Title - "Rage of the Dragons"
Alternative title(s) - N/A
Genre(s) - Fighting - 2D
Platform(s) - Arcade and Neo-Geo
People who have known their video games for a long, long time must know "Double Dragon". If you don't know this series, to make the long story short, it's a beat up series following the lives of Billy and Jimmy Lee. There have been so many games, but as the years rolled on, the series died out. There have been attempts to revive the series, but for the most part, they failed.
Enter "Rage of the Dragons". "Rage of the Dragons" is a fighting game by Noise Factory and Evoga, which happens to be a sub-division of Playmore if I recall, that came out last year for the arcades and the Neo-Geo. It does tie in with the "Double Dragon" saga to some extent. Due to rights issues however, the names had to be changed. Instead of Billy and Jimmy Lee, their last name is Lewis.
Sunshine City is a place in ruins. Gangs rule it and only the strongest survive. The one particular person people feared was a guy named Johann, who had the power of the evil Black Dragon and its power was so great.
Enter the Lewis brothers. After years of training and struggles, the Lewis brothers meet up again and the half-American, half-Chinese girl, Lynn Lee Baker, whose grandfather was their master, joins them. Also, Jimmy has since partnered up with a Russian assassin named Sonia Romanenko. Other fighters join in for their own purposes as well.
It's two on two fighting and I'll explain more in a bit. Select from fourteen characters or fifteen if you know the trick. Besides the Lee, I mean, Lewis brothers, Lynn, and Sonia, we have Pupa Salgueiro, Pepe Rodriguez (Jose with his alternate name in both versions if I recall), Mr. Johnny Jones, Kang Jae Mo, Murakami Annie, Murata Cassandra, Inomura Oni, Radel, Alice Carroll, and Patrick Elias. The two bosses are Abobo, I mean Abubo Rao, that fifteenth character I was talking about and Johann, the final boss. You can play as Johann, but it'll be hard to do so. (He's available if you have the Neo-Geo port and you can only use him in the training mode.)
Fun - 3
Oh geez. Where do I begin? Well, there are plenty of flaws here and believe me, there are a lot right off the bat. First off, remember that evil element from "Amakusa no Kourin" I mentioned? Well, it's back and if you have no idea what I am talking about, it's the combo starter, in which you press C+D on the ground here. Now, because of this, the combo system is well, broken. Follow the sequence (in which you can choose either the one on the ground or the one in the air) and you nailed it. This will lead to long and frustrating combos if you're at the receiving end. They are long because most of the stages have a wall, setting you up for more hits. "Make sure your opponent hits the wall, press C+D for the combo starter, input commands, then do a Super in the end." That's not a good idea of fun if you ask me.
The second main flaw in terms of how the game works is the lack of originality. Most likely, you have seen the moves from other games. Normally, I would not complain about this so much, but this game really did take a lot of moves from various games. Mr. Jones has that forward thrust punch people like "Mark of the Wolves's" Gat
and Yun of "Street Fighter III" have and that one wheel kick move from Lucky of the "King of Fighters" series. Annie has "KoF's" Mature's running slash move. Alice has a Repuken and the anti-air of Yuki in the "Gekka no Kenshi" games, minus the weapon of course. Jimmy is a combination of both Bogard brothers (and he has a Sh Ry
Dan that looks more like Ky's Oniyaki [his anti-air attack] than Andy's Sh Ry Dan). Pupa is the Bob of the "Garou Densetsu" series, which I don't mind actually since the Carribean and Latin countries as well as African countries do practice caporeia and Pepe is the Mexican Kim (or at least he tries be). I want originality, dag nab it!
The final main flaw is that the game is fine in terms of difficulty until you reach Johann. Johann is so cheap that it is not funny, though I have seen cheaper bosses. There are tricks to beat him though, which sort of took me a while to figure out. I will let you find those tricks on your own. If a sequel of this game will be made, well, I know what problems need to be fixed so far.
So what are its redeeming points? Even though I mentioned the fact that the lack of originality is a flaw, it also is a blessing and the game does bring back some moments of the old days, but I got too much of those moments though. Also, I have to say that playing as characters like Lynn, Annie, the Lewis brothers and Sonia is fun. Other than that, there is not much else that I can say.
Life - 4
If it weren’t for Johann, I would have bumped the score up a bit. At least you can mix your teams a bit. Still, I hate Johann, despite the fact that there are tricks to beat him. Oh and don't forget those other flaws.
Control - 9
The game pretty much plays like any other fighting game out there. A+B to dodge/roll if you use the directional pad. B+C to switch if your changing bar up top is filled. The controls are responsive, but they will slip up once in a while and you will probably forget the motions of the moves. What's nice about this game that you can't do in any "KoF" game is that you have the ability to roll and dodge at the same time. There is the one evil element in "Amakusa no Kourin" I mentioned already.
Audio - 9
The music does fit each stage real well. The problem with the music however is that they're not catchy. Only a few of the songs ever got my attention like the Latino theme.
The sound effects are your standard effects you hear in video games. You have your hits and such. There is no need to take notes here.
The seiy do a great job and the use of the English language is actually pretty good, though there are some kinks. I could have sworn I heard Sonia's voice elsewhere. One sample that made me go "Oro?" though is when Annie keeps saying "Yatta!" over and over again. Yeah, it does bug me at times, but her seiy is fine here overall. The main reason why I can't give a perfect score is because some of the samples sound muffled.
Story - 6
Well, it’s not the best story in the world, but at least it fits with the game.
Art - 6
Since this game is on the MVS board, you know what to expect. The best statement I heard that describes this game in terms of art is, "Think 'Mark of the Wolves', but with half of the animation." When you play the game, you will notice that the characters do not animate as much and a lot of reused animation is here. There are cases in which the characters don't animate at all when they're supposed to. Oh and don’t forget the always silly Engrish.
Is the art that bad? No. The art is barely above average. The sprites are real nice. The backgrounds are somewhat decent. I love the non-action art and why can't the "King of Fighters" games have art like that now these days? That is beyond me.
Some of the characters do have interesting designs. Cassandra's outfit looks rather kinky and so does Sonia's. Alice is the combination of "Serial Experiment Lain's" title character and Alice of "Alice in Wonderland" that was written by the British author Lewis Carroll (and you thought Disney created that story). Lynn has a standard Chinese training outfit with those floppy socks (the ones you see some Japanese school girls wear) that I really like. Pupa is the hottest Latino girl regardless if I talk about video games or whatever and Annie looks like Michette of the "Black/Matrix" series. Wow! I mentioned the girls right there. *lol*
The group of guys is a different story. Other than the Lewis brothers, the rest either look average or they just flat out look bad, though that boy Pepe actually has style. I am sorry, but that's how it is.
Overall - 5
So, does this game really revive the "Double Dragon" series and in a good way? Honestly...no. I can tell you that it is a start and I hope that the sequel (if there will be one) is better. I really wanted to like this game, since I was a big "DD" fan (though the movie and the U.S. animated series are lousy), but I have to face the fact that this game crashes in the most important category: fun and I'm talking about fun in the short run and in the long run. In this case, I would have said that this is a below average game, but since it is "Double Dragon", it is average overall. One last statement I will say is that this is the best average game I have ever played.
+
The controls, the seiy, the amount of English language in terms of audio, the character designs, and the art as a whole are fine.
-
I am worried about the game's fundamentals and the amount of animation as well the lack of originality being a question mark from time to time.
Date of creation - 6/27/03
Last update - 8/9/04