Double Dragon Series

Developers: Technos 1987 – 1992, Rare 1993, Leland Interactive Media 1994, Technos/SNK 1995, Playmore 2002

Double Dragon – 1987

Double Dragon II – The Revenge – 1989

Double Dragon III – The Rosetta Stone – 1991

Super Double Dragon - 1992

Return of Double Dragon – “Sleeping Dragon” Has Awoke - 1992

Battletoads and Double Dragon – 1993

Double Dragon V – The Shadow Falls - 1994

Double Dragon 95 - 1995

Rage of the Dragons - 2002

The game was a side-scrolling beat-em-up. The player (and his/her friend if you wanted) had to go through several stages to get to the final boss, facing harder and harder adversaries. It did several cool things - the ability to pick up weapons and throwable things like barrels and boxes (see? The boxes were around well before they found mainstream popularity in FPS's); it was quasi-3D, in that it used 2D images but you could move them in and out of the screen and up ladders and such; and it was rather addictive.

The point of these articles is to revisit lost classics. Revisiting this one proved to be torture. The enemies are overly hard. The graphics are comparable to an episode of Star Trek. The translation from Japanese to English must have been a warm up for Zero Wing. The obstacles before the final boss were damn near impossible to pass, and the final boss itself was rather unnecessarily hard.

By today's standards, the sequel, Double Dragon II, is even less impressive than the first. In my opinion it is the worst of the whole series, with the Genesis port being the worst conversion ever. Like the first one, it had no real storyline, overly cheesy enemies and incredibly hard difficulty (even on easy). Much patience is required here, young padawan.

Perhaps the first two Double Dragon may not have been as tortuous with two players (Final Fight - a game in a similar vein - is much more bareable with two players), but if you're playing this by yourself, don't expect the greatest old fighting game experience of your life. Go play Karateka if you want a side-scrolling fighting game in which you have to rescue a chick, it's much better.

However, after making 2 very mediocre Double Dragon games, the developers came back and gave us a third, sub-titled the Rosetta Stone. Oh, this game had some sort of story, so that was a good start. The graphics were highly improved, and there were actually some additions to the gameplay. In a few levels, there was a shop you could go into to spend coins, to buy weapons, lives, tricks, energy or power-ups. These power ups came into play if you lost a life, you'd come back as some huge guy, depending on your level (in level two, China, you come back as this fat dude, its quite entertaining). You obviously still had the ridiculously hard difficulty levels and poor translation but besides that, The Rosetta Stone stood as the best title with the Double Dragon copyright on it.

Until this time, the Super Nintendo (or Japanese Super Famicom) had missed out on the adventures of Billy and Jimmy. So in 1992, both the Japanese and “rest of the world” Super Nintendo Systems got a Double Dragon game. They both, were, in essence, the same game, except they made the Japanese version a whole lot better for some reason. Sure, Super Double Dragon was still very playable and actually probably the best DD game at that time, besides the Japanese Return of Double Dragon. It actually seemed the series was finally on an ascent rather than a mediocre line.

It wasn't until 1993, however, until the greatest Double Dragon game was released. And it wasn't strictly a Double Dragon title anyway. Battletoads and Double Dragon combined two of the most popular side-scrolling beat-em-ups of the time to make one huge, awesome, incredible, original game. Combining the best gameplay elements and enemies from both series made this game totally sweet. With perfect graphics and control, nice sound and a challenging but not cheesy game, this one is a must for anybody who owns a Super Nintendo (the best port). But would you expect anything less from Rare?

The most recent three Double Dragon games have completely thrown away the side-scrolling brawler that Double Dragon became famous for. They became one-on-one Vs fighters. Now, that wasn't a particularly bad move, seeing the previous thing that kept the Dragons afloat was more than a good dosing of help from the Battletoads. So what came next were three not too bad, but not that great either, Vs fighting games, taking all your favourite DD characters from the previous games and the television series.

Unlike most other games in this History of Fighters, the Double Dragon spirit is still very much alive. What happens next could be anyone's guess, but I can bet you two things: 1) It will sell because of the name, and 2) It will most probably stink if you try to play it again in 5-10 years. Double Dragon games can be considered period pieces. Good for the time, at the time, but should not be revisited unless they 1) Have Battletoads in them, or 2) are part of a History like this one.

Gooberman and Pube

Double Dragon Image Galleries:

Double Dragon

Double Dragon 2

Double Dragon 3

Super Double Dragon

Return of Double Dragon

Battletoads and Double Dragon

Double Dragon 5

Double Dragon 95

Rage of the Dragons