.

All difficulties will be playable, the level cap is Infamy Level 22, and Weapon Level Progression is maxed at eight.

Payday 3 itself launches on September 21 for PC via PC Game Pass, on Steam, and the Epic Games Store, as well as Xbox Series X and S Game Pass, and PlayStation 5. Check out IGN’s Payday 3 hands-on preview for more.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

The extraction shooter is blowing up, and upcoming release Hawked might be the most approachable shot at the PvPvE genre yet. Where other games focus on an aggressively tight and hardcore experience, Hawked is importing some game design from the more approachable battle royales in order to get you into rounds of treasure-hunting mayhem with much less commitment.

The setup is simple. You and a team of friends pop up on an island overrun with lizard monsters to recover valuable seemingly-magical artifacts from the ancient ruins there before the lizards—or the other treasure hunters—can do the same. Taking out camps of lizards lets you loot new weapons and gear for this trip out, while going around solving puzzles gets you the key pieces of info you need to open up the treasure vault at the core of each round. Get the artifact inside, get out, and you win that round—unlocking or upgrading that artifact as a piece of gear for future runs.

Of course, that’s not the only treasure around. The dang lizards have also already bogarted a piece, and hunting down their treasure-carrying dinosaur will let you nab a second artifact in each round. The problem with that route is that everyone else knows exactly where the dino loot is, so trying to nab that artifact is much more likely to put you in conflict with enemy teams—and there are ten teams of three out there gunning for the same two pieces of loot.

For all that, though, the map didn’t feel crowded during the preview. Most of a match was exploring, taking down lizards to gear up, and finding clues to the vault. Lizards are all over the place too, meaning that if your team is willing to pick a few fights they can get their preferred gear pretty quickly. At the same time, some of those lizard packs have dangerous elites in them that hit much harder or have special abilities—the big crocodile guys pack a punch.

The island really is crowded with stuff, and broad open spaces are pretty rare. That means any fight with an enemy team ends up being a surprise meeting or an ambush by one side or the other. The thick jungle, constant ravines and cliffs, and densely placed ruins are all tightly placed and long lines of sight are hard to find while cover is plentiful. That’s good, because while you do have a recharging shield, getting caught in the open under fire is a death sentence.

The PvP felt pretty good, emphasizing focus-firing and using your abilities and quick movement to avoid getting hit. Strong play will definitely emphasize knowing the terrain, mastering the sliding movement, where you can grapple to climb, and balancing waterways to move fast on your hoverboard with stealthier movement through the jungle. At the same time, abilities that do stuff, like drop a barrier or heal allies, are going to be clutch—you can revive your teammates, but it’s a lengthy process that’s not going to happen often mid-fight.

Hawked’s most unique thing is definitely the exploring and puzzle-solving that go along with the environment. Each clue to the vault combination is found at a site that itself has some kind of puzzle to solve or event to do. The simplest just challenges your team to stay in a circle for a limited time while enemies spawn. The more complex ones have you solving problems like memory puzzles, where you have to remember a pattern and then recreate it. Or a puzzle where you have to align symbols to match a predetermined order.

For me that was actually the coolest part of Hawked. These kinds of many-player battle games engage a really specific part of your brain that wants to spot small details, tiny movements, and gauge environments for danger. You’re often focused on which weapon you should use, or upgrade to grab, or what your teammate is doing. Having to then activate the more broad, analytical-creative part of your brain to match symbols or identify a pattern was a great change of pace and challenge in an otherwise pretty fast-paced shooter.

Hawked has an established aesthetic, riffing on what’s popular now without too much of its own unique vibe. Whether that works for you is probably already decided. What’s going to sell Hawked, then, is definitely the core gameplay. I wasn’t totally sold there, but I wasn’t totally turned off either. The guns were cool, with a decent amount of variety from melee weapons, normal assault rifles, energy guns with heat meters, and even weird things like minelaying weapons and a really nasty grenade launcher.

Despite the variety, though, the feel of moving and shooting wasn’t quite as satisfying as I’d like it to be. Hawked has a lot of movement abilities with its traversal tool letting you grapple, swing, and climb lots of points around the map—but it’s not always clear how you should approach them, and the experience of climbing or swinging upwards didn’t quite flow into movement the way I’d want it to. Guns had the opposite problem, perhaps a little too smooth without enough feedback to differentiate the types of weapons.

I’ll stick around to see how it changes and improves before and after release, because Hawked looks like it’ll be a great game for casual rounds before and after games with long playtimes. Need a quick break from something more hardcore, or only have a half hour to mess around with buddies? If the games are flowing freely, then Hawked will fill that gap with something satisfying that also has long-term progression to buy into.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the most-anticipated role-playing video games of 2023, but fans of developer Larian’s previous, much-loved Divinity: Original Sin series are wondering whether its story will ever be continued. The answer: a Divinity: Original Sin sequel is a definite, although don’t hold your breath for an announcement.

In an interview with IGN, Larian boss Swen Vincke confirmed the studio will return to the world of Divinity: Original Sin and continue its story, but not before staff have taken a well-earned break following the launch of Baldur’s Gate 3 next month.

“It’s [Divinity: Original Sin] our own universe we built, so we’re definitely gonna get back there at some point,” Vincke said. “We will get back there at some point. We’ll first finish this one [Baldur’s Gate 3] now, and then take a break, because we will need to refresh ourselves creatively also. You’re seeing 400 developers putting their heart and souls into this. You’re getting the best of them and their craft into this game. And so I can tell you, it’s quite a thing.”

Belgian studio Larian kicked off its Divinity role-playing series in 2002 with Divine Divinity. Beyond Divinity followed in 2004, before Divinity 2 launched in 2009. Divinity: Original Sin came out in 2014, but it was 2017’s Divinity: Original Sin 2 that propelled Larian into the bigtime, with millions in sales and universal critical acclaim. Ports and a Definitive Edition followed, with thousands still playing years later.

Baldur’s Gate 3, which Larian has developed under licence from Dungeons & Dragons owner Wizards of the Coast, launches in August 2023 six years after Divinity: Original Sin 2 came out. If Larian moves on to Divinity: Original Sin 3 next, it may well be years before we see or hear anything about it, let alone play it.

Larian announced it had brought the release date of the PC version of Baldur’s Gate 3 forward a month, from August 31 to August 3, in order to avoid a clash with the likes of Bethesda’s upcoming behemoth Starfield in early September. The PlayStation 5 version, meanwhile, is delayed slightly to September 6, and the Xbox Series X and S versions are without a release window (more on Baldur’s Gate 3’s Xbox hold-up here).

Speaking to IGN, Vincke said the developer is seeing a standard playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 take 75 to 100 hours. However, players who want to “do everything” should expect to double that figure.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Blizzard has told Diablo 4 players to stop using game-modifying software or risk their account suffering a permanent ban.

In a message posted to the Blizzard forums, Diablo community chief Adam Fletcher made clear the developer’s position on unauthorised modifications, many of which it said are used to cheat. Fletcher even called out one piece of software, called TurboHUD4, which has proved a popular option among the community, especially hardcore players pushing against the outer edges of Diablo 4’s endgame.

Here’s Blizzard’s statement in full:

“We are committed to keeping the world of Sanctuary a safe and fair place for all players, and our Game Security team constantly monitors for cheats and unauthorized modifications.

“All Diablo 4 players agree to the Blizzard EULA as a condition of playing the game. The Blizzard EULA explicitly prohibits cheating, bots, hacks, and any other unauthorized software which automates, modifies, or otherwise interferes with the game. This is important to players’ security as well as the game’s long-term integrity.

“With that in mind, we want to make it clear that TurboHUD4, like any game-modifying software, is prohibited for use with Diablo 4. Players who install this kind of software will put their accounts at risk for disciplinary action, which can include permanent suspension.

“Thank you to our players for helping to keep Sanctuary fair for all.”

According to its website, TurboHUD4 adds a customisable overlay to Diablo 4. This lets you make changes to the world map, add aspect names to the character sheet, and configure plugins. You can also use it to reveal dungeon maps, add a missed items counter to the screen, and add a resource counter.

While many of these features are considered useful quality of life changes Diablo 4 could do with in an official capacity, Blizzard’s concern is software such as TurboHUD4 can also be used for cheating in its always-online game.

It’s an interesting statement in the context of Blizzard’s philosophy for its other games. World of Warcraft, for example, has for many years let players use add-ons that modify the experience. And TurboHUD4 itself has been around for years, used by some Diablo 3 players to boost their play.

In other Diablo 4 news, Blizzard is set to host another Campfire Chat on July 28 at 11am PDT. This much-anticipated livestream will dig into changes coming with the upcoming patch, 1.1.1, expected to launch in the next two weeks. Blizzard staff will discuss balance changes, various quality of life updates, and hold a Q&A segment at the end.

Yesterday, Blizzard released Diablo 4 patch 1.1.0c, which addressed the menu screen user interface issue that was causing some players to inadvertantly activate the premium battle pass. This activation now has a confirmation pop-up, and the default focus (the button the controller will first highlight) on the battle pass screen is now the Season Journey button.

Despite various issues, Diablo 4 enjoyed an enormous launch that saw over 10 million people play in June. Diablo 4 is Blizzard’s fastest-selling game of all time, and has fuelled record revenue and profits for the company. If you’re still playing, check out our interactive Diablo 4 map to start tracking your progress as you play.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Nintendo Switch Online has added The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons.

The Game Boy Color Classics are now playable for everyone with a Nintendo Switch Online membership as part of the Game Boy – Nintendo Switch Online library.

Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages are two action-adventure The Legend of Zelda spin-offs developed by Flagship, a subsidiary of Capcom, and released in 2001 for the Game Boy Color handheld and re-released on the Virtual Console for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013. This release marks both games’ debut on Nintendo Switch.

In Oracle of Ages, Link battles to prevent Veran, Sorceress of Shadows, from plunging the Land of Labrynna into an endless night. In the game, Link can bend time (if a river blocks Link’s path in the present, he can travel to the past and move a stone, redirecting the flow of water). He can even plant a seed in the past and, in the present, see full-grown trees and vines. Impa and the giant Maku Tree make an appearance.

In Oracle of Seasons, Link fights general Onox in the land of Holodrum. Link can change the seasons to help prevent the land from dying. For example, if Link finds a small plant at the bottom of a cliff, by transforming the season to spring he can use the newly grown flower to get to the top. He can also turn lake water into ice by shifting the season to winter.

What’s cool is by linking the two games through their password system, some characters and enemies change between the two stories. Items can be upgraded or transported, and you can discover the evil force moving behind the scenes.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons teaches an important lesson: when a strange man walks into your office carrying one of your friends, tells you he’s the new mayor, and that he needs your help to bring peace back to your fallen city, don’t believe him. It also teaches that melding roguelike elements and tag-team combat (a la Marvel vs Capcom) can make for a great foundation for an otherwise old-school side-scrolling beat ’em up. Of course, without being particularly remarkable in any other way, and occasionally just straight-up bad, there may not be much more to learn that other recent games couldn’t also teach you more effectively.

Compared to the likes of Streets of Rage 4 and River City Girls 2, DDG’s combat is very simple in execution. You won’t have to be familiar with platform fighters like Super Smash Bros to find the single-button combos and direction-plus-button special moves that games like it made popular to be very comfortable. Canceling normal attacks into big special moves feels great, and I liked the extremely generous windows you’re given to juggle enemies. This is fine on its own but the true depth lies in the tag system, which allows you to pick a pair of characters to clobber the streets with instead of just one.

The variety of fighters available to unlock and choose from is remarkable, less because there are 14 of them and more because they are all meaningfully distinct from one another. Boss characters can be unlocked for your use, and retain all of their unique actions that they used against you. Only a handful of characters can wield dropped enemy weapons; some can alley-oop enemies into their own air attacks; some can pick up objects in a room and bash heads with them.

If there’s any mechanical exploration to be done in DDG, it’s in how you can combine these characters into tag teams that complement one another. The most effective pairs cover for one another’s weaknesses and give you the most options of attack for any scenario you might come across. My favorite pairings, like Abobo and Matin, aren’t very effective at all as a team as they have the same grappling strengths and weaknesses to zoning, but are fun nonetheless because a guy like me can’t get enough of putting dudes over my head and launching them into oblivion.

Without a dedicated block or a dodge, defensive tools such as they exist are extremely character-specific, so if you choose a pair of ass-beating-focused individuals, one wrong move will make you the helpless guest of honor at the juggle party.

Another fun twist is mission structure. At the start you can choose one of four missions, color-coded and themed after each zone’s signature gang boss. Borrowing from Mega Man’s classic playbook, you can attack these in any order, and when you beat one the remaining missions get longer and the enemies get stronger as each gang further fortifies itself against the inevitability of their coming butt-kicking. At first, this appears to be an opportunity for tactical decisions to be made about what kind of threats you’d rather face first and last; however, well past a dozen runs and over 10 hours in, I can’t say there’s much to think about outside of, “Which boss is the most annoying when she reaches full strength?” It’s Okada, by the way.

Visually, the four locations feature some creative backdrops, but those are often stand-outs in otherwise less impressive maps. It’s fun to fight on a casino floor between rows of slot machines, but moving on to lifeless back offices right afterwards is disappointing. Sometimes a level goes for gimmicks that would have been better left in the realm of theory than practice, like a full stage in the Pyramid gang’s mission that is covered in darkness save for a little spotlight following you around. I understood the vibe it was chasing, but I don’t know that it was worth the hard time I had keeping track of the enemies who were chasing me.

Aside from how they look, levels are littered with obstacles that hinder your progress. These are mostly trivial, like some spiked floors that are easily hopped over, but almost any extended stretch of platforming feels awful. Besides the fact that jumping between the background and foreground is always awkward, enemies can spawn in places you’ve already passed, meaning you’ll have to work backwards through the bad sections and it just extends the painful experience. I purposefully tailor my runs to include the worst offenders, Killer’s Fortress and Okada Clan HQ, as early as possible so that I can avoid as much of their later mission nonsense as possible, and it doesn’t feel great to choose my path to avoid annoyances rather than to work toward a desirable goal.

At the end of each stage, you can spend some of the money you beat out of people on roguelike-style buffs that tweak things like your maximum health, make specific special moves stronger, or give one partner buffs when the other is knocked out. I don’t know that the build paths feel as intrinsic as with more dedicated roguelikes, and I didn’t notice the design tugging me in certain directions based on previous decisions as modern roguelikes tend to do. Most of the time I stuck to the ones that felt immediately beneficial, or forewent buffs altogether to just stockpile cash.

Enemies swarm pretty relentlessly on the regular difficulty, and both their strength and numbers grow even more as you press on through the missions. You can adjust settings like your or your enemies’ starting health or how aggressive baddies are before starting a run, but it can be tough to gauge how much good any of it will do you down the line, and you can’t change it on the fly. And while their quantity ramps up regularly, enemy variety doesn’t expand much. Each mission may have a signature unique kind of mob, but all of the enemies start showing up everywhere as you progress through your run, so you’ll be sampling the entire short menu of bad guys by the later stages. Playing in co-op with a friend can mitigate this some, but with no online co-op to speak of, finding a real person to sit on the couch and game could be it’s own sort of difficulty barrier.

Bosses themselves do evolve when you choose to fight them later in the sequence, though. For example, fighting Anubis early involves waiting out his magical staff attacks and then wailing on him in the down time, but if you wait to take him on last he’ll have fully become one with purpley ghost god, teleporting around the map and spitting poison at you. Not every boss has such a dramatic late-game transformation, though, and it’s disappointing to fight Duke and see that it goes almost identically no matter when you fight him.

These bigger boss fights, though comparatively more extravagant, are also where Double Dragon Gaiden’s balance seems to fall off an off-screen cliff. Besides the endless storm of goons meant to keep you moving and uncomfortable, the bosses themselves can easily mix you up inside ability chains with super-tight windows of opportunity to avoid. They’re also very mobile, making them tough to hit at all, and when you do hit them they recover so quickly – if they’re even stunned by you in the first place – that all the work it takes to touch them feels like wasted effort.

When your run is done excess cash is turned into tokens, which can be spent at the token shop to unlock characters, art, music, and tips. That last one feels the most ridiculous because (for an admittedly small amount of tokens) you can unlock instructions on how to play at a higher difficulty level. Paying to be told that you can cancel specials into other specials – information that you can stumble into just by playing, or reading this review – will never feel good, even when you’ve bought everything else and have nothing left to spend the tokens on besides them.