Double
Dragon
REVIEW:
In the early 90's, Double Dragon
was
pretty much a household name, thanks to the success of the original Double
Dragon arcade beat-em-up series (in addition to the terrible 1994 Double
Dragon live action film. The 1995 Neo Geo fighting game is actually a spin-off of the
movie, but also takes some cues and natural inspiration from the beat-up-em series. Double Dragon
features a total of 10 selectable characters and 2 bosses.
At first glance, Double Dragon seems like yet like another "me too" Street Fighter 2
wannabe of the mid-90's... and for the most part, it is. However, Double
Dragon on the NeoGeo has heart and originality in unexpected places.
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Double
Dragon character select screen.
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Instead of featuring specific kick & punch buttons like most fighting games, characters in Double Dragon have 4 basic attacks
which wary depending on the character's position. A super move meter is
also present (known as a "charge" meter in this game), and fills up
faster when a character has less health. Special "charge moves" are
performed by executing the command of a regular special move and pressing two
attack buttons simultaneously at the end instead of just one.
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the
terribly cheesy win quotes you'd expect on Neogeo.
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Double Dragon is a very straight-forward 2D fighting game, offering halfway
decent gameplay... but really not much we haven't seen before in other fighting
games of the era. To its credit, the game
does have a few entertaining characters with interesting abilities, like
characters that can change costumes mid fight (Billy & Jimmy). However, a lot of the designs
are typical "90's fare"... shallow and generic, with horribly translated
in-game dialogue. 
If you could somehow get past all that, some of the characters do feature halfway
interesting fighting styles, making the game "playable" at the least.
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Billy & Jimmy doing
what they do best... sort of.
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Visually, this incarnation of Double Dragon didn't appeal to me like
other fighting games did in the mid 90's. After becoming accustomed to the
smoothness of other 2D fighters, it's difficult for me to go
"backwards" in terms of animation and gameplay. Come on, this game was competing with
the likes of Marvel Super Heroes, MK3, KI2, Samurai Shodown 3, Darkstalkers 2...
the list goes on. 
At best, Double Dragon is bright &
colorful, and the character sprites are considerably large for the time period
(but perhaps a bit too 'flat' for their own good).
The
PlayStation port has some differences from the original version. There were a
few visual changes to backgrounds and characters, and the PS1 version adds 2 new
modes, Overdrive (slightly faster gameplay) and Tiny 3D Mode (a shoddy attempt
at making the game appear 3D). Compared to other PS1 fighting games in 1996, Double
Dragon was definitely "behind the curve" in a few areas.
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| Page Updated: |
April 30th, 2021 |
| Developer(s): |
Technos |
| Publisher(s): |
Technos, SNK |
| Platform(s): |
Neo
Geo, Neo Geo CD, Playstation, PSN
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| Release Date(s): |
Mar.
31st, 1995
( /
Arcade)
June 2nd, 1995
(/
Neo Geo
CD)
Apr.
26th, 1996
( PS1)
July 1996
(
PS1)
Jan. 14th, 2014
( PSN) |
| Characters: |
Billy Lee, Jimmy
Lee,
Abobo, Marian,
Burnov, Amon,
Dulton, Rebecca,
Cheng-Fu, Eddie,
Duke, Koga Shuko
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Featured Video:
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| Related Games: |
Rage of the
Dragons, Power Instinct, Power
Instinct: Matrimelee, King of Fighters '95,
Samurai Shodown 3, Darkstalkers
2, Fatal Fury 3, Street
Fighter Alpha, Marvel Super Heroes, Mortal
Kombat 3, Killer Instinct 2, Savage
Reign, Golden Axe: The Duel, Galaxy
Fight, Waku Waku 7 |
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Gameplay
Engine
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6.0 / 10
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Story
/ Theme
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7.0 / 10
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Overall
Graphics
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6.0 / 10
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Animation
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4.5 / 10
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Music
/ Sound Effects
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6.5 / 10
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Innovation
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5.0 / 10
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Art Direction
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5.5 / 10
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Customization
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5.0 / 10
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Options / Extras
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5.0 / 10
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Intro / Presentation
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6.0 / 10
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Replayability / Fun
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5.0 / 10
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"Ouch" Factor
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5.0 / 10
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Characters
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4.5 / 10
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BOTTOM LINE
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5.4
/
10
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Review based on Arcade version
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| Final
Words: |
Double
Dragon "the fighting game" was a fairly decent (yet
painfully average) spin-off of the classic beat-em-up. As a player of many Capcom & SNK
games in the early 90's, and a big fan of the original Double Dragon beat-em-ups
since I was a kid, the Double Dragon failed to spark my interest at the
time it released. In retrospect, it definitely has some uniqueness to it and
even semi-decent character sprites / designs or the time.
In arcades and on my Commodore 64 / Amiga in the late 80s, I loved the original Double Dragon beat-em-up
games. Super Double Dragon on the old SNES was also great. However,
something about Double Dragon on NeoGeo seemed a bit sloppy visually and
didn't really capture the original "cool vibe" of the original beat-em-ups.
However, the later released Rage
of the Dragons (2002), also based on the Double Dragon series, was the
spiritual successor to this title and ended up being a more impressive 2D
fighting game released for NeoGeo and arcades.
~TFG
Webmaster |
@Fighters_Gen
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