Double Dragon II: The Revenge

1988 · Beat 'em up · Arcade

About Double Dragon II: The Revenge

Double Dragon II: The Revenge (1988) is Technōs Japan's arcade sequel in which Billy and Jimmy Lee avenge Marian, shot dead by the leader of the Black Warriors, using new directional attack buttons.

Double Dragon II: The Revenge in Depth

The game opens with Marian, the damsel of the first Double Dragon, shot to death by Willy, leader of the Black Warriors, in revenge for his defeat. Brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee set out to avenge her across four missions: a heliport, a lumber storehouse, a farm and the gang's new hideout, each with sub-bosses along the way and a boss at the end. The arcade game is essentially an improved version of the original. Its biggest change replaces the punch and kick buttons with Left Attack and Right Attack, as in Renegade: pressing the button for the direction faced throws punches, while the opposite one delivers a back kick. New moves include a Hurricane Kick.

Many enemies return with new looks and attacks: Williams and Roper with knives and shovels, Linda with whips, knives and grenades, crew-cut Oharra and long-haired Bolo, the steel-masked Burnov, who vanishes leaving only his clothes and later rematerialises, Abore in his sunglasses, the kali-stick fighter Chin Taimei, and Willy with his machine gun. Crates, logs and steel balls can be thrown. After Willy falls, each player faces a shadowy doppelganger that copies their moves and drains their energy up close. A life is lost when the life meter or mission timer runs out, or on falling into a pit or spikes.

Making Double Dragon II: The Revenge

Technōs Japan first developed it as an upgrade kit for Double Dragon, but larger memory let it become a standalone game, with assets reused between the two. Game Machine listed it as Japan's seventh most successful table arcade unit of March 1989, and its Atari ST port was number three on the UK chart in early 1990. Technōs made its own very different NES version, Naxat Soft remade it for the PC Engine in 1993, and Palsoft's Japan-only 1991 Mega Drive version was a straight arcade port with smaller, less colourful characters. Arcade Sushi ranked it the ninth best retro beat 'em up in 2013, and it was re-released in Double Dragon Trilogy and Hamster's Arcade Archives.

Double Dragon II: The Revenge Trivia

It began as an upgrade kit for the original Double Dragon before growing into a standalone game.
The NES version of 1990, published by Acclaim, is a very different game from the arcade original.
Binary Design made the 1989 home computer ports for Virgin Mastertronic.
The assembly source of the DOS version was put online by the Internet Archive in 2013.
An unrelated Game Boy game was released under the same name, adapted from the Kunio-kun series.