Old School Beatem Up at its finest. They don't make em like they used to.
Gameplay: Punch, Kick, Block, Jump, Grab (which gets broken down into punches or kicks or knees etc.) and a boost ability (spinning tornado kick anyone?). Tons of weapons ranging from knives, to barrels to rocks to nunchucks. Lots of enemies waiting to be beaten down, some more agressive than others, each with their own style and abilities. It's up to you how to beat the enemies up. My personal favorite thing was a glitch of sorts which required a second player. Each person would surround the boss, or reguar enemy and punch him back and forth. If timed correctly it would make this machine gun punch sound and the damage would go up exponentially. Literally the second you knocked the boss down it died... Ah, satisfying.
The only drawbacks in this game are there was a level (the canyon) in which you had to jump over a broken rope bridge... Man, no matter how perfect you aligned that, it almost always killed you (and your partner). Sometimes that would make the difference between having enough lives to beat the game or not. That always irritated me, and like in the other double dragon games, particularly 2 for the NES, these jumping sequences marred an otherwise perfect game. The other aggrivating problem with this game is certain enemies who initiate cheap attacks, such as a slide kick with no forward momentum, or the fat level 5 clown boss who does some spinning hurricane attack. They aren't even fair, but I guess Billy and Jimmy whup so much A double crooked letter, there needs to be balance.
Graphics: For the time, the sprites were very detailed and beautiful. The first level, Las Vegas, was a decent recreation of a chunk of the City of Sin with all the neon lights and flashing signs. The other levels were quite detailed as well, particularly in the chinese style fortress with dragons and multiple flourishes and bracketing of the architecture. Sure, it wasn't in 3d, but if the game is great, as long as we aren't dealing with pong anymore, graphics are secondary to the gameplay and fun.
Sound: Oh yea, everyone knows the Double Dragon Theme song. It appeared in the end of River City Ransom when you fought the Dragon Twins (a little homage to the greatest of all time). The Minibosses even covered it. There were plenty of other memorable tracks in the game. The sound effects are great, particularly the sound of the nunchucks whacking someone in the head, or the sound your backhand pimp slap grab move makes against the enemy's heads.
Value: The game wasn't incredibly long, but it was a good 2 hours or so. But the fact of the matter is that with friends, you can play it through multiple times and it still is a boatload of fun.
Tilt: This is one of those games that stays in your mind forever as one of the greats. It is something in fact I reminisced with my cousin about last night. It's just so fun pounding the crap out of people together. Sadly, there are very few games of this quality any longer, at least in the beatem up coop style. There just isn't anything like this game anymore, and very few games withstand the test of time so well.