Double Dragon 2: Wander of the Dragons. You know you're in for a treat when the title is in Engrish.
DD2 is an "updated" version of DD2: The Revenge, on the NES, and in the Arcade. How to begin?
Let's start with the graphics. This is one of the ugliest downloadable games I've ever seen. The textures, models, special effects...all of them are done poorly.
Even though the game looksDouble Dragon 2: Wander of the Dragons. You know you're in for a treat when the title is in Engrish.
DD2 is an "updated" version of DD2: The Revenge, on the NES, and in the Arcade. How to begin?
Let's start with the graphics. This is one of the ugliest downloadable games I've ever seen. The textures, models, special effects...all of them are done poorly.
Even though the game looks ugly as all sin, it is PLAGUED with slowdown. The FPS drops to about half if there's so much as four other enemies on the screen with a bit of environmental clutter.
There are cutscenes thrown around, and they look okay, compared to the actual game. It just makes you wonder why they couldn't put the same amount of effort into the actual graphics.
What about the sound? I mean, Double Dragon is known for it's pretty catchy music. The tracks are horrible remixes of old DD tracks, and I mean, really horrible. Expect plenty of 5-10 second loops.
The music in Stage 12 is amongst the worst things I've ever heard in my life. It is literally a 5 second loop of the same thing. Yup. Good decision, there.
As for sound effects, expect boring hit sounds, the same groans and yells repeated throughout the entire game, nothing to distract you from the horrible music.
Controls, oh boy. Know what a good brawler needs? Good, responsive controls. That's what separates good brawlers with bad ones.
This has some of the worst control I've ever experienced in a video game. It feels that your inputs are just...dropped by the game at random, and if they're not dropped, they feel exceedingly delayed.
You know you have a significant problem when the game pretends you aren't pressing buttons, but that's literally the least of the worries you will have playing this.
Special attacks are done by holding RT and pressing A. The problem: It's hard to tell when you can actually use them, and for most special moves, the enemies seem to have more priority with their normal attacks than you. You will be knocked out of special attacks all the time.
The HuD makes it exceedingly unclear when you can use special attacks, as well. There's also another cost to using the special moves, but we'll get into that later.
Unlike most brawlers, you can attack and be attacked in all directions. You would think this would make attacking more flexible, but instead, enemies will surround you and kill you in mere seconds.
As for defensive maneuvers, even the most basic one, running away, is done wrong. If you press the opposite direction you're facing, you will do a backwards hop instead of turning around. After a short delay, you will turn around, but it may already be too late by that point.
You can block, and if you time a block in time with an enemy's attack, you can "Perfect Block" and parry the blow, but the timing on it is very difficult. The enemies attack quickly, and relying on this strategy is sure to cause you more pain than anything else.
Now, the gameplay.
At the beginning of the game, you play as Marian in a tutorial level, with a VA unable to read the same text that's on the subtitles. In the end, she's shot dead, and the game really begins.
95% of the game is you strolling down boring, non-interactive environments. Sometimes there's a random QTE that involves pressing one button, but other than that, repetitive brawling action at it's worst.
You have a generous amount of continues, at least, and every time you continue, you release a powerful shockwave attack. Death abuse is the most potent offensive move in this game, and you'll be dying enough to take advantage of it.
If you run out of continues, you have to start at the start of the stage you were on. Making the continues kind of pointless.
As for enemies, there's three kinds. Male goons and female goons that look ugly and have the same attacks, large goons that will block a lot and deal a ton of damage with one combo, and the fat bosses, which you fight about four or so times.
The fat bosses have a stamina meter. In order to damage them with normal attacks, you have to drain this meter, which always regenerates. Keep in mind, these bosses won't flinch while they have stamina. The only way around the stamina meter (which is stupid) is to use special attacks, or to death abuse, which is more likely, because they take off huge chunks of HP.
Special attacks include the hurricane kick, a moving hurricane kick, a fireball, and a super combo. You can only hold one at a time, and remember the "hidden cost" i mentioned about special attacks? Well, if you use even -one- special attack in the whole game, you get the bad ending.
Try beating this game without the special attacks. You'll smash your controller well before you beat the first boss.
This game was once cancelled in 2011. With great games like Double Dragon: Neon out there, it should of stayed that way. This should be avoided at all costs. There's nothing good in this game, no online co-op, no interesting game modes. Nothing. Stay away!… Expand
Double Dragon II: Wander of the DragonsYour Score0 out of 10User Score
