Double Dragon

Released around the same time as the film of the same name and loosely based on its story, this installment in the Double Dragon series also moves away from the traditional roam-the-streets-fighting to a pure one-on-one fighter.

There are ten characters to choose from, including Billy and Jimmy and the game has colorful interactive backgrounds, screen zooming, over-the-top special moves and with the inclusion of double jumps, combos, charges for the losing player and counter hits, there is plenty of room for advanced fighting strategies.

Double Dragon game overview (Neo Geo)

The game plays like a conventional one-on-one fighting game. One of the unique aspects of Double Dragon is the lack of specific punch and kick buttons like other fighting games. Instead, there are four attack buttons of varying strength and speed, which can perform punches or kicks depending on the character’s position.

The player’s character and his or her opponent have a super move meter called the “charge meter”, overlaid over the character’s health gauge.

The less health the character has, the quicker it will fill up. “Charge moves” are usually performed by executing the command of a regular special move and pressing two attack buttons simultaneously at the end instead of just one.

Other techniques available in the game include dashes, air guards, air throws, and down attacks (which allows characters to jump over and attack their opponent while they are momentarily unconscious on the ground).

The characters and settings are inspired by the Double Dragon movie, which featured prominently in the game’s intro.

This includes the appearances of a submerged Hollywood Sign, the appearance of the Dragon Wagon in Billy’s stage, the Lee brothers’ transformation technique, Marian’s depiction as a gang leader, and the inclusion of Koga Shuko as the game’s final opponent.

However, the characters are depicted in a more anime-like style and only five of the game’s twelve fighters are actually featured in the movie; Burnov and Duke are from previous Double Dragon games and the rest are new characters created specifically for this game.

Double Dragon game characters

There are ten regularly selectable characters in the game and two boss characters, for a total of twelve characters.

In the single-player mode, the player competes against all ten of the regular characters (including a clone of their own) before facing against Duke and Shuko in the game’s final two matches. The first opponent can be chosen by the player.

In the home versions, both Duke and Shuko are playable by entering a secret code.

The game brings back Abobo and Marian from the original installment, as well as Burnov from Double Dragon II: The Revenge as playable characters. The game also introduces 5 different characters created specifically for the game: Amon, Dulton, Rebecca, Eddie and Cheng-Fu.

Play Double Dragon online (Neo Geo).