Double Dragon II

This game has a run page on SDA!

Special Moves

Spinning Cyclone: press a + b to jump and at the peak of your jump press a or b.

Hyper Uppercut: press a (if facing right) or b (if facing left) from the crouched position (either getting up or landing on the ground).

High Jump Kick (knee): press a + b + left or right (depending on which direction you want to go) from the crouched position.

General Strategy

Perfecting the special moves is a must in this game, especially the knee. If you cannot perform the knee 95% or more of the time you will have trouble running this game. The most important key to doing well in a run of this game is...

Positioning. The way in which you position yourself in relation to enemies will determine which patterns/moves they execute and whether or not they crouch. This takes practice and experience but once you play enough you will begin to get a feel for what distances are best for jumping towards enemies. It is helpful to use the background as a marker to help you see your exact positioning in certain situations (e.g. Mission 1 Burnov).

Nullifying the enemy crouch: This concept is very important since no one is perfect at positioning and enemies will crouch sometimes. If and enemy crouches focus on him and you will see that as you land he/she will begin to stand up. As soon as you see the enemies stand up animation begin perform your knee (there are only a few frames in which to do so). This works on every single enemy that can crouch, but the timing on their stand up animation varies so you have to watch them closely.

Mission 1 - Into the Turf

Tricks/Glitches: Send Burnov off the rooftop for the fastest fight. After defeating the 2 sets of Williams on the roof spawn Burnov and let him come after back toward the left side of the roof. Go to the left edge of the garage door and wait for him to get close enough that you can take 2 steps forward and jump over him and knee him to the left. After the first knee connects do 2 more consecutively and the 2nd one will send him over the edge.

Mission 2 - The Heliport

Tricks/Glitches: Death as a shortcut can be used at the very beginning of the mission after defeating the 1st two ropers simply walk off the left edge of the platform and fall to your death. You will respawn at the bottom of the pipe ladder and will have saved ~3 seconds. Note that if you walk off the edge to quickly the screen will not scroll and you will respawn at the top rather than the bottom.

Mission 3 - In the Chopper

Tricks/Glitches: After defeating the 2nd Bolo you can close the door by performing a cyclone kick. Do this if the door has just opened or you anticipate the door opening right after you defeat him and before the end of mission music begins. Once the door at the end of the mission in this circumstance it will not close until it is supposed to (3-4 seconds) or until you perform a cyclone kick.

Mission 4 - Undersea Base

Tricks/Glitches: Death abuse can be used at the very beginning of the mission by immediately walking straight down and falling into the water. By doing this you will respawn much further to the right of the screen than where you started and effectively control the randomness of the first 2 Ropers whom either walk forwards (good) or backwards (bad). The death abuse ensures they never walk backwards and you can thereby control the screen scrolling for the 3rd Roper and Lindas ensuring they all come from the right of the screen.

Mission 5 - Forest of Death

Tricks/Glitches: Fast Abore (Arnold) fight. After defeating the 2 Right Arms at the top of the train move to the left of the door and jump before Abore comes out uppercutting him to the right as you land and he appears. After this take a few steps toward him and jump over him just before he gets up and knee him to the left (he should land at the left edge of the train). Take one step forward and jump toward him delivering the final knee as you land.

Mission 6 - Mansion of Terror

Tricks/Glitches: Early exit (discovered by honorableJay). At the end of the mission jump to the 2nd disappearing/reappearing platform and move to the right edge of it. From there you can jump directly to the exit door and hold up to enter it. This trick takes extremely accurate positioning and is not easy to perform. Watch an example of the early exit in the 1 player TAS by jprophet22.

Mission 7 - Trap Room

Tricks/Glitches: Perform a quick Burnov fight by replicating the strategy from mission 1 to send him over the edge onto the spikes. In this case you can jump over him as soon as he enters the screen since there is no screen scrolling involved and he will travel the full distance with each knee. This strategy can be used later in the mission against the Ropers on the 2nd disappearing bridge.

Mission 8 - Double Illusion

Tricks/Glitches: Perform the quick Ninja fight by walking to the far right and back left as they spawn and run towards you. Jump towards them at the correct distance and hit them both with a jump kick. Then immediately walk forward until you are at the feet of the Ninja closest to you and jump then as you land they will be getting up and you can finish them both with a knee. After this walk to the right then back left and repeat the other steps for the second set.

Mission 9 - Final Confrontation

Tricks/Glitches: Just before the fight begins there are two more cutscenes to scroll through. In order to get the optimal pattern scroll the first cutscene on the 1st note of the music playing and the second cutscene on the 6th note. If performed correctly you can walk to the top of the screen jump to the right and connect with the 1st knee as the shadow warrior will not do his backflips to escape. After connecting with the 1st knee take a step forward jump, and knee, then repeat that once more. After connecting with the 3rd knee take 1 step to the left, jump straight up, and knee right when you land. Repeat this once and you will be into the 2nd half of the fight. After landing from the 5th knee simply face right as you land (do not walk) jump straight up, and knee right upon landing. Repeat this 3 times and the fight is over.

Timing

This game is timed starting when the player gains control of the character (as soon as Mission 1 begins) and ending when the player loses control of the character which occurs when the screen goes completely black for a split second (~3 seconds after delivering the final hit in Mission 9).

Run Categories

No death runs and death runs are separate categories. 1 player and 2 player are also seperate categories.