‘Double Dragon II: Wander Of The Dragons’ Review Roundup

Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons was released on April 5 for Xbox Live Arcade. See what the critics had to say.

Double Dragon was one of those arcade brawlers that opened up the way to more recent classics like Street Fighter and its ever-famous sequels. It featured a simple story where the damsel gets captured by thugs, and two martial arts master brothers have to fight waves of said thugs to save the damsel who is now in distress. It spawned successful sequels, even the “bad, but not that bad” Double Dragon III released only on the NES.

According to the critics, the damsel isn’t worth saving this time, and the developers agreed. Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons is like a remake of Double Dragon by people who hated Double Dragon. The storyline is an insult to the original games, in that this time, Marian isn’t kidnapped; she’s shot down at the beginning of the game.

Yes, you read that right.

The game starts with you actually playing as Marian, but it doesn’t matter because she gets shot and killed. Then you finally get control of the Double Dragon brothers in what should have been a revenge game, if the controls didn’t accidentally turn it into survival horror. And this Xbox 360 game is the monster.

This is not a sequel to Double Dragon: Neon of last year. This is an insult that makes new gamers wonder why we bothered playing the arcade game back then.

The HD treatment isn’t that bad, as the characters look acceptable, if downright ugly. The problem is that most of the characters are just clones of that guy you pummeled 15 times a minute ago. They all look like dollar-store action figures, except nobody would pay that much for one.

After all of the misplaced effort put into Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons, this title is the worst game on Xbox 360. We will probably see the Angry Video Game Nerd perform an exorcism on this game in the future.

What do you think of Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons?