Super Double Dragon
Image: Technōs Japan

Released in 1992 in North America (we Brits, unfortunately, had to wait another year), Super Double Dragon was the first title in the series to be made exclusively for the 16-bit SNES and the first to not be based on an existing arcade cabinet.

At the time, publications gave it some pretty respectable reviews, praising it for its colourful presentation and excellent sound design, but in the years since developers, such as its lead game designer Muneki Ebinuma, have since revealed that it was created under a difficult time crunch. As a result of this, many of its planned features, such as important cutscenes and animations had to be scrapped.

In the last decade, a fan named Mau Herrera developed an OpenBor remake of the game that tried to reintroduce some of these features called The Legend of The Double Dragon, and since then he has started working on another expanded version called Ultimate Double Dragon.

Ultimate Double Dragon aims to include many of the features, which were introduced in The Legend of The Double Dragon while adding new 16-bit sound effects and music, moves and combos, and faster animations. What's perhaps most interesting about the project, however, is that it features contributions from former Technōs artist Kôji Ogata, who was credited on a string of Double Dragon games. He has contributed some updated sprite work and cutscenes.

If you want to play Ultimate Double Dragon, there are currently some in-progress demos available from the project's website, which have been developed for PC. Here you'll also find some details about Herrera's other projects too, including the aforementioned The Legend of the Double Dragon and Fight Forever, a new fanmade take on Capcom's Final Fight.

Are you going to give the demo a try? Let us know in the comments!

[source youtu.be]