Double Dragon 2 review - Nintendo Gameboy

Those Double dragon boys are back for their second Gameboy adventure. After heroically defeating the Black Gang in the first Double Dragon caper, they decided to hone their martial arts skills by training with the Scorpion gym. They soon become teachers, and the boss, Gordon, takes to the lads instantly...

However, one of the other teachers, a twisted creature called Anderson is jealous of the Dragons' sudden popularity and butchers Gordon's prize pupil - making it seem like the Dragon boys did it. Gordon is a tad annoyed and orders the heroes' immediate execution!

Using a rather bizarre form of logic, the Double Dragons realise that the only way to clear their name is to find Anderson and beat him into confessing his dark secrets. However, the boys have to face up to both the irate Scorpions AND Anderson's personal body guards!

What the Mean Machines staff thought

I bought the original Double Dragon, and although the graphics and sound are far superior, the gameplay itself isn't really that much different. But it's still the best beat 'em up on the Gameboy and will doubtlessly go down a storm with Double Dragon fans.

Although the graphics and sound are much improved over the original, this is essentially more of the same, with gameplay that's very similar to the predecessor! Still, if you're not yet bored of the Double Dragon theme and are after a solid beat 'em up - this is the one to get.

Retrospective comments

Rather than lavish praise for this conversion of Double Dragon 2 on the Gameboy, I found myself loathing this game. Why? I hear you ask, the reasons are purely on the fact that this is nothing more than a western gloss of a Japanese game (Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun: Bangai Rantou-hen). I actually recall playing this Japanese gem version of a game by accident but I instantly fell in love with it, not putting it down until I cracked it (completing it rather than damaging it deliberately). By the time I got round to playing the "western version", I was not only disappointed (as I was a DD fan) but also a bit cheated as this was a mere lazy port of a already good game and not a stripped down arcade classic - unlike DD1.

The sprites are a small as hell (much to the opposite of the classic Japanese title which offered decent chunky sprites which gave fantastic comedic features (for example, you can actually see the tears coming from the of the enemy sprite's eye when you make contact from a flying elbow - which made me want to do it more)), and even though the music was alright, I could not help but feeling a bit cheated.

Since then, I learned to keep an eye out for beat-em-ups which could be vulnerable to "Western-isation" as they are the easiest ones to carry over from Japan.

I guess I should be fair about the game itself as someone playing this for a first time would think that this is fab and novel. As for me, I would prefer the better looking and more amusing Japanese counterpart any day of the week.

- Jim Wai