I think it’s safe to say that, at this point, we have reached the start of what could be considered as Double Dragon’s mid-life crisis. It has had plenty of games at this point, each of them playing very similarly to each other while changing up elements every now and then, but over time, the games in series have been getting worse and worse, whether it be because of mechanics that ruin the game rather than enhance it, poor design choices seen everywhere you look, or just simply being too bland and boring when compared to many other games from the beat-’em-up genre. So, now that we are at the point of seemingly no return, what could Double Dragon do to possibly redeem itself after a handful of misfires? Well, of course, by throwing all of that shit completely out of the window, and doing something completely different! It’s a fool-proof plan, what could possibly go wrong?! Well, if Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls is anything to go by, everything can go wrong.

Rather than being a typical arcade-style beat-’em-up like every other game in the series, Double Dragon V was a fighting game, taking the Lee brothers and many other “well-known” faces from the series and making them fight to the death… supposedly. Not only that, but the game was primarily based on the Double Dragon cartoon series that was airing at the time… which I have never watched in my entire life, so that’s how you know that I am a proper candidate to fully judge this game. And finally, just to cement the feeling that this game was doomed from the start, it was not made by Technos, but instead by a completely different company named Leland Interactive Media, who I am almost certain you have never heard of in your life… again, what could possibly go wrong? So yeah, as you would expect, this is not really a good fighting game at all, or even a good game in general, but I wouldn’t say it is thaaaaaaaaat bad. Trust me, I have played Doomsday Warrior, so I know how bad one of these things can get, but not only does this game not come anywhere close to the same quality as other fighters at the time, but it doesn’t even try to be anything more than what it already is.

The story varies depending on who you play as, so assuming you are playing as one of the Lee brothers, the evil Shadow Master has created a virus known as the Shadow Plague, which he intends to spread all over the world with the help of his Shadow Warriors, so it is up to both Billy and Jimmy Lee to go put a stop to their evil plans, which sounds like a story that came straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon……… making it perfect for this game, since it is literally based on a Saturday morning cartoon. The graphics are good, having plenty of stages to fight in and having cartoony enough designs for both those and the sprites of the characters, although I will admit, some of the designs for the characters are either flat-out terrible, or just ugly, but not purposely ugly, the music is… definitely music, being energetic enough for a fighter, but something that you won’t wanna listen to after a while, especially with several tracks reused plenty of times, and the gameplay/control is the fighting game standard, with all the functions, moves, and features you would expect, but with a few more to try to convince you it is better then it is.

The game is a fighting game, where you take control of one of ten characters, either one of the Lee brothers or a member of the Shadow Warriors, take on plenty of different opponents in many different locations that are as generic as you think they are, throw out plenty of punches, kicks, combos, projectiles, and super moves to weaken your opponent further and further, make sure to dodge and block when appropriate to make sure to block any sort of attack that they try to throw your way, and check out the rest of the modes of the game that will allow you to do the same things again, but somewhat differently. For a fighting game, all of this is pretty standard, nothing too exciting, so as a Double Dragon fighting game, it manages to do what you would expect any of these games to do that takes a non-fighting IP and brings it into the genre, with a few unique features that do make it stand out from others.

In terms of the gameplay, once again, it is your typical fighting game affair: one-on-one battles where you jump around, throw out different combos, and try not to get slammed on your ass, while throwing out special moves to take down your opponents quickly. Most of it is nothing that you haven’t seen before from other fighting games at the time, with the exception of the Overkill mechanic, where whenever you defeat an enemy while using a certain attack, they will get straight up killed (most of the time), with a unique death animation playing alongside it that actually did manage to surprise me whenever I accidentally pulled one off while playing the game. If you think about it, these are essentially just Brutalities from Mortal Kombat before they were even a thing, and they are cool to see, even if some of them are repeated amongst several characters, and others are just… stupid.

In terms of everything else though, there is actually quite a lot here, with there being many different modes for you to try out just in case your typical vs. match gets too boring for you. There is, of course, said Vs. Match, where you can fight another opponent one-on-one to see who is the best, there is the Tournament Mode, which works pretty much like your typical Arcade mode, complete with multiple endings for every character you play as, there is the Quest Mode, which is the story mode of this game, but it plays mostly the same as Tournament Mode, except with little bits of dialogue in-between matches, there is Battle Demo mode, where you can put two CPU opponents in a ring and… watch them fight it out……… just in case you got tired of playing the game yourself, and finally, there are the Dossiers, which gives you info on each of the characters in the game, with the info itself being both hilarious and awful at the same time. Seriously, if you haven’t read some of these things, please do, because they are ironically really funny. But anyway, all of these modes work well enough for what they are, not delivering anything more than what you would expect them to, all meant to just fill out the Fighting Game Checklist so that you won’t be bitching about any of them not being there.

Speaking of bitching, it’s time for me to start my bitching, as all of the problems this game has lies within many of the typical areas. Most of it is very generic for a fighter, just selling itself as “a Double Dragon fighting game”, but not doing anything more to convince you to play it over others, and fighting game syndrome does play a factor in several instances, even if it is more manageable with the Options setting. When it comes to the gameplay itself, it feels pretty rigid, not feeling as bad or restrictive as other games like Doomsday Warrior or even the original Street Fighter, but it doesn’t feel as responsive, satisfying, or fluid as other fighters, even from this era, making it less then ideal for a fanatic of this genre. It’s not flat-out terrible, but you can definitely tell that a lot more can be done to improve on the experience.

Overall, despite a good handful of modes to mess around with and fun enough characters to try out, this is certainly not how you take a popular franchise like Double Dragon and make it into a fighting game, having no unique identity of its own, playing poorly when compared to others, and not providing any reason to want to fully explore it to see all the endings for all of the characters. I would recommend it for those who are big Double Dragon fans, as well as those who are fighting game fanatics out there, but there are many better options that you could try out instead, both in terms of fighting games and the Double Dragon series. And to think, this is only the first time we would get a Double Dragon fighting game, as one would be released just one year after this one. Although, I’m not sure how that one is gonna compare to this game, which has a wonderful assortment of characters like Bones, the skeleton with a machine gun, Icepick, a cyborg made of crystals that make him look like ice, and Dominique, a dominatrix wearing a skin-tight black suit, complete with a whip and a huge set of hooters……………………. alright, who let Leland Interactive Media put their fetish into my Double Dragon game?

Game #525

Being the third entry on my "Brawler"-list for that day, i didn't know it would be a 1on1 fighting game (knowing Super Double Dragon and some GameBoy-entries so far). Fairly, i liked the sprites, the comic-y-artstyle and the animations, especially the iron breaking away when weapons clash. Background graphics however are way inferior. To it's core it's a solid SF2-clone (not to say "rip-off"), with all the punches, kicks, specials and alike. I was surprised to find out about the (quite brutal actually) finishers afterwards. Music though... is a really awful, repeating itselft over and over again. But then again, hey - there's voice samples. Gaming modes and story (incorporated in the Quest Mode) couldn't be more dull, but hey - there's a least some fun in all of the endings, the character sheet texts and depiction in general. I mean, look at them - Bones! Ice Pick! Jaw Breaker! Really well designed, so... something clings to me with this one. Maybe some Trouble in Little China-vibes.