Double Dragon 2

DOUBLE DRAGON 2 

Original Release: Technos, 1988, Arcade

Other Releases: Assorted computers (1989), NES (1990), Genesis (1991), PC Engine CD (1993), Wii (2008), PC/iOS/Android (2013)

The arcade follow-up to Double Dragon stuck with the same chunky style, but the console ports branched off into a much more refined and smooth product

Double Dragon 2 (Arcade, 1988, Technos)

Where to Buy: eBay

How to Emulate: Arcade Emulation Guide

Review by: C. M0use

The first Double Dragon was one of the biggest things to ever hit arcades. The second game was, relatively speaking, barely noticed and even kind of hard to find, at least here in America. Initially, this seems inexplicable - the second game has an increased move set, faster and smoother fighting, and the same general style that made the first game a blockbuster arcade attraction. Once you play it a little bit, however, you see what the problem is - Technos got way too greedy with it, making it vastly over-difficult and packed with nearly-unavoidable cheap hits in an attempt to mercilessly drain your pocket of as much cash as possible. And apparently players - who were often quite capable of getting through the original game on a single quarter - didn't feel like taking that shit.

The game opens almost identically to the first one, though Machine Gun Willy doesn't even bother with trying to raep Marian this time, he just guns her down coldly outside the Dragon brothers' garage, which is now inexplicably located in an airstrip. Calling the level design "uninspired" is generous; after clearing the opening airstrip level, you largely re-tread the same terrain the first game took you through, with the exception of the forest level being replaced by some rural town where unmanned wheat threshers periodically come to life in Carrie style and take a run at you.

The sprites are a little bigger, a lot more articulated, and in general the game looks pretty good for the time. The fighting action is smoother and you have more moves at your disposal; the iconic jumping tornado kick makes its first appearance here, as well as a modified low jump kick and a knee to the balls up close. The range of regular punches and kicks has been expanded as well, so they aren't as entirely useless as they were in the first game (the backward elbow that most people spammed to get through the first game has also been toned down in damage, and there are a few enemies it never works on.) 

Sloppy programming makes the game slow down drastically every time more than two characters are on the screen at once, however, which is most of the time; you'll get adjusted to a somewhat sludgy pace, only to suddenly have the game go into turbo mode when you clear out a crowd of hooligans.

The difficulty - and the cheap hits - are the real issue. The default setting of the game gives you all of one life and the ability to take four, maybe five good hits before you die. The regular enemies aren't overly bad, at least not until you get to the Chinese stick-fighting dudes who constantly spam a Sweep The Leg maneuver that out-ranges everything in your arsenal. The bosses are the main problem - they always seem to have a much greater range and hit priority than you do, virtually forcing you to feed quarters to the machine to brute your way by them. There's also a number of cheesy "stuff pops out of the background at you" moments like the wheat threshers, where dodging/jumping requires such incredible precision that it's next to impossible to actually pull off consistently.

The game has great tunes and was the last of the Double Dragon games on any platform to keep the style and format of the original game, but it's just too clunky and cheap to be enjoyable. Outdated and better left in the past (or take up a console port for a better overall version of the game).

Links

Arcade flyers

Original soundtrack

Videos

Gameplay Video

Double Dragon 2 (NES, 1989, Technos/Acclaim)

Where to Buy: Amazon

How to Emulate: coming soon!

Review by: C. M0use

The port of Double Dragon 2 to the NES has been re-structured to be more 8-bit-friendly than the original arcade version, and like the first game it is a serviceable beat-em-up with a solid fighting engine (and also finally offers the ability for two people to play at once). Unfortunately, there is very little challenge.

The one thing that might trip you up is that the punch and kick controls are a little odd - you press the button in the direction you are currently facing to punch, and the other to kick backwards, and this flips when you turn around. So, if facing right, you press A to punch forwards and B to kick backwards, and vice versa when facing left. Kind of an odd choice by the designers, but it works just fine once you get adjusted to it (which doesn't take long).

Difficulty is selectable, but setting it to the highest level (Supreme Master) doesn't make the enemies any smarter, more numerous or harder-hitting, it just ups their health by a small amount. The foes you face are dumb and few in number; levels are short even compared to the previous game.

The only challenge comes from jumping; towards the end of the game there are numerous segments where you must leap on moving platforms over spikes and bottomless pits that kill you instantly. Jumping is as clunky and cumbersome as it was in the first game, and really does not lend itself well to platforming action. So the only challenge in the game really comes from bad play control rather than good level design. The last boss is fairly tough, but it only makes things all the more pissy if you lose in the final level, since you have to go through the entirety of the game from the beginning when your complement of three lives runs out (no continues here).

Apparently the Japanese version was much tougher and they nerfed it for the round-eyes release, so that might be something to look into. It really is pretty decent for the most part, except for the jumping bits, it just seems like the level designers could have tried a bit harder. Still better than the arcade version though, and has some catchy chiptunes as well.

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FAQs

Original soundtrack

Videos

Gameplay Video

Double Dragon 2: The Revenge (PC Engine CD, Naxat, 1993)

Where to Buy: eBay

How to Emulate: PC Engine CD Emulation Guide

Review by: C. M0use

As Double Dragon aficionados likely know, there were two completely different versions of the game made by two different teams: the arcade version was a forgettable effort that followed directly in the footsteps of the first game, while a different team built something entirely new from the ground up and more optimized for consoles with the NES version. The NES version is generally regarded as the superior game, and this is an enhanced port of it, giving it arcade-caliber graphics and sound; effectively making it the Double Dragon 2 that should have hit arcades in the first place.

It looks and sound really nice, and has one of the nicer-feeling gameplay engines in the whole series to boot. It's basically like an early version of what we would see in Super Double Dragon; minus the ability to block/catch attacks, but with bigger sprites and a faster feel more in line with the style of the original arcade game. A new soundtrack was also done up in Redbook Audio, a mix of remixes of the NES game's music and entirely new pieces that is generally quite good. There are even animated cut scenes between levels reminiscent of the ones seen in the TMNT arcade game, accompanied by voice acting.

That doesn't mean it's total perfection, unfortunately. Technos handed this one off to Naxat to port, and while they did a good job in many aspects, they didn't quite get there when it comes to enemy design and placement. The entire game is the same repeating pattern; two guys come out, and one always tries to walk around behind you, no matter what. Then they just pincer you endlessly. There are differing enemy types, but they all seem to follow the exact same script; get into Pincer Position first, run and jumpkick your face if far enough away. You're still seeing the same BJ Honeycutt Gone Bad enemies popping out right before the final boss doing the same old thing. Most beat em ups throw more than two enemies at you at a time, and have more variety in how they approach you.

The cyclone kick is also much more iffy to pull off in this one, and while that isn't really necessary (I didn't use it once in beating the game), jumping is also more of a struggle here than it is on the NES. I really hope you're playing in a format where you can save-scum, because it's basically necessary to get past the disappearing platforms, gears and conveyor belts in the final two levels.

The structure is mostly faithful to the original NES version, though it does chop a bit of its length, and inserts a couple small new scenes like a boss battle in the cockpit of the airship. Machine Gun Willy also appears as a sub-boss before the final battle, which doesn't happen on the NES. And in this one, you can play the full game even on Easy mode, but you won't get Happy End unless you beat it on Hard.

What holds this game back from true greatness is purely mechanics and enemy variety. Naxat did a solid basic job of tuning up the arcade game's engine, and it's almost one of the best in the series, but little nuances like jumping and enemy AI seemed to elude them. Probably worth a play anyway just for the boss piano rendition of the Double Dragon theme that plays over the credits, though.

Videos

Gameplay Video