A little story for all you beat-‘em-up fans: as a small child, I was taught how to play videogames from a tall, dark stranger who propped me up on a box in front of arcade classic “Double Dragon” in my dad’s corner shop in South Africa, and he constantly beat me for two years to win the girl’s favour at the end...until one day, I beat him. The student matched the master.

He then patted me on the head, said, “Well done” and walked out, never seeing him again. The fact that my dad punched him in the gut for touching his child may have been a factor.

So as a reviewer, I’m biased against what this utter fiasco of a “remake” really is. I’ve met a lot of fanboys in my day who’ve laid heaps of praise on console competitor “Streets of Rage” and it seems some of them work for Japanese companies Brizo and Bow Mobile, as this iPhone release and without shame shows.

Technically (for want of a better word), this game plays well. Control options for both the avid enthusiast and the perpetually lazy are available, the anime-style graphics appeals to the J-Pop boys it caters for, there’s more levels than the original could give us for 20p a session, and numerous combos to master while trawling the streets fighting off thugs with obvious crack and steroid habits. A welcome variety of features unlock as you progress which stretches out the replay value and you’re able to pop in and play with a friend over local Wi-fi whenever you feel the mad need to experience some old-skool classic fighting.

But. That’s. It.

Since I’m a true Double Dragon aficionado, I can’t help but feel the urge to poke holes in this fiasco (yes, bad form to repeat a word twice in the same article, but the venom needs to be relayed). Not enough money and effort was spent on the English translation (frieneds??), trying to land a punch or kick is a labouring process unless you are two pixels away from the enemy and exactly level to you, and even weapons are a chore to acquire when you have to move like a pixel surgeon. And, well...the original’s story was amazing because no one actually had any lines, in dark, stark contrast to the monkey who wrote the claptrap here.

Thank you, Bow Mobile, for creating a good game on the iPhone. But shame on you for using someone else’s work to disguise your own lack of originality.