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The Atari Times

Double Dragon V
One of the worst games ever made
By Dan Loosen
February 10, 2004

Is this guy supposed to be scary?

"The Claw!"

A tip of the hat... err... head.

Reader Average Score

22%
(22 scores.)

Kill It

I can just imagine someone walking into a store and seeing this game on the shelf back when the Jaguar was released. Another Double Dragon title... Awesome! The Double Dragon series was one of my favorite NES series, and I was ready to welcome it back on the Jaguar. Only this isn't the Double Dragon that I grew up with. If I had just paid $50.00 for this and my new Jaguar system, I would be extremely angry. Why? What's changed? It isn't a beat-em-up, it's a one-on-one fighter.

WHAT?!? You heard that right, one-on-one fighter... With "classic" Double Dragon characters and control. Here I am expecting a great beat-em-up, which is one of my favorite genre's and what do I get? Perhaps the worst 2D fighting game ever. When this game was released, Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat were ruling the arcades, and I guess that someone thought that Double Dragon would make a great beat-em-up. In fact, this game was also released for the Genesis and SNES.

The graphics are, in a word, horrible. This game could have been done on a SNES with the same graphical flair. Maybe even a NES. The sound effects and music follow suit. The control is as stiff as the characters move, and the characters balance is way off. If you have a character with a low attack, just do that over and over and you'll beat the game. If you have a regular character, good luck lasting for long in the upper stages.

There simply isn't anything more to say about this game. It's better than White Men Can't Jump, but only because of a technicality -- WMCJ is actually playable (when you read that review you'll understand what I mean). This is an absolute stinker, and you should avoid this game.

Game Data

Scores

Title Double Dragon V Graphics 5%

Publisher Atari Sound/Music 10%

Genre Fighting Gameplay 10%

System Jaguar Control 10%

Overall

8%

Reader Comments for Double Dragon V

You are 100% Correct by Pete 2006-10-12 21:51:31

I only recently purchased this game becuse the Mgr (Ron)of the local Electronic Boutique back in the day would always refuse to sell the game to me or my friends his rational was that he was tired of getting the game returned by pissed off customers (they had a 14 Day bring back for any reason policy). This game is bad, it is not even what it was striving to be which was a rip off of Street Fighter 2. It was about 10% of the way their then Atari must of came in and said I don't care if the game isn't complete release it anyways cause we must have as many SNES looking games out so all the teens that own our system can get purscuted by their friends. The worst thing was that you bought it expecting the 5th version of a side scrolling fighting game that 2 players play together. To me it would be the same as getting WWF Wrestling 5 and opening it up popping it in the Jaf to have Wrestlers playing Baseball. Just not what you expected. If they would of increased the frame rate, gave the Fighters some sort of animation to show off their personalities, and added the many rounds of Street Fighter, then maybe it would not of been as big a dissapointment when you played the game. Your buddy would say why does DD5 look like Street Fighter You would say I have no idea but its a fun game (ie Sonic Fighters on Saturn)

Bad all around by Gregory D. George 2006-10-12 23:12:51

Don't worry, it was just as bad (if not worse) on the other consoles! At least the Jaguar had 32,000 colors to work with!

DDV sucks by Adam 2006-10-14 00:04:47

You need negative ratings for this game. It absolutely stinks and is a black eye to the Jaguar. A straight port from the original would have been better than this sorry excuse for a game.