Retro Gaming Australia

DotEmu will be releasing Double Dragon Trilogy onto the App Store and Google Play Store before the end of the year. It’s exactly what it says on the tin – an app encompassing mobile ports of the arcade versions of Double Dragon, Double Dragon II: The Revenge and Double Dragon III: The Rosetta Stone.

Of course, a couple of enhancements have been made in the process, such as selectable difficulty levels – including one that’s a little more mobile friendly, achievements and leaderboards, a remastered soundtrack (as well as the original) and support for most iOS and Android game pads.

Personally, I still think the NES version of Double Dragon II is the best in the series.

Double Dragon for the NES is somewhat infamous for being one of the only home ports of the game without two player co-operative play. If you can overlook that, it’s a decent port, but given that co-op was one of the main selling points of Double Dragon, it’s a bit like a BLT without bacon.

The classic side-scrolling beat’em up Double Dragon II: The Revenge was released on the Japanese 3DS eShop this week as part of the handheld’s Virtual Console service.

Released for the Famicom in 1989, the home version of Double Dragon II differs greatly from its arcade counterpart – featuring different level design, additional story sequences, a different final boss and a different ending.

The Virtual Console release supports Download Play, allowing two players to play co-op with a single copy of the game, and will set you back 500 yen. We hope to see the game outside of Japan in the near future.

Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team was an unlikely crossover between characters developed by Rare and Technos respectively, brought together under the one roof by TradeWest. Plays more like the former than the latter, but without the ballbusting difficulty associated with other Battletoads efforts.

Double Dragon III marks the point at which the series was driven into irrelevance, due to its sheer crappiness when compared to contemporary brawlers like Final Fight. The game introduces a third playable character, Sonny, who is basically a yellow version of the Lee brothers.

WayForward Technologies, creator of Shantae and developer of many great 2D titles of recent years including A Boy and His Blob (Wii) and Contra 4 (NDS), is partnering with Majesco to bring us Double Dragon: Neon.

The high-definition 2D update of the classic side-scrolling brawler is an 80’s style reboot featuring a familiar mix of martial arts and weapon-based combat. “The gameplay is the same brand of 2D side-scrolling popularized by the original game several decades ago, albeit with even more of a wild, 80s flair” says IGN.

Players will reprise their roles as Billy and Jimmy Lee to fight the villainous Skullmageddon and rescue love-interest Marian.

Double Dragon: Neon is scheduled for a July release on both PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade.

Video games and comics share similar audience demographics, so it was only a matter of time after the meteoric rise of the games industry that popular games found their way onto the colourful pages of the comic book.

There are many comic books based on video game series – far more than I had anticipated when this feature was conceived – but we’re going to look at them all over time.

First up is Marvel’s 1991 six issue miniseries Double Dragon. (continue reading…)

i-Mockey’s love letter to the NES era, Abobo’s Big Adventure is now available to play online.

The game puts you in the shoes of the infamous Double Dragon boss through eight levels packed with NES goodness. All for free…though you’ll get access to an extra mini-game if you donate.

They left out “Four times as hard!”

After the success of Double Dragon II: The Revenge on the NES, Technos decided to create an original version of Double Dragon III, rather than port the far more technically accomplished arcade version to the home systems. However, unlike The Revenge, the two versions of Double Dragon III share nothing in common beyond the same title.

Double Dragon II: The Revenge is getting the remake treatment this year courtesy of Korean developer Barunson Interactive. The remake, entitled Wander of the Dragons will be fully 3D and based on the arcade version of DDII, not the superior NES version. Sounds like the same mistake Ubisoft made with Turtles in Time.

The trailer doesn’t exactly fill me with hope for this being good – in fact, it kind of made me want to projectile vomit. The game will set you back 1200 Microsoft Points when it arrives later in the year.