Ever played a game that seemed really unfinished to you? As if the developers had to left out a bunch of features, because they were pressued into releasing the game earlier. Well, Return of Double Dragon (aka Super Double Dragon) was one of those games.
A month ago, Japanese fansite, Game Kommander, got in touch with the game's planner, Muneki Ebinuma (who also worked on Double Dragon '95, the Neo-Geo game, and Double Dragon Advance) and posted a plot outline, revealing everything that was meant to be in the game.
Anyway, I got in touch with the webmaster of the site, and got his permission to translate the article for us, gaijins out there (I've also extracted a few graphical data from the ROM by using ZSNES save states). I've published the translation at the Double Dragon Dojo, a fansite which I've frequently contributed material for. Anyway, check it out!
The soundtrack is not availble at the Dojo yet, but you can download it at Game Kommander's site for now. The most noteworthy tracks are track 2, 7, 9, 14, 15, 17 and 18, which were never inserted to the game. Check out tracks 15 (the ending theme) and 17 (the boss theme) at least. They're my personal favorite.
Hey, that's a cool find. Yeah, DD4 is one of the most unfinished games I've ever played. I mean, enemies magically apear in front of closed doors and windows that I can only assume were ment to animate open. And it's still a great game anyway. Hmmm...
Johnny, that website is great! Were you the one who wrote all of the reviews? 30 minutes and now my DD knowledge has increased ten-fold. Must by DD Advance.....
I wish I could. My hand was trembling as my cursor hovered above the "buy it now" button. Luckily, I had enough self control not to click.
BTW: VGD is selling DD Advance for $20 new. My local Gamestop manager checked the computer and it came up as discontinued (explains why I couldn't find it anywhere). Grab it while you can folks.
Johnny, that website is great! Were you the one who wrote all of the reviews? 30 minutes and now my DD knowledge has increased ten-fold. Must by DD Advance.....
Heh! Thanks for the compliments. Some of the reviews were written by the webmaster, Dojo Master, but I wrote some as well. I pretty much wrote almost all of the character profiles though.
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Man, that beats the fuck out of that shit resolution text that scrolls on the retail version which ends with "The brothers were never seen again".
I agreed. The ending to Super DD always seemed lackluster compared to what Technos did with the 8-bit incarnations, especially DD2 (which had one of the greatest NES endings of all time). I always knew there was something wrong there. I really wonder what made them rush the game out so soon. Ebinuma-san seems to be very vague when it comes to explaining why he was forced to rush out the game. The US and Japanese version came out almost simultaneously, with the US version being released ahead by at least a few weeks. Perhaps Tradewest forced them to get the game out early before the holidays. It wouldn't surprise me, considering Tradewest's poor treatment of the Double Dragon license.
The PC Engine version was one of my personal faves and I was lucky enough to get it a few years (1998 even) for a relatively cheap price (no more than $40). I'm kinda surprised how much it goes for nowadays. The anime cut-scenes made it seemed more like a good Double Dragon cartoon than anything else, which is a plus. My only gripe is that it was missing a few enemies from both versions (Arcade and NES). Bolo, the ninja and the right-hand man never appeared in the game, even though their sprites were inserted to the data (Oharra appears for Bolo instead). The addition of Willy (who was missing in the NES version) more than makes up for it though.
Damn, PCE DDII goes for that much now? I bought mine back in 2001 or so. I saw it pop up on Ebay and decided it must be mine. I wasn't able to do my regular sniping tactics since I would be on the road at the auction's end, so I put in a bid of about $100 and just crossed my fingers. Luckily, I ended up winning it for only about $55.
Incidentally, that auction was my first introduction to Seal King bags. The game showed up in pristine condition at my house in this cool resealable bag. From then on I decided all my games must have that.
