Rage of the Dragons

"It's not a sequel, it's a new beginning."

From the first moment that I had heard about this game I was ready to buy it. The original Double Dragon side-scrolling beat'em-up by Technos is still one of my favourites to this very day. Double Dragon 2 wasn't great, but enjoyable but I wanted to know what the developers were smoking when they made Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone! 2 more DD games were made, one was Super Double Dragon, a game made solely for the Super Nintendo which had some interesting ideas but sank away without a trace. The other was a one-on-one fighting game for the current home systems (Megadrive/Genesis, SNES and Jaguar) called Double Dragon 5: The Shadow Falls... but I'm not touching that one with a bargepole.
So, that leaves the only other Double Dragon game.. Double Dragon on the Neo-Geo. Based on the ill-fated (And rather crap) movie of the same name, something happened, 'cos as a one-on-one fighting game, it rocked! And I though that this would be a long-awaited sequel... how wrong I was.
Actually developed by Evoga Ent, RotD is more of a side-story then a sequel (Seeing as they couldn't acquire the rights to the storyline or the original characters, so they 'modified' the Lee Brothers)

Gameplay - 7
So, after all that rambling.. how does it play? On first impressions, there seems to be almost too much to the game. You read the instructions, you take in everything like your characters' move lists, and the game dynamics then proceed to get crushed before you know what the hell has happened. So, you practice the new systems... For starters, there's a 2-person team to select (Like a cut down KOF game), but you can actually call upon your teammate to swap places with you mid-fight (even mid-combo if you're good enough!). Then there's the 'Duplex Combo' to learn (Which is basically a super attack involving both of your team members). Wall combos (Certain stages have scenery to help you rack up those hits), 'Final Impacts' (Chain Combos) etc, etc. So, there's plenty to actually figure out about the game. The controls 'feel' solid and are very responsive.
However, although the 2 player game shines as a good fighting game should, the 1 player game has a small problem. The 2 boss characters (One of which is selectable via a code) are hard. In fact, even on the easiest difficulty setting (Which I had to go down to to try and beat the final boss on) only allowed me to stay alive against the final boss for an extra 30 secs. make no bones about it, if you can beat the boss everytime you play, you're a fighting game GOD.

Graphics - 9
Wow, what's the say about the graphics apart from the rich colours, the stunning visual effects that explode all over the screen everytime you pull off a super attack, or the fact that you can't believe that this game is being played on a system that's over a decade old?

Sound - 8
Almost every track in this game is forgettable... until you realise that you're humming or mumbling along to nigh-on all of them. The music track for Pepe and Pupa's background is FAR too catchy for it's own good.
The voices are a little muffled, and trying to understand just what the characters are saying at times gets a little hard. But, it's ok, 'cos you're too absorbed in the game to care.

Extras - 3
Well, Evoga created a great game, what else could they add to make it better? Uhm... well. There's the one-player Story Mode, the Versus Mode, and a Practice Mode (Which ISN'T like most other training modes. You can only practice against CPU opponents, blargh.) The Options Mode is quite sparse too. Difficulty, Time Limit, MAX Supers ON/OFF etc.. The Versus Mode lacks a background select, and there's no handicap settings either. Lacking, but not a disaster.

Secrets - 1
There's a 'hidden' sub-boss character, who's not so hidden as the code to get him is given to you in the back of the instruction manual! Ho hum.

Overall - 8
It plays well, the two-player game is a blast and I'll be playing this for ages to come. Not a classic, but it's more than a worthy try from a company no-one had heard of until the announcement of this game. A worthy title to any Neo-Geo owners' collection and a fine game to compete on at the arcades. Oh, and once you complete the game (If you can beat that bloody boss!) you're treated to some nice artwork stills of the characters for the endings... however, the translation from Japanese to English is far, far, FAR worse than Samurai Shodown 4 (And I can't stop laughing when I see it!) Enjoy!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/09/02, Updated 10/09/02