As I have stated time and time again in their separate reviews, both of the games titled Double Dragon III are pretty bad. The original arcade title is a choppy, slow, and barely-kept together mess that has actual microtransactions, and the NES game isn’t that much better, being brutally difficult and unforgiving, although the additions to the main gameplay was appreciated. This made it so that I generally was dreading getting to the next game in the series, but I was curious enough to do so anyway, considering we are now approaching the set of Double Dragon games that either nobody really knows or doesn’t give a shit about. I mean, who knows, if they kept the series going after the initial three games, surely there are still some quality games that are just begging to get some attention again, right? Well, I guess I’ll find out that much as I take a dive into this set with the next mainline title, Super Double Dragon.

So, let me ask you a question: did you like any of the advancements the sequels to Double Dragon had made at this point, such as the inclusion of platforming stages, shops, weapons you carry with you in multiple stages, and multiple characters to play as? I hope you didn’t, because this game does away with ALL of that, completely going back to the basics of the original Double Dragon, which can be seen as both a good or a bad thing depending on who you ask. I guess considering how the previous third games changed things up so much in a way that people weren’t a fan of, Tecnos figured going back to the series’ roots was the best plan to move forward. With all that in mind, after playing through the game myself, I would say that the game is good, but really nothing more then that. It does its job as a beat-’em-up, and can be a good time, but if you are expecting any further depth or change from this compared to previous titles, then you will most likely wanna skip this title.

The story is about Billy and Jimmy taking on the Shadow Warriors in order to save the lives of martial artists who had started disappearing around town… which the game doesn’t tell you about whatsoever, but we will get to that in a bit, the graphics are pretty good, not being as detailed or good as previous arcade games in the series, but being a natural step-up from the NES titles, and it is nice to look at, the music is pretty good as well, having a good handful of nice tunes, including a remix of the main Double Dragon theme, but nothing other then that really stuck with me after playing it, the control is exactly what you would expect, except it does feel somewhat awkward charging up for special attacks when also trying to beat dudes up, so that sucks, and the gameplay is exactly what you would expect from a Double Dragon game, which is, again, both good and bad in this case.

The game is your standard beat-’em-up game, where you take control of either Billy or Jimmy, fight through a set of 7 missions, beat up every single person that even dares to try to walk onto the screen, gather plenty of weapons that you can use to get an upper hand on your tough opponents, and take on plenty of bosses that definitely are bosses, being basically what you would expect from this type of game. And that is pretty much it. When I said that this game was going back to the basics of Double Dragon, I wasn’t kidding, as this is pretty much almost exactly how the original Double Dragon worked, with the only real appeal of it being the fact that it was on the SNES, which was, of course, the hottest item on the market at the time. Even if it doesn’t change up anything in the genre, I would still say it is fun, as it is satisfying beating up dudes and beating the levels, and it does have the feel of Double Dragon nailed down… somewhat.

So, is there anything new about this game in comparison to the others? Yes there is. You are able to block in this game now, which I never really did because I am too awesome, and there is also a Dragon Power Gauge, which you can charge up in the stage and use to unleash much faster and more powerful attacks onto your opponents. It isn’t much of a change, and I didn’t rely on it too often, but it is satisfying to charge it up and lay the smackdown on your opponents. Other then that though, it is your basic Double Dragon game through and through, which may not be such a bad thing if you are looking for more 16-bit beat-’em-up action to play with a friend. Of course though, with plenty other games on the market in the same genre that were doing much more then this game, not just in the gameplay department, it makes you wonder why you would ever play this game in comparison to others.

And of course, there are still problems holding this game back from being truly great, such as the sluggish feel of the game. Maybe it is just because of the SNES itself, but a lot of time when you are fighting dudes, the game will chug along to keep the action going, which does make it pale to the faster combat of the NES games. Not to mention, you only get 5 continues, and these continues are shared between players, meaning that whenever someone gets a game over, they have to use a continue from both of them, which will definitely make things harder when playing with a friend. But out of all the issues, the biggest one is that the game feels… empty, with not that much care put into it. Right off the bat, the game just starts with no real introduction or plot summary, it takes the style of Double Dragon III where you fight a bunch of enemies in one place and then get teleported to the next, there are no clear screens at the end of levels, with you being teleported to the next level immediately after beating a boss, and at the end of the game, you just get a boring wall of text that tells you exactly what you think would happen for an ending to a beat-’em-up game. You could say that the developers were being lazy, when in actuality, that wasn’t the case.

According to Muneki Ebinuma, the lead designer of the game, in an interview, the game was originally supposed to have cutscenes throughout the game,both before stages and boss fights, a detailed plot synopsis as to what was going on, going into more backstory involving Billy and Jimmy, and Marian was supposed to make an appearance, now taking the role of a policewoman that would help you out throughout the game. Unfortunately, none of these things ever made it into the final game due to time constraints, which does really suck, as if all of those things actually did make it into the final game, I would consider this to be a much better game, possibly on the same level as the original two games. Ah well, I guess something is better than nothing, I suppose.

Overall, despite having a lot of cut content that would’ve made the game much better, as well as some other problems that plague the game as a whole, I still consider Super Double Dragon to be a good game, one that definitely doesn’t live up to the original titles, but one that does a well enough job at fixing the mess that the Double Dragon IIIs made. I would recommend the game for major Double Dragon fans, as well as those who are a fan of beat-’em-ups in general, but for everyone else, you are better off just skipping this one. Which isn’t that hard, considering most people probably did anyway, AM I RIGHT?! Ha ha ha…. man, that is a bummer, but I’m not too surprised either.

Game #365