The platforming segments demand a little more precision than the game seems to be built for, and the many instant kills are a bit much, but once getting used to the stiff jump length, they become quite surmountable. But even on the highest setting the game isn’t too hard compared to the arcade versions, especially after mastering the timing for the knee attack, which sends enemies flying down pits in an instant. Practice mode is over after level three, and Warrior mode stops just short of the final encounter. However, you only get to fight the penultimate boss on Supreme Master mode, the highest of three difficulty levels. The crop field is replaced by yet another forest/mountain stage like in the first game, but it leads to a fight on a giant track vehicle that has to be climbed while it is moving back and forth on the screen.
This is followed by a high-tech underground facility with severely limited movement, as not only confines you to a single line but also prohibits jumping with a row of spikes on the low ceiling. The game starts out on a military base like the arcade, but then you get to chase a helicopter across some rooftops, and then fight within the helicopter as the door keeps opening and closing, with the air suction drawing Lee brothers and enemies alike outside. In a way it’s one of the best games to bear the Double Dragon name, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that Technōs had already started to loose a cohesive vision of what it meant to be Double Dragon, both in tone and in gameplay. On the NES, Double Dragon II is a much more innovative and unique sequel than in the arcade, but it marks also the time Double Dragon started its schizophrenic shifting between wildly different tones and gameplay styles.
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