Double Dragon 2 review - Nintendo Gameboy

Even better than the original, with better graphics, sound and gameplay all conspiring to provide the best beat 'em up challenge yet seen on the Gameboy! There's little else to say, really, except that if you're a fan of combat games, this is an essential purchase.

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