Double Dragon Neon/Game Mechanics and Glitches
From SDA Knowledge Base
Contents
Basic Attacks
Weapons
| Weapon | Stages | Durability | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knife | 1,2,3,4 | 12(?) | Does medium damage for weapons, attacks very fast and cancels into itself. Interrupts enemy actions even if they have armor. Extremely useful and common weapon. |
| Bat | 1,2,3 | 10(?) | Medium-High damage, mid-speed swing. Does a ton of stun damage, sends stunned enemies flying and will wall-bounce them. Interrupts some armored actions, but not Abobo's |
| Stun Rod | 4 | 10(?) | Medium damage, cancels into itself, does a huge amount of stun damage. |
| Whip | 1,2,9 | 12(?) | Medium damage, covers a huge area and can hit enemies in front twice. Interrupts armored actions, and will hit twice at once if it stuns an enemy. |
| Gun | 10 | ? | Low damage, mid-speed swing, but does next to no hitstun so many enemies will get a chance to hit you for free afterwords. Might setup for correct duck timing afterwords against some enemies? Really, this is a joke weapon and should probably be avoided. |
| Fan | 3,4,10 | 1 (Thrown) | Always thrown, does 4(?) hits at low damage per hit, then launches enemies stunned by it towards the thrower. Really cool concept of a weapon, but low damage limits its usefulness in a speedrun setting. |
| Grenade | 4,9,10 | 1 (Thrown) | Always thrown, high damage delayed explosion. If you use karate finish with this in your hand, the grenade will explode immediately. |
| Sai | 10 | 10 (?) | Basically, this is a slightly worse and much less common version of the knife. It does have slightly longer range, though. |
| Katana | 10 | 10 | High damage, fast swing, and interrupts all enemy actions. Easily the best weapon in the game. |
| Hair Pick | All(?) | ? (Thrown) | Always thrown, always does 1 damage. Using this on the Skullmageddon fights prevents him from shooting his fireballs. Other enemies this will stick in their head. This is only here for completion, as its really just achievement fodder. |
| Spike Ball | 6,10 | 3 (Thrown)(?) | Always thrown. The damage this does is determined by the difficulty, not by your setup. On normal, it's damage is pretty bad so it is not useful, but on Dragon and Double Dragon it starts to do really high amounts. It can hit Abobo's 4 times, so it does a ton of damage to them on Double Dragon. |
| Sickle | 5,6 | 5 (?) | Mid damage, mid speed swing. Interrupts all enemy actions, and on hit it can force tape drops. Useful for trying to salvage runs at the end of stage 5 that didn't get proper luck. |
| Meat Club | 9 | 8 (?) | Mid-high damage, mid speed swing. Interrupts all enemy actions. On hit, you recover a decent amount of health. |
| Zombie Head | 9 | 1 (Thrown) | Always throw, 4(?) hits of low-mid damage. |
| Magic Wand | 9 | ? | Fires a projectile that can pierce to hit 4 targets. The wand itself can hit as well for mid damage. |
| 2x4 | 10 | 10 (?) | Mid-high damage, mid speed swing, interrupts all enemy actions. Huge range, and enemies killed sent flying by this weapon can collide with and damage other enemies as if you had thrown them. |
| Key | 2,4,9,10 | ? | Extremely slow, low damage attack. Use this to open chests, not to attack, dummy. |
| Barrel | 1,2,8 | 1 (Thrown) | Always thrown, does damage based on the difficulty, and goes through multiple enemies. You can start them rolling by using the running heavy attack as well as picking them up. |
| Explosive Barrel | 2,6,10 | 1 (Thrown) | Like the regular barrel, but explodes on contact instead of rolling through people. |
Todo: Check all stage locations and durability values.
Tapes
All tapes can be gotten both as random drops, with each tape dropping from specific enemies, and also be purchased from specific shops.
Stances
| Stance | Description |
|---|---|
| Balanced | A bit of everything. Assumed average in each stat. |
| Training Wheels | Extreme HP and defense, slightly poor attack, and horrible mp. Good for learning boss patterns. |
| Power Gambit | Extremely high attack, low HP and MP, and extremely low defense. With gleam up, this is the most damaging stance at any level, and without gleam it still beats out desperation and successive strikes until high tape levels. |
| Magic Gambit | High MP, average attack, low HP and defense. Also increases MP regen rate, so could be a good choice if using skills a lot benefits the situation. Power gambit will still generally get better use of mp just due to its high damage. |
| Stunner | Above average attack, slightly below average MP, HP and defense. Causes enemies to be stunned in 25% less hits, which is actually more of a problem than a blessing. |
| Rage | Slightly low attack, low HP, MP, and defense. Extends the length of time gleam remains active by 3 to 10 seconds, depending on the level. This time bonus remains active if you switch stances, but whether the menu time would make it valuable is questionable. |
| Weapons Up | Good defense, slightly above average HP, average attack, and low MP. Increases the durability of weapons by a maximum of about 50%. Power gambit is generally a better way to get damage out of weapons, but could be useful for novices since it has good defense. |
| Successive Strikes | Low HP and attack, slightly low defense, average MP. For each hit you've done since last getting hit, your power increases. Max 50 hits, and even then the damage doesn't get all that high. The damage bonus for each hit increases with level, but even at level 50 the bonus doesn't get good enough to compare to power gambit and desperation. There's no reason to use this stance except maybe if you want to be showy. |
| Desperation | High defense, slightly low attack, average MP, extremely low HP. Gets a damage boost when under 50% health. The damage bonus is terrible at low levels, but scales up extremely well. Easily the most powerful stance non-gleamed at level 50, and falls just short of power gambit when gleamed. In NG+ with desperation at 50, the damage bonus can be triggered by equipping a level 10 absorb, exiting the menu, then switching back to desperation. Potentially this could be the route for NG+ since this has good MP compared to power gambit, but gleaming doesn't really cost time in many situations so most likely it will not be faster. Plus its mad risky since you effectively will die to most random hits. |
| Absorb | Slightly low to low everything. Recovers some HP each time you hit an enemy, with the amount recovered depending on the level absorb. Can be good for casual play just because of the regen, but not useful for any category of speedrun. |
Below is a relative measure of each skill's stats. Keep in mind these are the base stats, and do not reflect conditional damage bonuses (such as from number of hits on successive strikes or being at low health with desperation). All of these are at level 50 (max), with balance being used as default stats.
Sosetsitsu
| Name | MP use | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Knee Drop | 14 | Can only be used while airborne, even if you are in recoil from getting hit. Billy drops straight down, damaging enemies, and creates an explosion which does additional damage when he lands. The explosion OTGs, but usually misses enemies who float above the ground. This skill does great damage for its cost and speed, and is extremely useful in most areas because of it. |
| Bro Dozer | 10 | Billy charges forward with a high elbow. He has armor during this attack. Cancels into itself, and can cause a wall-bounce on airborne enemies. A really cool skill for combos, but generally doesn't do great damage. Having armor means you could potentially go through some boss patterns and platforming sections with it, but taking full damage and the mp use limits this application severely. |
| Spin Kick | 25 | Can be used in the air. Billy spins in place with his foot out. Good damage and very difficult to be hit out of. The high MP cost and the long length of the attack limit its usefulness for speed. |
| Fireball | 20 | Billy throws fire. Does poor damage, especially at low levels. At high levels, it starts piercing through to hit multiple enemies, but its damage still isn't particularly high for the cost and lack of utility. |
| Dragon Swarm | 50 | Billy summons a dragon to damage the entire screen. In theory this could be useful in some of the bigger fights for NG+, but the damage is terrible and the attack takes forever. Not only that, but it potentially will not hit Roxies who are floating too high. |
| One Inch Punch | 20 | A very short range, delay strike. The start of the move has some armor, and the move always sends enemies flying and knocks them down. Great move if you really, really want to move people around. Otherwise it's pretty lackluster. |
| Bomb Toss | 20 | Billy pulls a bomb out from...somewhere. Effectively, this works the same way as the grenade items, but with a longer fuse and can never hit the player. The bomb always will knock enemies down, and will explode instantly when you OTG an enemy with karate finish while holding it (which will knock them down again for a nice easy loop). |
| Lightning | 7 | Directly strikes the nearest enemy for minor damage. At level 30, this targets the nearest 3 enemies instead. Great for cleaning up some fights on NG, and is a completely amazing skill for NG+ since it clears out mobs almost instantly. If there are no enemy targets, it will strike the caster instead. |
| Healing Touch | 25 | A delayed punch that heals living targets, friendly or otherwise. Conversely, it damages undead enemies. This move ignores the friendly fire option in the menu, and always knocks down. |
| Song Snatch | 8 | A quick backhand. Hitting an enemy with this will sometimes causes them to drop any item they could normally drop when they die. Interesting combo possibilities since you can cancel the recovery in the same way you can cancel a normal moves recovery. |
(Note: The MP use is a comparative amount collecting empirically using this formula: 100/# consecutive uses on magic gambit level 5)
Upgrades and Smithing
At the start of the game, up to 10 of each tape can be collected. Mithril, collected from bosses, allows the maximum level of each tape to be increased in increments of 10 up to a maximum of 50. The amount of mithril a boss drops depends on the difficulty being played, and the amount it costs to upgrade a tape depends on its current max level. Tapesmiths can be found only in stages 2 and 9.
| Difficulty | Mithril dropped |
|---|---|
| Normal | 3 |
| Dragon | 7 |
| Double Dragon | 14 |
| Current Max | Amount to increase |
|---|---|
| 10 | 2 |
| 20 | 6 |
| 30 | 10 |
| 40 | 12 |
So, to upgrade a tape to level 50 takes a total of 30 mithril. Keep in mind, this only increases the cap on what you can have, you still have to find or purchase the tapes.
Shop lists and drop tables
| Skill | Stage | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Fireball | 2 | 900 |
| Spin Kick | 2 | 900 |
| Dragon Swarm | 2 | 1100 |
| Balance | 2 | 1100 |
| Training Wheels | 2 | 900 |
| Bro Dozer | 3 | 1000 |
| Bomb Toss | 3 | 1000 |
| Magic Gambit | 3 | 1200 |
| Successive Strikes | 3 | 1200 |
| Desperation | 3 | 1300 |
| Spin Kick | 5 | 900 |
| One Inch Punch | 5 | 1000 |
| Song Snatch | 5 | 900 |
| Power Gambit | 5 | 1200 |
| Weapons Up | 5 | 1100 |
| Dragon Swarm | 8 | 1100 |
| Bomb Toss | 8 | 1000 |
| Healing Touch | 8 | 1000 |
| Rage | 8 | 1300 |
| Knee Drop | 10 | 900 |
| Lightning | 10 | 1100 |
| Stunner | 10 | 1200 |
| Successive Strikes | 10 | 1200 |
| Absorb | 10 | 1300 |
| Enemy | Drops |
|---|---|
| Williams | Balance, Training Wheels, Knee Drop |
| Science and Ultimate Williams | Absorb, Lightning |
| Skeleton Williams | Healing Touch, Lightning |
| Linda | Spin Kick, Fireball |
| Red Linda | Stunner |
| Skeleton Linda | Healing Touch, Lightning |
| Abobo | Power Gambit, Rage |
| Hoverbizzle | Successive Strikes |
| TNT Hoverbizzle | Bomb Toss |
| Geisha | Magic Gambit, Desperation |
| Shinobi | Weapons Up, One Inch Punch |
| Black Suit Shinobi | Song Snatch |
| Roxy | Bro Dozer |
| Bimmy and Jammy | Knee Drop |
| Zombies | Healing Touch |
| Bao Boshi | Lightning, Magic Gambit |
Note: this table was done off the top of my head, and probably has omissions and errors
Bugs and Glitches
Invisible Barrels: Shoving or throwing a barrel into an explosive barrel will result in the thrown barrel rolling in the other direction, but without a sprite. This can be used in stage 8 to have a barrel attack for a long time, but its primary use is to save a small amount of time in the giant tank fight phases 2 and 3.
Flying Kives Despawn: In stage 8, when the flying knives appear, you can despawn all but the first knife by running and jumping repetitively.
Permanent Tank Explosion: In the giant tank fight in 2 player mode, if either player loses their last life and the other player finishes off the last phase of the tank before he game overs, the tank will continuously explode.
Fading Gleam: If you attempt to dodge to gleam just as a previous gleam starts to fade, you will not get another gleam.
Everlasting Acid Vial: If you are holding a vial of acid and use karate finish, the acid will never stop burning. You can also pick up the burning acid, which will continue to function as a burning pool of acid in your hand, but will also have all the properties you normally have while holding a vial of acid.
Offscreen for Killacopter: In stage 6, jumping into the 2nd pit correctly will result in Billy respawning off-screen. With patience, the Killacopter will kill off all his own minions, and you can continue, or you can walk back onto the screen.
End of Stage Softlock: If you initiate a high five pose at a specific time as the stage ends, Billy may not initiate the stage end, and the game will be softlocked.
