With the insane rise of fighting games during the 1990s, there was an attempt at "converting" established beat'em up IPs into fighters due to the genre's waning popularity. Double Dragon, one of the originators by Technos, also took the leap. Twice. The first outing, 1994's Double Dragon V, is already a mess before you even play the game when you consider its number designation. V gets its title under the presumption that Super Double Dragon was the fourth; this would later cause more confusion with the launch of Double Dragon IV in 2018. Worse, the game is based on the cartoon released in 1993, thus making the "fifth" moniker misleading due to its non-canonical status with previous games in the series.
Surely the actual product is in capable hands? Well, V was developed by Leland Interactive Media, who were mainly known for their work on the Dragon's Lair and Super Off-Road franchises. Tr... truly the ideal choice for a fighting game.
But before completely dismissing this title based on those facts alone, you should know the devs get at least one thing right in an attempt to mimic popular fighting games of its period, specifically Street Fighter II. Taking its six-button control scheme of three punches and three kicks of varying strengths, V benefits from using the Genesis' separately-sold six-button controller. However if you just have the default three-button pad, you can still use all six buttons... kinda. Like the Genesis port of Street Fighter II Championship Edition, you must hit the start button to toggle between the punch and kick buttons during a match. It's as terrible as it sounds. This is an important factor to know because, bizarrely, there's no mention of needing a six-button controller anywhere on the game's box, so you would be playing the game at half its potential without that vital piece of information.
So now that all major positives have been mentioned...
Featured community review by dementedhut (May 31, 2022)
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