Fox's Review: Double Dragon (Neo-Geo, PS1)

[Fusion]

Right off the bat, when you think of Double Dragon, you probably think of the NES game that popped up in the 80s-early 90s rather than the Arcade game and the multiple ports to various consoles that this game received.  Lesser known than the games, but still known, is the movie.  But least known of all, is the FIGHTING GAME:


Yes, it's Double Dragon.  The game that's vaguely based off of the movie, which is vaguely based off of the game... You know, this is about as stupid as taking a japanese action show, dubbing it into Power Rangers only for Japan to take it back and re-dub it back into japanese!  Seriously, that's about as much sense as it makes right now.  I'm not lying about the connection to the movie given that the game has characters that have the same name as characters from the movie, and the PS1 intro, lame as it is, is FILLED with movie clips and exact representations of just how inaccurate the character designs are.

(Graphics 6/10):


That is supposed to be Abobo?  That looks more like Dee Jay.
In the movie, Abobo's physical features were a result of Shuko making him a fatass, not a muscly tard as seen here.  Also, that damn out of place crotch-plate.  WHY!?

In MUGEN, you could get away with making both Billy AND Jimmy as a 2-in-1 because they use the same exact sprite.  Seriously.

I guess they joined the Power Corps?  Are those supposed to be jeans or Goku's pants?


(Sound 4/10):

This is probably one of the most uninteresting fighting games ever.  Featuring none of the classic arcade Double Dragon music, or rather no music of a notable nature, the WORST sounds for fighting (it's hard to tell between a hit and a block) and music that absolutely has to play when you Charge that could've been done without.

The only other thing is the voice acting.  Billy and Jimmy also share the same voice actor, though not entirely the same set of samples.  Billy gets the acting that has too much effort, and Jimmy, the acting that has too little effort.  I guess everybody else's voice is okay.


(Gameplay 6/10):

So basically the game works like this:

You've got your standard life meter, if your health drains to nothing, you lose.  This game has something similar to Bloody Roar 4 going on where your Charge meter's power depends on either how much ass you're kicking or how much your ass is being kicked.

When your charge is full, you can execute your character's respective Charge action to, well, the only Charge actions I've ever pulled off are Billy and Jimmy's so I guess they're just transformations of a sort.  You can pull off something akin to supers, but there's no kind of indication you're using a super, or for your opponent, nor do the Supers really even work all that well past the normal moves.  Billy and Jimmy share the same moves, and I also checked, they do take a bit from your Charge.

Another odd feature is a change in the way your standard dizzy is handled.  Instead of standing back up with some kind of wobbling sprite, your character lays on the ground the entire time they're stunned... Doesn't that count as a K.O, really?  But anyway, during this time you can leap on to your opponent, how I don't know, and hit them for a good amount of damage.  Most of the time this happens during the last bits of your opponent's life bar and it's really annoying because almost all of the time, the A.I's gonna go in for the kill and there's not a thing you can do about it.

Oh, yeah, there's also air blocking.  Works just like you'd expect, too.

Billy and Jimmy are also virtually clones of Ken and Ryu, except their Hadokens throw THEM at the opponent as opposed to them being thrown.  Except if you're in their charge form, which gives them actual projectile attacks to be spammed but changes up the Hurricane Kick.  Yeah, Billy has the Hurricane Kick (behaves like Ken's too!), Shoryuken, as does Jimmy (whose Hurricane Kick also behaves like Ryu's) with the similar movesets and as I said before, EXACT SAME SPRITES.  THe only real difference between the two is as I said: Voices, and effects changes with minor alterations.

(Overall .../10):


Enough said.

[K.O.D]

To purify yourself from playing this crap, go play Rage of the Dragons right now.

[Jesuszilla]

SUP DAWG, WE HEARD YOU LIKE GAMES, SO WE MADE A GAME BASED ON A MOVIE BASED ON A GAME SO YOU CAN PLAY A GAME WHILE YOU'RE THINKING OF ANOTHER GAME