Still Great Funīut when focused on fighting it’s difficult for me to think of a better game in the genre. I don’t mind losing when I have a lack of skill or I make a poor decision but stuff like this can be a real drag.
On many play sessions (yes, with my kid brother) it was these areas where the game broke from its true design (Platforming?! In a fighting game?) that kept both of us from seeing the game through to its end. The choice of making jump a simultaneous A + B button press was unavoidable but I often can’t get the timing down right.įor the most part, this is a forgivable flaw, but when combined with the areas of the game where you are expected to platform it becomes a controller-smashing-inducing experience. Being on the NES, the developers had no choice but to somehow map 3 actions (left attack, right attack, and jump) onto 2 buttons. The biggest complaint is, sadly, the controls. … that is, if I could pull it off … But There Are Frustrationsįor its greatness, Double Dragon 2 does manage to be an unfairly punishing title at times. I never grew tired of jumping into a cyclone kick, landing, and then following up with a high-jump kick … Yet even here you have several choices at your command: You can kick the bad guy repeatedly, you can toss him over your shoulder, you can elbow drop, and you can “upper kick” – my favorite move that launches your opponent upwards – hopefully into some environmental hazard.Īdditionally, Double Dragon 2 introduced a number of well-timed super moves.
Fans of the series will enjoy the feature that Double Dragon brought to fighting games: The ability to grab your opponent by the hair or collar and whale on them. Cooperative Play … and Much Moreĭouble Dragon 2 is of the rare breed of games that can be enjoyed both with a friend or solo – even by today’s standards with games like Halo or Gears of War.Įqually impressive, especially for the time, is the rich repertoire of moves available to the player. Thank god that years later Technos Japan would redeem the series with what I consider to be one of most essential games of any NES collection: Double Dragon II: The Revenge.
On that day, my brother and I rushed into the house, ripped off the plastic, blew as hard as we could into the cartridge slot and then … what the hell is this? No cooperative two-player? When it became available for the Nintendo Entertainment System I saved up for months to bring it home. The original Double Dragon game was something that completely blew my mind when I first saw it in arcades back in the late 1980s.