Developer: Telegames
Publisher: Williams
Release Date: April 5, 1995
Having a blog based on my own whims can get me into trouble sometimes. For example, I probably shouldn't have written about Fight for Life already. In the hierarchy of Atari Jaguar fighting games, it's the Plan 9 From Outer Space. It's a game made to be written about and studied. I got Jaguar's worst and funniest fighting game out of the way first so I could spend the rest of my time talking about the boring leftovers. How am I going to get an interesting article out of Double Dragon V? The only thing that's interesting about it is the franchise it's connected to. Double Dragon was a powerhouse in the NES era, but by 1995 it had fallen onto hard times. It feels like Double Dragon should've been riding high. There was both a cartoon series and live action movie based on the franchise around the same time, but Double Dragon V would be the end of the road for the main series. I wish there was a terrible 3D Double Dragon game on PlayStation because I'm sure that would be fun to talk about, but alas, it mostly ends here. Of course, after playing it I can see why.
Double Dragon V tries something that almost never works. It switches genres from the previous titles. Fighting games were all the rage in the mid-90s, and the Double Dragon team probably felt like they helped create the genre, but all the previous games had been side-scrolling beat-em-ups. It's a type of game they were quite good at making. By 1994 the gaming world was awash with mediocre fighting games, and I don't think anyone wanted to see their beloved franchises turn into one. This wasn't a spin-off after all, it was the next main game in the series. Of course, all would be forgiven if they made a high-quality game, but unfortunately it has the same shallowness of previous Double Dragon games with none of the charm.
The first thing I noticed booting up the game was that I didn't recognize any of the characters besides protagonists Billy and Jimmy Lee. Apparently, most of the other characters are from the cartoon show, which I never saw despite being obsessed with both video games and cartoons at the time. I mean, I saw the Mutant League show, and that one was obscure and terrible. However, I can tell that they didn't bring over all the characters from the cartoon because the women characters are oddly sexualized. I don't have a problem with games including a playable dominatrix on general principal, but it does show that the developers weren't quite sure what they wanted to do with this game. It's a mature game based on a children's show that it hardly even references. They really just wanted to turn into Mortal Kombat without the conviction to actually do so.
This attitude crosses over to the gameplay. It doesn't have the martial arts focus of the earlier games or the over-the-top violence and special moves of Mortal Kombat. I honestly couldn't figure out how to do any of the special moves. I think they require the keypad which only adds to the confusion. Luckily, the opponents don't know the special moves very well either. So, this one becomes an oddly slow-paced button masher. It moves quickly enough, but none of the attacks seem to do much damage. Most of the matches I played ended with the timer running out, which is never good in a fighting game. I did wonder if I could take advantage of this. I tried spamming a couple of hits and then avoiding damage for the rest of the match, but that didn't work. So at least this is a game you actually have to pay attention to. I will say that much. It just doesn't end up making much of an impact. I don't want my Double Dragon game to be a skeleton dude mashing out punches until time runs out. It just doesn't work, and since this is a game nobody's ever heard of despite being released for SNES and Genesis, I suppose the world agrees with me.
My Jaguar journey has now gotten into a slow, boring grind. I have reviewed many of its most infamous games and have to get through the garden variety bad ones. I'm afraid that if I want to keep my sanity, I might have to do something that I have been avoiding. I might have to actually start reviewing some good Jaguar games. I know that's not what anyone wants, but it's going to happen eventually. Unless you want me to review White Men Can't Jump first. That's definitely the funniest game I have left. Of course that's a discussion for another day. Double Dragon V is in the red section, but it's the new benchmark for bad Jaguar games. It's the highest ranked one at #7 and #153 overall. It splits the two racing games being worse than Atari Karts and better than Checkered Flag. I can't say I have all that much confidence in Jaguar's racing and fighting games. Too bad they didn't make more pinball games. Apparently, they are the only ones I like.
Atari Jaguar Quality Percentage: 2/11 or 18.18%
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