DESCRIPTION

Double Dragon is one of the most well-known lineages in arcade scrolling beat-em-up action. Therefore, it was almost natural for someone to come up with the idea of making a fighter out of it. And Technos did just that. Double Dragon the fighting game features ten playable characters, ranging from the series' heroes Billy Lee and Jimmy Lee to staple bad guys like Abobo.

While the game is, at heart, a standard fighting game, it does deviate from the standard mold a bit in presentation and interface. The characters are rated in power, speed and defense, with one being the lowest rating and five being the highest. Virtually all fighting games have their characters ranked differently in these attributes to provide character diversity, but Double Dragon actually displays these attributes openly during the character select screen. Furthermore, while in fighting games it's implicitly understood that characters are not all equal, the different ratings totals are plainly visible in Double Dragon for each character.

The characters have a variety of special techniques that can be used during the game, as well as a charging system that allows for the use of charge techniques. Each character's yellow energy bar is overlaid with a blue charge bar. When the match begins, the energy bar is full and the charge bar is empty. As the character takes damage the charge bar is decreased, and whenever the character connects with an attack, his or her charge bar increases. When the charge bar meets the energy bar, the character goes into a charged state and can start using more deadly attacks, which return the charge bar to empty when used. This means that as the character gets closer to losing, he or she goes into a charged state more often. As a result, the character can throw charge attacks more frequently. ~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide