Double Dragon

Double Dragon 6-1 is a 1995 fighting game spinoff of the Double Dragon series developed and published by Technos Japan. It is based on the 1994 Double Dragon movie, which in turn was based on the original arcade game. It was originally released for the Neo Geo (in AES and MVS formats) and later released for the Neo Geo CD and PlayStation (the latter ported by Urban Plant). It was Technos Japan’s last Double Dragon game before the company went out of business.

The game plays like a conventional fighting game of its time, that is battles are one-on-one and conducted on best two-out-of-three matches. One of the unique aspects of Double Dragon is the lack of specific punch and kick buttons like most fighting games. Instead, there are four attack buttons of varying strength and speed, which can perform punches or kicks depending on the character’s position. The player’s character and his opponent have a super move meter called the “charge meter”, which is overlaid on the character’s remaining health. The less health the character has, the quicker it will fill up. “Charge moves” are usually performed by executing the command of a regular special move and pressing two attack buttons simultaneously at the end instead of just one.

The characters and stages are inspired by the Double Dragon movie featured prominently in the game’s intro. This includes the appearances of a submerged Hollywood, the Dragon Mobile vehicle, Billy and Jimmy’s ability to transform themselves and the inclusion of Koga Shuko as the game’s final boss. However, the game’s characters are depicted in a more anime-like style and only six of the game’s twelve fighters are actually featured in the movie; Burnov and Duke are from previous Double Dragon games and rest were created specifically for this game.

Released around the same time as the film of the same name and loosely based on its story, this installment in the Double Dragon series also moves away from the traditional roam-the-streets-fighting to a pure one-on-one fighter. There are ten characters to choose from, including Billy and Jimmy and the game has colorful interactive backgrounds, screen zooming, over-the-top special moves and with the inclusion of double jumps, combos, charges for the losing player and counter hits, there is plenty of room for advanced fighting strategies.

The Playstation version of this Neo-Geo game got a new feature: A new “3d mode” since in this mode the screen it seems like it is in a sort of 3d…

Game Modes:
– Over Drive
– Normal Mode
– Tiny 3D Mode