Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls - The Worst Fighting Game 

When Tradewest got their hands on the Drouble Dragon IP they were fully intent on turning it their own huge multimedia cash cow franchise. They made the cartoon, action figures, comics, the live action movie, the Battletoads crossover and this game. By the time Technos wrestled back the IP it was already too late, not only the IP had been ran through the mud and lost any relevance it had but they themselves were already struggling financially, putting out a few games on the Neo Geo before with what they had left before closing their doors for good.

"To be a Dragon, you've gotta be strong! Humble, never braggin'." Words to live by in 2023

"The Code of the Dragon is never battle if you can avoid it!" (immediately gets into a tournament with a dominatrix and a skeleton with shades)

I remember seeing the cartoon for the first time in the lobby of my Dentist's office when I was like 7. Even then I was like "There's a Double Dragon cartoon now? I'm too busy with the Street Fighter cartoon, Mortal Kombat Defenders of the Realm and the Earthworm Jim cartoon to pay attention to this show."

Theory on the blood delay: The game checks to ensure any attack states or resulting projectiles are cleared before moving on to the routine to show the Round Winner. Makes sense, maybe you wanna make sure an errant projectile fired late isn't going to make for a draw/double KO, so you evaluate once all actions are complete. But perhaps the blood splatters are a "projectile" generated on successful hit, they just don't have any hurtbox or character interaction. Still, the game thinks there's projectiles on the screen until they expire.

The janitor has to mop up the blood first before the round can be declared over

the blood thing is very weird, and I'm guessing that ending the round before the blood dissipates caused some kind of fucky bug, like the blood staying on the screen in-between rounds until the next one, and they opted to just wait until the blood disappears instead of actually fixing the bug, likely due to time/monetary restraints

The neo geo Double Dragon and Rage of the Dragon are the prime example that a good Double Dragon fighting game could be done.

idk if i was just the exact right demographic at the right time, but i was around 8 or 9 during this time and i absolutely loved the double dragon cartoon and this game. hearing that awful dragon song sparked something deep within me just now and i almost started jumping on my couch and spin kicking around my living room.

I gotta say the original double dragon theme is one of the single best pieces of video game music in history. That is all.

Leland did have one major arcade hit with Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off Road. That machine was everywhere in arcades. They also published Ataxx (which was notable enough that other companies cloned the game) and Pig Out (which wasn't great but it's amusing enough that's it's worth playing a few times if you get the chance).

Suggestion for What Happened?!: WMAC Masters tv show. It was like live action fighting game with people dressed up like mortal kombat characters but very tame and totally scripted and choreographed fights using actual martial artists (some of them Olympic champions) who did a lot of choreography for tv and movie fight scenes!

As bad as the game and show was, I have fond memories of both in middle school in the 90s. Watching the show with my brother after school and sketching together. And playing the game at a cabinet at a local roller rink on school trips. Thanks for unlocking some good core memories Matt! 💜✨️

Probably due to a memory issue they had to eliminate 2 characters, and then in order to keep the third they would have had to remove Dominique as a sub boss, so to keep her as one they removed a third character and just added in programming to be able to control her.

7:45 Oh come now Matt. Not every fighting game announcer can aspire to the godlike level of "BEET CHEW UP".

Billy? What kind of name is Billy? Everybody know that the true name is Bimmy.

I'm going to be sad when this series comes to an end, but Matt could always do a follow-up series of "Greatest Fighting Game", which could be even harder than finding the worst fighting game.

The "V" stands for "Very Bad".

Another thing to point about this game is that most of the roster weren't even part of the cartoon and it's not like it lacked characters to choose from Lack of communication? Rush development? We may never know

Always love to see these videos pop up in the feed. They're both an interesting look back on lesser-known, terrible fighting games to learn from, but they're also usually really funny. _Point and laugh at the big stinky game_

Oh damn! One of my brothers had a toy of Billy from the Double Dragon cartoon! I never knew there was a cartoon, so I always thought it was weird that the toy looked so different from the game. This video actually solved that mystery for me

I remember seeing this in GamePro magazine and thinking it looked pretty decent then a kid in my class got the game and returned it the next day. It wasn't until years later I found out that the magazine's reviewer never even played half of the games they had covered.

I didn't realize SNK made a legit Double Dragon Fighter. One stage even had stills from the movie on a background screen! It's not what I want in a Double Dragon game, but it's exactly what I'd want if I wanted an SNK Double Dragon... and looking at it I think I do want that!

Hmm... maybe the blood having to disappear is a result of it snapshotting the state of the character it spawns out of, so the blood sprites technically read as an "alive" opponent until they despawn, preventing the round from ending. Alternatively they ran into a weird bug where having blood sprites left over from the previous round at the start of a new round caused bugs and they just took the band-aid fix rather than fixing their code.

As a child I was a big fan of the TV series. Double Dragon was one of my favorite childhood games, I spent several coins without being able to beat the first level and I had Atari and NES games. I really enjoyed trying to force myself to believe that the show wasn't sooooo bad. When in Club Nintendo magazine, I saw the ad for this game, I was very happy: I liked Street Fighters, Fatal Fury, World Heroes, and the Double Dragon TV series... what could go wrong??? Well, what you're saying is what went wrong. XD

I've found You recently and, to be honest, I LOVE Your work. Keep it up! Good job! :)

This just reminded me how much i loved the double dragon cartoon as a kid It was one of those shows before cable and syndication varied widely ,it was on TV Saturday mornings in my area, along with stuff like swat cats and street sharks.

the battle toads/double dragon crossover definitely didn't need to happen, but it's definitely a good thing that it did, since it's one of the best battle toads games out there, even if the double dragon characters are completely out of place.

Yes; please do a "Worst Fighting Game Announcers" and "Best Fighting Game Announcers" video. One of my picks for "Best Fighting Game Announcer" is the one from Street Fighter Alpha 3. He gets every match hype. That guy is awesome.

The worst thing about the Jaguar version of DDV was actually missed out on, which is that not only are all three kicks mapped to the keypad, specifically 3, 6, & 9... but you can't remap them to anything other than 3, 6, & 9! So if you have the Pro Controller which added three more face buttons & two shoulder buttons (which map to 7, 8, 9, 4, & 6, respectively), you can't actually take advantage of it to turn DDV's Jag port into something at least remotely playable! Sure, you could use one of the extra face buttons & the R button, but that's cold comfort.

Cutting characters from the roster is something expected for a handheld port, not a "64-Bit" console.

I liked the cartoon as a kid and didn't know about the arcade games, so I came at this from the opposite direction. The only thing I remember from renting this game is that Jawbreaker could eat and spit out opponents, which was pretty cool.

I've been waiting for you to cover this! I gotta a few I'll suggest later!

As one of the six people who actually liked the cartoon, I was excited when I heard they were turning it into a fighting game..... then utterly disappointed when it turned out to be this. At least I was only out the cost of a rental.

Well, that theme song is gonna be stuck in my head for the rest of the day, thanks Matt.

Great Video! Hey, Matt have you ever done a Rage of the Dragon Video?

you can't go to the gym expecting to lift less than 330lbs in the bench without the intro theme of the cartoon

Love how you use the Super Double Dragon soundtrack in this vid!!

I remember seeing "Dic" at the end of certain cartoons, and dying as a kid.

The cartoon was even more hilarious. Whenever they screamed "the shadow falls!" then would fall in defeat, I'd agree that they didn't falsely advertise

Very enjoyable video as always!, really I didn't know this game existed. But I have to admit that I was super confused with the title because Double Dragon 5?, but there was a fourth game that was released some years ago on modern consoles, for a moment I thought that I was in a time paradox, lol!. Also for the 10:14 question: Not going to lie but I actually liked that weird announcer mechanic, either if is a glitch or was intentional, it feels like if the announcer is so uninterested in his job and has a "whatever" attitude, it would be nice to see something like that in modern fighting games.

My standards as a kid must've been pretty low. I rented this game so many times and loved it. Both the game and the cartoon

Just wanted to mention that your covert grassroots campaign for Shaolin Monks has not gone unnoticed, and I bought a copy based on your frequent namedropping. Did not regret.

Ah, glad to see that Time Slaughter is on the horizon. But yeah, good video! I think I've saw a pieces of a couple of the cartoon once, and it kind of picked my attention back then, but I barely remember to be honest.

Blasphemy! Battletoads Double Dragon absolutely had to happen!

Double Dragon V shadow falls over the valley of the shadow of death.

Used to have the action figures and everything for this show. It really wasn’t that bad. I got mad on the last day I had this rental in 6 grade because that’s when I realized there were “fatalities” but my rental came with no instructions and the internet wasn’t a household “thing” yet in 94/95 for me to look them up.

I still got a vhs of this cartoon in the original clam shell. It has a preview of this game and gives you “tips” on how to beat certain characters.

I only remembered the cartoon from the What Happened Double Dragon episode. And then I heard the theme song and it all came back to me.

I can't wait for the strategy turnbased jrpg Street Fighter 7. If you go-through all the dialogue options on your first play through, You unlock a new Chun Li costume on New Game +

I've been waiting to get my Dragons doubled

Now I want a video going pelvis deep into the Jaguar’s worst fighting games, featuring my two favourite skeleton bros. Make it happen, Matt!

You have no idea how long I've waited for you to cover this one! Hype!

This explains why you have this one so fresh in your mind in the lastest Triple KO hahaha. Cheers

9:37 Speaking of that, one of the characters (Sickle) has a different death animation between the Genesis and SNES versions, in case if you are wondering.

I saw this cartoon. Being a very old person, their swords _confused me._ Great Stuff, as always!

The Double Dragon cartoon is a genuine guilty pleasure-one that has stuck with me for thirty years-and I will die on this hill!

my god i forgot how great the intro song was! THANK YOU

I remember being into the cartoon as a kid but really loving the figures that came from the show. But after watching this video I was kinda surprised you didn't mention in the special moves area how the whirling flying body attacks that Billy and Jimmy do are an exact rip off of what Hanzo and Fuuma do in the World Heroes games. After seeing that move very quickly in this video, I was expecting SNK had something to do with this game but I guess not.

I loved the show growing up, and the intro was fire 🔥 👌

Thank you for this series McMuscles. You suffer for use so we don't have to. Please cover Street Combat on the SNES at some point XD

FWIW - In faint defense of the Jaguar version, the Jaguar Pro Controller was a 6 button controller (you know, for all the awesome Jaguar fighting games) with the extra buttons mapped to the keypad 7, 8, and 9. That's why those buttons are used in the game. The controller had two shoulder buttons too, for... something. By the way, I nominate the Sega arcade game Holosseum. A weird and very unappealing fighting game.

Thanks Matt! I love this series. I remember I had some alien fighting game on the 32X as a kid. It was pretty interesting, you could wear different armor on different parts of your body. It wasn't very fun though.

I'd push the Amiga's "Capital Punishment" into the suggestion box. That game came out in '96 and had no real excuse to be what it was by then. On pretty much any count.

I am old enough to remember the cartoon, so maybe people my my age might still remember it. The game itself I kind of liked. My brother bought this game and since we were fighting game fans, we bought almost any fighting game that came out. I was a Blade main, so I would’ve been screwed with that other version, but we had SNES version which was cool. I’m trying to remember the music, but I can’t. I do remember liking it. For whatever reason, I don’t remember the fatalities in this. Totally forgot it had them. Cool video. Brings back memories.

My thought process when seeing the title of this vid is as follows: "How can a Double Dragon game be in the running for *Worst* Fighting Game?" "Wait, how is Double Dragon a fighting game, anyway?" "What'd you mean this is the *fifth* game in this series!?" Anyway, thanks for the vids as always!

Talking about how this game was marketed as DDV despite not really being immediately related to the main series reminded me of Japan having a similar deal with Hokuto no Ken of all things where it had a number of game releases on the Famicom and Super Famicom with different numerical iterations, but most of them not really having to do anything with each other as far as I remember (a good handful of them just roughly adapted the manga/anime which makes it even weirder). With that said the 6th and 7th iterations just so happened to be fighting games and both were...also kind bad, 7 in particular I recall being literally unplayable.

I don't remember it being exactly terrible, but in those days fighting game options were extremely rare. You'd finished Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat, World Heroes etc - and some of the more obscure games in the genre were just not easy to find in game rental stores, others were arcade only, so you ended up giving every game a chance. I do remember finishing this one, but I'd just call it bland at best. I tried to enjoy it, but it was only there to fill the hole that those other games left once you'd finished them. It was very different gaming in the nineties. You just didn't have every game at your fingertips, like today where people have thousands of untouched games in their libraries.

As good of a time as any other to say this: I loved your appearance in RCG2, Matt.

That soundtrack is indeed very catchy. I'll be singing that thing in the shower for weeks, thank you very much, Matt.

Thank you for let us rock out to the show’s theme song at the end 👍

I swear, after seeing Criticom, I have a different perspective on many of the games I played in the past. Also, I got this game from the rental store when I was younger and was extremely disappointed since I could only play games on the weekend.

That theme song unlocked some memories. Completely forgot I watched that show.

15:02 Ah, Jonathan Joestar. Glad to see you here

Fun fact in the pilot Jimmy was set up as the main villain of the show only for this to be completely thrown out in the second episode. The show was terrible but a Bimmy vs Jimmy rivalry would have been more interesting than the bloody Shadow Master.

I absolutely remember the Double Dragon cartoon and even watched a few episodes, but I had no idea this game existed until now.

I watched the tv show One thing that stood out was the dragon masks, which I always felt looked more like fish masks

STILL waiting for Shadow: War of Succession, Dangerous Streets, and Iron And Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft. I'm certain one of those HAVE to top Criticom.

I’d be curious to see an episode on Justice League Task Force (1995), an early Sunsoft/Blizzard (!) fighting game that was raked across the coals when it came out.

I remember playing this game emulated, it was most likely the Sega version because I don't remember seeing blood. Seeing Jawbreaker and Bones is what resurge that memory.

5:57 I wonder if that's related to the No Fear Pinball Machine as well

Battletoads double dragon most certainly needed to happen

Gonna keep asking for Heavy Nova until you comply.

At least it's not as bad as the 90s Double Dragon movie.

My theory is that the blood cleaning ants has to leave the area before the battle can end.

7:51 I’ll watch it,I’m actually intrigued Matt.

Man I remember playing the heck out of this as a rental.

still waiting on Mr. McMuscles to tackle Viccom's "Fight Fever" for the Neo Geo, yo!

Double Dragon wasn't a Saturday morning cartoon, FYI. It aired on Sundays in syndication.

Definitely watched the Cartoon as a kid. It definitely fell under just entertaining enough not to turn off the TV.

Seeing Matt Reference Bloodlust Software was both something I should've expected at some point yet was not prepared for.

Icepick being from "Nome" made me had to look it up if it was a typo or not. It's a city in Alaska.

2:32 shots fired at a significant part of my childhood. Doesn’t mean you’re wrong, but I’m still going to get my pitchfork out

Kyle Petty's No Fear Racing? That's a banger, tbh.

The blood has to leave the screen cause those few seconds are a chance for the blood to fight back. C'mon blood step it up!

That match over-screen used to terrify me when I was a kid. Granted, I was like 4 or 5 years old back then and it's actually the *music* that creeped me out more than the screen itself. I'm so glad you covered this game, it brought back memories. (By the way, I had no idea this was based on a TV show, let alone that there's even a TV show based on Double Dragon.) Oh yes, if you haven't covered Doomsday Warrior on the SNES before, please do! It's another weird stinky fighting game I played as a kid!

Let's all remember the poor kid at the end of every episodes credits having to wake up with a giant dic logo out side his window.

Hey Matt, you've mentioned Ultra Vortek a couple times in this series, is it getting an episode?

I would like to see a what happened on either the Ouya or the Google Stadia next

uhh what game is that @18:35 mark?