Super Double Dragon, released in Japan as Return of Double Dragon: "Sleeping Dragon" has Awoken (リターン・オブ・双截龍, Ritān Obu Daburu Doragon), is a side-scrolling beat-'em-up released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992. It was published by Tradewest in North America and the PAL region and by Technōs Japan in Japan. Super Double Dragon is the fourth console game in the Double Dragon series developed by Technōs Japan, following Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones for the NES. The game did not have an arcade release and was made specifically for the home market.
In 2018, a slightly enhanced Japanese version, Return of Double Dragon, was re-released by Tommo in Japan and under its Retroism brand in North America.[1][2] Despite being officially licensed, this release is only guaranteed to work on third-party hardware.
As with previous installments of the series, the player takes control of martial artists Billy and Jimmy in their fight against the Shadow Warriors gang. The objective is to proceed through each stage and defeat all enemies, including a boss. The game consists of seven stages, which includes a casino, an airport, a martial arts dojo, a fight atop a moving truck, a city slum, a forest, and the hideout of the boss.
In addition to the punch, kick, and jump buttons, the player now has a guard button for blocking attacks. If the player times the guard button right, their character can not only defend against an enemy's punch, they can also put certain enemies in an arm grab, leaving the enemy vulnerable to successive attacks. The arm grab only works on Williams, Roper, Steve, Jackson and the Chin brothers. There's also a "Dragon Power" gauge under the life gauge, which the player can fill by holding down the L or R buttons. While the gauge is filling up, the player can perform special attacks which vary depending on how much power the player has accumulated, which includes a flying hurricane kick. If the power gauge is completely filled, then the player's regular attacks will gain extra strength for a limited period.
Super Double Dragon is one of the few games in the series where the protagonists of Billy and Jimmy Lee were differentiated, not just in their in-game character designs (where the brothers were given different hair styles), but also in their fighting abilities. Particularly, the two characters have different basic punches (in Return of Double Dragon, Jimmy's roundhouse kick is also different).
Muneki Ebinuma, who worked as the lead game designer of Super Double Dragon, published a commentary about his involvement in the development of the game in 2004, where he detailed his original plans for the game that he was unable to fully realize due to time constraints. The game was supposed to feature cut-scenes prior to boss battles and between stages, as well as a full ending sequence, in contrast to the lack of in-game plot in the retail release (where no explanation is given as to why Billy and Jimmy Lee are fighting the enemy). The plot would've involved Billy and Jimmy Lee investigating a criminal organization known as the Shadow Warriors following the disappearances of several local martial artists, eventually coming face to face with their leader Duke, who would've been revealed to had been a childhood friend of the Lee brothers. The character of Marian was also supposed to appear in the game as a policewoman who assisted the Lee brothers (an occupation she had in the Double Dragon comic book and animated series produced around the time). While Marian is still mentioned in the instruction manual and packaging description, she never actually appears in the retail version of the game. In addition to the cut-scenes, some of the stages were supposed to have more traps and obstacles, and there was supposed to an additional boss after defeating Duke.[3]
Return of Double Dragon features several significant differences from Super Double Dragon: the title theme and most of the background music were shuffled around (e.g. the Mission 1 theme from Super Double Dragon is played during Mission 4 in Return of Double Dragon) and the player can perform certain actions which cannot be done in Super Double Dragon (such as retrieving a boomerang after throwing it or hitting an opponent more than once successively with the hurricane kick). The enemy placement is also different in both versions and weapons such as knives and incendiary bombs do less damage in Return of Double Dragon. Jimmy's punches are not as fast, but hit harder, and his roundhouse kick is performed faster than Billy's. There are times where enemies will randomly crouch, particularly when Billy or Jimmy try to finish a combo, which makes them dodge the attack. The higher the difficulty, enemies will do this more frequently. The final Mission also features two additional levels before the final battle. An Option Mode is included in Return of Double Dragon as well, allowing players to adjust the game's difficulty level, increase extra credits and also listen to the game's music and sound effects.
IGN ranked the game at 92nd in their "Top 100 SNES of All Time".[21]