January:
February:
March:
April:
May:
June:
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:
159)
Rise of the Tomb Raider - Lara's Nightmare (PS4) (DLC)
160)
Titanfall 2 (PS4)
161)
Soul Blade (PSX)
162)
Axiom Verge (PC)
163)
Owlboy (PC)
164)
Nitro Ball (ARC)
165)
Desert Breaker (ARC)
166)
Dead Connection (ARC)
167)
Crystal of Kings (ARC)
168)
Crime Fighters (ARC)
169)
Vendetta (ARC)
170)
Super Contra (ARC)
171)
Contra (ARC)
172)
Sunset Riders (ARC)
173)
Rastan Saga (ARC)
174)
Growl (ARC)
175)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (ARC)
176)
Red Clash (ARC)
177)
Dreaming Sarah (PC)
178)
Crimson Clover WORLD IGNITION (PC)
179)
Shantae: Half-Genie Hero (PS4)
180)
Adventures of Mana (AND)
181)
Double Dragon Advance (GBA)
182)
X-Men: Children of the Atom (ARC)
183)
Double Dragon (ARC)
184)
Double Dragon II: The Revenge (ARC)
185)
The Simpsons (ARC)
186)
Double Dragon III: The Rosetta Stone (ARC)
187)
Return of Double Dragon (SFC)
Yeah, more
Double Dragon. After the awfulness that is
DD3, I had to play something worthwhile.
Return of Double Dragon is that. It's a little slower than its contemporaries, but it's got a nice moveset, and is pretty fair about things. You have a cool block/counter move, although it's only really good on certain mooks for the countering part. You can block most attacks, though. Not swords, though, and those guys crop up all through the game. You'll also snag weapons every now and then, with the unquestioned best of them being the nunchaku. Again. Man, those things are mean.
The other change is that you can't do your cyclone kick like before. Instead, you've got a meter you charge by holding the R button, and the length of the charge determines what you get when you attack. Early in the meter, you get a spinning backfist or a sort of leaping roundhouse. Go past halfway, though... and there's your spinning kick. Except now, it's more like Chun-Li's spinning bird kick, flying across the screen. It's very useful, but takes time to charge. If you go
all the way up, you'll enter a sort of rage mode where you have this sort of Bruce Lee look on your face and your attack do a ton of damage and instant knockdown. It's actually not as useful as it sounds, but it is kinda cool nonetheless.
Anyway, the run was pretty easy overall. I jacked up the continues, but I needn't have bothered; I only ended up burning two (the default is five). And several of my deaths were of the careless and/or changing things up for variety's sake type.
The Japanese version is a bit different from the American release, there's a little bit more at the end of the game, but nothing major. Both versions have no cutscenes at all, it's just one stage after the other. After a quick look at HG101 to see what I might have missed, there were apparently supposed to be, but it all got axed to get it to market quickly. Oh, what could have been. Seeing Technos run its series into the ground just wasn't a pretty thing. This was the last gasp of the traditional series, so at least it turned out pretty good, but it could have been
great. 8/10.
(As regarding
Neon, someone recommended treating it more as a
Streets of Rage game instead, and I can definitely see the parallels. That was one of my favorite games of that year, so I guess it definitely clicked with me. It really took those extra runs to really come into its own, though.)