365//365: Day 002 – Double Dragon 3 (NES)

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The console version of the Double Dragon series of games were not arcade perfect, to say the least. While the first two titles still went on to become instant classics, the third game, Double Dragon 3: The Sacred Stones, was not even close to the legendary status that the first two games hold.

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What made the first two games that good? For one, the controls were spot on, with diverse move sets available, as well as Double Dragon 2 having an excellent co-op experience. None of that can be found here. The controls in Double Dragon 3 are atrocious. Your attacks are super slow, with priority seemingly on your opponents side if you’re trading blows. Movement feels very stiff, and special attacks feel broken. Pulling off a jumping spin kick seems next to impossible to do when you need to. Doing a jumping head flip throw will result in you almost always overshooting your enemy and simply jumping past them. These are the main reasons why this game has a brutal and unfair difficulty — enemies have priorities over you, the number of enemies that come at you at once, the busted controls and the platforming portions at the end all add up to this being one of the more frustrating games in existence. Weapons seem like weak extensions of your limbs, as they do little damage. How does a throwing knife not kill even a severely weakened enemy on the first shot?

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Audio and video wise, this comes no where near the first two games. Characters are horribly detailed, poorly animated and barely pass as human beings. The backgrounds have more detail than the previous two titles, but it all looks dark and lacks any shading. When you first open the game, you hear a pretty weak remix of the classic Double Dragon tune. Start the game and while the tunes are not terrible, they don’t give that sense of heart pounding action and mood setting bits like the first two. It’s a passable mix of tunes at best but nothing special, nor memorable.

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Double Dragon 3 look lousy, controls dreadfully and that's just the beginning of a long list of problems.

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Double Dragon 3 was unique in the way that it introduced a playable cast outside Billy and Jimmy Lee. You had Chin, a very slow, porky fellow who uses his head quite a bit, and Ranzou, a speedy ninja with fast, yet weak attacks. Not only did the addition of two extra playable characters mean that there were now four useless and horrible character to choose from, but they each one life. They all die, game over. You can’t continue your game early on….not until you make it past level three (good luck there). So if you die, you have to start the game over. The beginning of the game is brutal, and with no health replenishment until the stage is defeated, dying will be something that happens often, resulting in playing the first stage over and over since you have no lives.

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Double Dragon is a timeless classic. Double Dragon 2 is an excellent game as well. Double Dragon 3 though, is just a mess. Broken controls, punishing difficulty and no lives or continues lead to one of the most frustrating experiences you will ever have in a video game. Stick with the first two Double Dragon games if you care about having a good time.

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It's an old joke, but to this day, I still have not laughed.

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Rating: 2.5