Double Dragon II: Spin-Kicking Down the Rabbit Hole, or, "A Review No One Will Read"

This is why I'm here, isn't it? The reason for this blog, the reason I constantly write essays about videogames despite the fact that nobody reads them, the reason I find a lot of entertainment nowadays to be completely devoid of a soul -- it's all because of Double Dragon II.

Well, for the most part.

Occasionally, I reach into the drawer where my NES is kept, pull out the system and cartridge, and start whaling away on bad guys. These bad guys, they just never learn, do they? I'm just a never-ending spin-kicking machine of doom and blood and death, and they constantly walk straight into the hurricane of legs. Just like real life. Seriously, people. Get some glasses or contacts or something.

Reno, Nevada used to be my home town, see? The Biggest Little City in the World was the place that taught me to never trust strangers with candy, lest you wanted to be taken away somewhere you didn't want to be -- and it also was the place where strangers with candy learned never to trust little kids who learned how to spin-kick strangers with candy in the face. Again, I'd like to reiterate that "hurricane of legs" image.

There's this little violence in videogames debate going on right now. Well, as of this moment, let me tell you that the politicians and prissy soccer moms were right: I, a GoforBroak writer, spun-kick a stranger with candy so hard in the face, he ended up dead (more than dead, actually. The cops had to pry my tennis shoe from the guy's brain cavity) because of an NES game. To make a long, legal story short, Double Dragon II: The Revenge was my terrible, wicked, and violent teacher, and I was the best goddamn student it ever had. Whenever I saw a bunch of red-haired guys cartwheeling toward me like a couple of idiots, I readied my mental simultaneous A + B button press and kicked the hell out of them. Whenever dudes with bandannas began to back up slowly, as if they were about to throw something in my general direction, I mentally pressed up or down, dodged that shit, and totally kicked the hell out of them. Whenever Arnold Shwarzenegger showed up (he's in the game, by the way, and nicely orange) and attempted to lay down some sort of crazy foreign policy, I absolutely positively kicked the hell out of his Austrian ass.

(Except sometimes he would do that head-bash move. I could never get around that one.)

In reality, though, and not in some vague spin-kicking fantasy of mine, I love Double Dragon II. It's still a game I can go back to time and time again and still have a good time -- in fact, playing it is almost like riding a bike, really. Depending on the direction your character is facing on screen, pressing A or B would either punch or kick. Facing right: A would punch, B would kick. Facing left: the opposite (and correct me if I'm wrong on this, dear nonexistent reader, as I'm not completely positive. So much for the "riding a bike" analogy.). Pressing both buttons at once would execute a jump and pressing them again while in the air: the dreaded spin-kick.

When the game first came out, I could never beat it with the default three lives. It was pretty much all over once I made it to that stage with the dripping fireballs and blinking wall-eyes -- for my dad, the gear room (complete with jumping needles, rotating gears, and spikes on the floor) was his downfall. I remember him getting especially angry whenever he reached that level, and when he'd inevitably lose, my mom would semi-console him in a sarcastic voice,

"Now, now, it's only a game."

Yes, we knew it was only a game, but for the two of us, both of our respective levels represented a laughing malevolent villain standing in the way, mocking our pathetic attempts to reach the final stage. My dad probably saw this cackling persona in the jumping needles. For me, I saw the villain in those blinking eyes...and he wasn't laughing. Just simply standing there, grinning, as if he was privileged to know some pivotal information I didn't have access to.

I discovered his dark secret a little while later:

In order to beat the game, I had to kill Jimmy.

***

See, three lives weren't enough to pass that godforsaken fire-dripping stage. Every time I would take a leap of faith, hoping I wouldn't get "thwacked!" by a slice of Hell itself, and immediately be shot down, falling to my demise. It wasn't entirely all that great of an experience, and I was a little frustrated, to be honest. But one day, while messing around with one of the two-player modes, I found out, that, when Billy beats the crap out of his brother Jimmy, Billy gets an extra life.

Oh, this was absolutely delicious. Not on a malicious level, mind you, but on a "Oh My God, I Finally Can Beat the Game" level. Also: "Deliciously Malicious" might make a earth-shatteringly great slogan for Lucky Charms. Trust me on this -- after taking five years of business classes and struggling though countless marketing meetings, I am more than ready to set the commercial world on fire. Get ready, people. LUCKY CHARMS ARE BECOMING DELICIOUSLY MALICIOUS!

Tangent, tangent.

So yes, armed to the teeth with seven lives -- count 'em: seven -- I challenged Double Dragon II once more...and still had my ass handed to me. The final boss, a long-haired, back-flipping, pirouette-spinning, occasionally invisible bastard, became my arch-nemesis after attempting to defeat him for I-don't-know how many times. I reflected back to Jimmy: his heroic sacrifice was all for naught. My videogame brother, a helpless, lifeless, pixelated corpse...all because of me.

I cried a little that night.

But you know, as they say in the Wonderful World of Cliches, practice makes perfect, and today, I can beat the game with the default three lives. Hot diggity!

And now the street brawler genre is pretty much dead. Aside from, what, God Hand and Final Fight: Streetwise (both games the press didn't seem to appreciate all that much), one of my favorite pastimes has vanished and I'm left here standing, a twitch in my agile legs. What happened? Doesn't anyone like to kick the crap out of bad guys anymore? I guess now this act is done with a bunch of ultra-violent firearms and not with a intensely-muscly pair of real arms. Pining for the good 'ol days won't get you anywhere, though.

***

Here, I now stand alone, my legs twitching, itching, ready. Yet I cannot move.

"Go for broak," says the misspelled spray-painted wall during the prologue to Stage 2.

I blink. "Uh, what? What was that?"

"Go for broak!" the voice says again, this time a little louder.

"Huh? You're not making any sense. Volume does not beget comprehension, ya know."

Finally, it shrieks, "GO FOR BROAK! JUST MAKE THAT FUCKING LEAP OF BALLSY, COURAGEOUS FAITH AND GO...FOR...BROAK!"

So I did. And now I'm endlessly spin-kicking down the rabbit hole, a goddamn hurricane of legs, fleshy helicopter blades in the wind. This is life, and I'm living it.