Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Review – This was a Japanese only release and it cost me a lot of money to buy. I was excited to play this as the NES version of Double Dragon 2 is my favourite beat ‘em up of all time. My, how I was disappointed. This game is nowhere near as good, despite it trying to emulate the NES version more closely than the arcade original.
The enemies follow you constantly like in Double Dragon 3 so you have to constantly run away so you can find a safe place to jump kick, because this is the only move worth using in the entire game. You get punch and kick moves but they are useless against multiple enemies because they all attack at once. You have to wait until there is one small enemy left to use your standard punch and kick moves, so you barely get the chance. You can never punch and kick against the big enemies so the only way to beat them is to jump kick. Since the majority of the enemies are big, you have to use jump kick for more than 90% of the game. Strangely the second to last boss can be defeated with punches which was unexpected.
The fighting is very boring due to the usage of a single move. There are moves missing from the NES version too, like the knee and the uppercut. The super hurricane kick is included but this is a nerf because most of the time the enemies dodge it (even if it looks like it connected). But the move comes off regularly by accident because I couldn’t work out when or why it would come out. So, the difficulty in this game is down to if you accidentally pull of the hurricane kick instead of a normal move.
Inexplicably, this game adopts the worst part of Double Dragon 1 – the walls that randomly push you off the screen. An insanely bad design decision. Especially because it isn’t in any other version of Double Dragon 2.
The music is taken from the NES levels but doesn’t sound as good. But there are less tunes due to there only being 4 levels.
The graphics are OK but nowhere near the quality of other Megadrive titles like Streets of Rage.
There is a weird screen mechanic that stops you from going all the way to the right of the screen so that enemies are safe on the right. But when you are supposed to scroll the screen to the right after defeating all the enemies on the screen, you have to walk as far as the screen will let you until the screen starts to scroll over to the right, leaving you vulnerable to enemies that are standing off screen.
Once you beat the last boss, the screen abruptly cuts to the ending screen where no credits are shown and it just shows a montage of all the 4 bosses beat you up in black and white. A very strange ending. Which is fitting due to there being no story cutscenes except for the very beginning. There really was no effort put into this game.
The game was super easy on easy mode as I had load of lives and continues left but only if you play in a boring way of only using jump kick. I assume Normal and Hard will also be easy. But I’m in no rush to test them out, especially since you get the full ending on easy.
Rating – 3/10
Difficulty – 2/10
Original PAL game played on PAL Megadrive 2
Picture split between CRT TV for my own viewing and OSCC scan converter with 2x line doubler, upscaled to HDMI for recording
No cheats / Save states used
Easy difficulty
Game cover pic in thumbnail from my own collection
DONATE
paypal.me/Tinkstonten
buymeacoffee.com/retro2vr
Crypto
BTC - 3Q9mg5pjT4YZgAvHQha6izYDrX3nbJqMPZ
ETH - 0xB41482cB92E32C965E368f293701E5Ce18d5719f
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DOGE - DL3afUvT2UxhkoXsUZNXZS4nwxJny3s4Zm
More like this:
Megadrive/Genesis playthroughs - youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4NqEf523ELXZBl1T_3j-E9M
SNES playthroughs - youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4M6kAxkb28T32nne5FbcMd1
#megadrive #doubledragonii #doubledragon2
Review – This was a Japanese only release and it cost me a lot of money to buy. I was excited to play this as the NES version of Double Dragon 2 is my favourite beat ‘em up of all time. My, how I was disappointed. This game is nowhere near as good, despite it trying to emulate the NES version more closely than the arcade original.
The enemies follow you constantly like in Double Dragon 3 so you have to constantly run away so you can find a safe place to jump kick, because this is the only move worth using in the entire game. You get punch and kick moves but they are useless against multiple enemies because they all attack at once. You have to wait until there is one small enemy left to use your standard punch and kick moves, so you barely get the chance. You can never punch and kick against the big enemies so the only way to beat them is to jump kick. Since the majority of the enemies are big, you have to use jump kick for more than 90% of the game. Strangely the second to last boss can be defeated with punches which was unexpected.
The fighting is very boring due to the usage of a single move. There are moves missing from the NES version too, like the knee and the uppercut. The super hurricane kick is included but this is a nerf because most of the time the enemies dodge it (even if it looks like it connected). But the move comes off regularly by accident because I couldn’t work out when or why it would come out. So, the difficulty in this game is down to if you accidentally pull of the hurricane kick instead of a normal move.
Inexplicably, this game adopts the worst part of Double Dragon 1 – the walls that randomly push you off the screen. An insanely bad design decision. Especially because it isn’t in any other version of Double Dragon 2.
The music is taken from the NES levels but doesn’t sound as good. But there are less tunes due to there only being 4 levels.
The graphics are OK but nowhere near the quality of other Megadrive titles like Streets of Rage.
There is a weird screen mechanic that stops you from going all the way to the right of the screen so that enemies are safe on the right. But when you are supposed to scroll the screen to the right after defeating all the enemies on the screen, you have to walk as far as the screen will let you until the screen starts to scroll over to the right, leaving you vulnerable to enemies that are standing off screen.
Once you beat the last boss, the screen abruptly cuts to the ending screen where no credits are shown and it just shows a montage of all the 4 bosses beat you up in black and white. A very strange ending. Which is fitting due to there being no story cutscenes except for the very beginning. There really was no effort put into this game.
The game was super easy on easy mode as I had load of lives and continues left but only if you play in a boring way of only using jump kick. I assume Normal and Hard will also be easy. But I’m in no rush to test them out, especially since you get the full ending on easy.
Rating – 3/10
Difficulty – 2/10
Original PAL game played on PAL Megadrive 2
Picture split between CRT TV for my own viewing and OSCC scan converter with 2x line doubler, upscaled to HDMI for recording
No cheats / Save states used
Easy difficulty
Game cover pic in thumbnail from my own collection
DONATE
paypal.me/Tinkstonten
buymeacoffee.com/retro2vr
Crypto
BTC - 3Q9mg5pjT4YZgAvHQha6izYDrX3nbJqMPZ
ETH - 0xB41482cB92E32C965E368f293701E5Ce18d5719f
MATIC - 0x9051a87257812febda27691fc84bdd54500eb26f
DOGE - DL3afUvT2UxhkoXsUZNXZS4nwxJny3s4Zm
More like this:
Megadrive/Genesis playthroughs - youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4NqEf523ELXZBl1T_3j-E9M
SNES playthroughs - youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4M6kAxkb28T32nne5FbcMd1
#megadrive #doubledragonii #doubledragon2
