Double Dragon II arcade controls - love 'em or hate 'em?

[Az]

The other day I downloaded the Android release of the Double Dragon collection for the Ouya. (Sorry I don't have a punchline because that sounds like the greatest joke setup ever.) I didn't really care for the whole thing and definitely IMO it's not worth the asking price.

On DDII they have the controls reworked so they are the similar to DD, remapped to kick/punch/jump rather than the original left attack/jump/right attack. That got me hankering for the real deal so I put in a few games with the Pandora's Box 4 I've got in one cabinet and even played a few rounds of the atrocious MD port.

I've read a lot of people trash and completely dismiss this due to the control scheme change but I have no issue at all with it. I wouldn't go as far to say I prefer it over the original but I'm perfectly fine with the way it is set up. Being that the kick attack has a better reach/power than a punch it actually adds a bit of strategy in managing to position yourself backwards if you want to use it. That's a concession I'll gladly make to move away from the wimpy high-kick with no reach found in the original.

Thoughts on this? Love it, hate it, or totally indifferent? Any thoughts on the Android or MD port?

[celerystalker]

I don't know that I prefer one control scheme over the other. I enjoy beat 'em ups a ton, especially with friends, and I feel like variety such as unique controls is a plus. I like a lot of beat 'em ups better than the Double Dragon series anymore, but they'll always be special to me for how cool they were when I first saw them.

Gun to my head, I prefer the original game, but more for the memories than the controls. The second is probably the better game overall objectively speaking. I really appreciate the attempt at doing something new, though, similarly to how I enjoy the different move set in POW with its backfist and headbutt moves that really reward skillful play. I wouldn't want to play Double Dragon II with the original game's controls, for sure. It'd just feel wrong.

[Az]

That's pretty much how I feel. It's the way the game was originally presented to me so I just accepted that was how it controlled and went with it. It doesn't necessarily add or subtract anything from the experience. I guess in hindsight people have an ingrained concept of how a beat 'em up should control. When DDII was released we didn't have 30 years of beat 'em ups to compare the controls to.

I don't really like having block buttons on fighters. To me pulling back is much more natural and fluid and a lot of older games that have a block button just did it trying to be different rather than it actually performing a function or having a gameplay reason. I think in the grand scheme MK and MKII having a block button is a bit cumbersome and unintuitive but that's just how it controls so I adapted to it. I wouldn't go as far to say either are unplayable or that I'd avoid them due to it.

[celerystalker]

Yeah, I miss the days of more variety in controls, where all of the tropes and conventions weren't so firmly established. I mean, sure, a good template is great to have, but experimentation led to some cool stuff.

That said, I hate Mortal Kombat's block button. Using back to block just works so well in most games... It doesn't make it unplayable or anything, but I just never liked it. Funny thing, though; I used to hate pressing up to jump in fighters. For awhile I was super into Battle Blaze, as it had a jump button (nobody tell Steven I said that) instead. Overall, I prefer the Street Fighter mold these days, but I laugh at myself for once actually preferring Battle Blaze.