ULTIMATE GUIDE

The Revenge

DOUBLE DRAGON WAS AN ARCADE SMASH, AND THANKS TO ITS CO-OP PLAY AND WEAPONS-BASED COMBAT, IT WOULD GO ON TO DEFINE THE BEAT-’EM-UP GENRE. A SEQUEL WAS A SURE THING, BUT SECOND TIME ROUND DID THE DRAGONS ROAR OR SNORE?

WORDS BY MARTYN CARROLL

DoubleDragon II was subtitled The Revenge, on account of it beginning with Billy Lee’s girlfriend Marian getting brutally murdered by Willy and his Black Warrior goons. But if developer Technos was more candid the game might have been subtitled The Revamp, The Retread or even The Rehash. This was not so much a sequel as an alternative take on the original, and there was a sense of déjà vu from the second Billy and Jimmy emerged from their garage, consumed by vengeance.

Although you might have guessed it, series director Yoshihisa Kishimoto has confirmed that the game initially started out as an upgrade kit for Double Dragon. This is why many of the characters were simple palette swaps (with most of them rocking wild new threads and hairdos), and the four stages were simply redressed. In fact, the game actually used some animations that were already present in the original’s code but went unused, such as Linda’s elbow smash and Jeff’s throw move. Similarly, two of the brothers’ new attack moves – the rising knee and the signature hurricane/cyclone kick – were included in the original but were never used for whatever reason. Yoshihisa was viewing the upgrade as the ‘final’ version of Double Dragon, reusing assets and introducing some of the planned elements that he hadn’t been able to implement beforehand.