"Double Dragon lives on"

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INTRODUCTION
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If you have been playing videogames for more than ten years, you most certainly remember the adventures of the brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee in the Double Dragon series. Pinnacle of the fighting games long before Street Fighter or King of Fighters were ever released, Double Dragon (DD) ruled the genre as a side scroller beat 'em up (much like Final Fight), were you had to cleanse the streets of a town infested by thugs and criminals of every type imaginable.

Time passes, though, and when 2D fighting games, like Street Fighter, started to dominate the arcades, Double Dragon vanished. Some new, remodeled, fighting games based on the DD franchise did show up later on (there is even a Playstation version), in an attempt to bring the series back to life. Nevertheless, none of them were very successful. Only now, thanks to Evoga, Double Dragon is once again resurrected as a great 2D fighting game title, based on the Neo Geo MVS engine, that shall please old school gamers. This title is Rage of the Dragons.

Actually, due to licensing issues, Rage of the Dragons is not an official DD game. Instead of featuring Billy and Jimmy Lee, the stars here are Billy and Jimmy Lewis. Abobo became Abubo and Marion became Mariah. This way, the game works more like an alternate version rather than a proper sequel. Do not let this drawback discourage you, though. It may not be official, but, regardless of this, Rage of the Dragons has a lot going for it.

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STORY
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Sunshine City is ruined. Decadent and corrupted, the city is a no man's land ruled by the law of the strongest. In this chaotic situation, a group that practices the religious worship to the wicked Black Dragon, has become the real government of the city. Its leader, Johann, possessed by the spirit of the Black Dragon, wishes to expand the power of the cult upon the country. His malignant power, however, will not go unrivaled. The siblings Billy and Jimmy, respectively wielding the power of the ancient Blue and Red dragons, seek the defeat of the Black Dragon, not only to bring peace to the city, but also to revenge their martial arts master, killed by Johann several years prior.

Joining Billy and Jimmy, there is Lynn, a Chinese girl aided by the power of the White Dragon and Pepe, a Mexican youth whose skill comes from the spirit of the Green Dragon, Quetzalcoatl. Other fighters join this motley crew as well, bringing the total of selectable characters to fourteen. Not every one of them has the power of a dragon spirit as a support, but every single warrior is deadly on its own way, as well as having a specific reason to seek the death of Johann. The story, albeit not incredibly original, is pretty interesting and all characters have a very well designed plot.

Story: 8/10

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GAMEPLAY
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Rage of the Dragons (RotD) is a 2D fighting game in a very old school fashion. It plays much like other great Neo Geo titles, like King of Fighters and Garou: Mark of the Wolves. Yet, there is a bonus. Rage of the Dragons features tag team gameplay (like Marvel vs Capcom), which means you will play with two characters, instead of only one. As I stated earlier, RotD has fourteen playable characters: the aforementioned Billy, Jimmy, Lynn and Pepe as well as Oni, Pupa, Sonia, Radel, Alice, Mr. Jones, Annie, Elias, Kang and Cassandra. Plus, you will face two bosses during the game: Abubo and, obviously, Johann.

Each fighter is assigned an ''official'' partner. You can, however, pick any combination of two characters that you wish, you are not forced to take the combination the game suggests, which greatly improves the replay value. Right after you select your warriors, a brief tutorial appears, explaining you the basic gameplay premises of the game. Concerning this aspect, however, there is nothing really brand new or revolutionary. Instead, RotD takes traditional features from great fighting games and tries to polish them.

During the fights, you can unleash special attacks by doing combination of directional inputs and buttons. There is an auxiliary meter located at the bottom of the screen, that slowly fills whenever you hit your opponent. When it is full, as you might guess, you can perform more elaborated moves, like counter attacks and super moves. Here, I must add that there is something that really shines about RotD gameplay: the controls. They are tight, responsive, and even the most destructive super move has simple, easily memorable commands that does not require any abnormal skill on your thumbs to be pulled off.

There is one long, continuous round in each fight. Both of your characters must be defeated for you to lose the match and, of course, you must beat both of your opponents to proceed to the next encounter. You have the ability to switch characters in the middle of the fight, too. The one you are not currently using has his energy slowly regenerated. Also, there are special combos that make both of your characters to hit the enemy at the same time, causing massive damage.

Another nice addition to the gameplay is a ''combo starter'' move. By pressing strong punch and strong kick together, you perform a move that automatically starts a combo. After the initial hit, the buttons you must press to continue the combo appear on the screen. Again, yet another good idea of the developers, and one that certainly helps casual players, for you do not need to memorize long button sequences.

Overall, the gameplay aspects of RotD are very well done, everything plays really smoothly. The only flaws here are the lack of the originality and, unfortunately, the last battle of the game. While the whole game has a very balanced difficulty the last boss is obscenely hard. It is frustrating to go through the game nearly unscathed just to get yourself killed by the last boss within fractions of seconds. This may not be enough to ruin the experience, but it is an important negative point nonetheless.

Gameplay: 7.5/10; Replay: 7/10; Controls: 9/10

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AUDIO & VIDEO
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Rage of the Dragons is, just as I said earlier, based on the Neo Geo engine. It is an old technology, so do not expect anything too fancy here. The graphics may not be outstanding, but they are crisp and detailed. In general, the visual of RotD resembles a lot Garou: Mark of the Wolves, only slightly simplified. The design of the characters is great, especially the brothers, Jimmy and Billy, and Cassandra (her outfit is just incredible). The backgrounds may not be masterfully designed, but they are full of subtle details, like the people back there supporting the local team, that helps to make the visual aspects of RotD thoroughly enjoyable.

For the audio, well, it is not on par with the graphics. The music is not exciting in any moment, on the contrary, it sometimes gets repetitive and annoying. The rest of the sound is nothing mind blowing either. The voices are good, the fighters yell the name of the moves and there are lots of other nice sound effects. But it is nothing that you will keep in your mind after you quit playing.

Graphics: 8/10; Sound: 4.5/10

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CONCLUSION
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Rage of the Dragons has the great merit of bringing the Double Dragon series back to life. I recommend this title to fighting games enthusiasts and, of course, to fans of the original series. It may not be perfect and it is nothing you have not seen before, but Rage of the Dragons is a solid option, especially to old school gamers.

Best Features: Double Dragon theme; good old 2D fighting
Worst Features: lacks originality; sound gets annoying quickly

Overall: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/09/03, Updated 05/30/03