Rage of the Dragons NEO review: They are comin' back! And fighting!

Sometimes it’s fun to trace the backstory of odd or obscure games, because chances are the backstory is just as weird! A prime example of this is Rage of the Dragons, a Neo Geo fighting game I’ve been deeply curious about ever since I read about it on Wikipedia during a hyperfixation rabbit hole. That hyperfixation, by the way, was digging into the history of Double Dragon, the classic beat ‘em up series. We’ll get into that relationship shortly. Rage of the Dragons NEO is a new re-release of this early 2000s oddity that makes the game playable on modern platforms, and includes contemporary features like rollback netcode. A few key factors hold it back from being a bigger deal, but it’s still an interesting, distinct fighter in its own right that’s absolutely worth running sets in with friends.

An unusual path

I love the story behind this game, it’s so goofy. Back in 1994, a super bizarre adaptation of Double Dragon was released in theaters. In turn, the movie was adapted back into a video game by Technos (the long-defunct original company behind Double Dragon), but as a fighting game for Neo Geo platforms instead of the usual beat ‘em up style. A sequel was in the works, but due to Technos shutting down and the Double Dragon rights going elsewhere, the developer was forced to rework their game into a new IP. That’s how Rage of the Dragons was born, and the best part is how obviously Not Double Dragon it is. Not only are Billy and Jimmy “Lewis” the Ryu and Ken-like leads, but there are characters who clearly used to be Double Dragon staples Burnov and Abobo. Heck, the latter’s name was simply changed to Abubo. It’s awesome.

Rage of the Dragons amusingly even feels like a sequel. When you start the arcade mode, the opening includes a goofy splash screen exclaiming “THEY ARE COMIN’ BACK” in all caps, as if we’re looking at the return of an all-star cast and not a Legally Distinct New IP. Rage of the Dragons is otherwise light on story for obvious reasons, but the small ways you can connect the dots if you know what you’re looking for are pretty funny.

Double, uh, tag team action, with brothers!

It’s a shame the IP thing broke down and potentially hurt this game’s mass appeal, because it comes with a lot of cool ideas for a tag team fighter. Choosing two characters is more of a matter of character knowledge than immediate utility, as you don’t have “assist” moves like you’d expect in other fighters. Instead, you’re expected to strategically tag your partner in at crucial moments, with a tag meter that takes a while to recharge. You can even “sacrifice” a fighter mid-brawl, dropping out but offering boosts to the remaining partner. Finally, a dual attack system lets you trade a stock of meter for an offensive tag, and you can burn a second meter to make both characters turn the tag attack into a more exciting-looking super move. The coolest part of that mechanic is each character has a defined partner, making the tag super more elaborate if you use the canon pairings.

Combined with the tag mechanics is a focus on big combos. That sounds obvious for a fighting game, but there are bespoke mechanics that make starting combos easier. Each character has a sort of command combo, giving you several free hits and a juggle state if you use the right combination of punches and kicks. Each stage also has breakable barriers that cause a sort of bounce if you knock the opponent into them, so it’s possible to really go in on someone even without more in-depth mechanical knowledge. The tradeoff is that there are stricter rules for doing the kind of stuff you’d expect to see in other fighting games, with a lot of hard knockdowns making sure things don’t get too absurd off one hit. Of course, while that makes sense in theory, Rage of the Dragons is notoriously busted, with several characters having game-winning exploits that hurt the spirit of the intended mechanics and flow.

So what does NEO mean?

This is the part where we have to interrogate the new release. Rage of the Dragons NEO is cool, because it brings back a game that probably would’ve been left to emulation otherwise. Developer QUByte Interactive did something similar last year with Breakers Collection, bringing another set of cult classic fighting games out of obscurity. That’s awesome, and great for keeping niche games preserved alongside the ones that are obvious. The caveat is that this isn’t a fancy remaster or update; this is a port of the original arcade version with some bug fixes for a playable boss character that was literally game-breaking. An updated version is coming to exA-Arcadia arcade machines, but this is not that version. That said, several solid features are included to present this game well, such as an included CRT filter, something I will always shout out in a game that goes the extra mile beyond "pixel perfect" and scanline choices. You can even have the movelist for your character pinned to the screen, which is always helpful in learning without needing to pause and trying to immediately commit things to memory.

So, the exploits I mentioned earlier are intact for better or worse. This won’t be a concern for low-level or first-time players of course, unless they match up online with someone who knows the dirty tricks and isn’t above using them. It is what it is, and porting games warts and all is an important part of preservation. One thing first-timers and/or novice players will have to contend with is difficulty. Being a Neo Geo fighter of its era, Rage of the Dragons has deeply cruel CPU programming that blatantly reads your inputs and reacts with perfect frame accuracy. Casually playing the arcade mode is… kind of impossible. Here, you can watch me try, and I swear I'm a competent fighting game player, even if I'm not EVO material:

QUByte Interactive seems to be aware of the difficulty issue, and did include some valiant efforts to address it. There are several difficulty settings you can tweak before starting an arcade run, even ones that restore your health between fights or turn off the barriers. But the CPU is evil all the way down to the lowest level of easy mode, therefore making fighting it arguably inconducive to actually learning the game. Even the fun, little survival mode-like gimmick that’s new to this version has the gnarly CPU, making any single player action an exercise in figuring out exploiting inhuman programming in a way that, again, isn’t helpful in enjoying Rage of the Dragon’s intended systems or playing well against humans.

Online warriors? Anyone? Hello?

While this is a port, there are new features built around the core game in Rage of the Dragons NEO, such as online play. The problem is that there’s no cross-platform play, splitting the potential user base of an already niche fighter. I played the PlayStation 5 version, and every time I tried to get online I was greeted with the information that zero other players were connected. I’m not one of those “dead game” weirdos who judges things by concurrents on SteamDB, but not finding literally anyone to play with during the first week isn’t a good sign. But hey, there’s still local versus and lots of cool options in training mode, so you can still do what fighting games do best, which is spending time in the lab then playing with people in person.

So, where do we end up with this game? Rage of the Dragons NEO is a niche within a niche, an odd game with an odd history that appeals to an extremely specific kind of audience. That’s tough for any game, but especially a fighting game that has to compete with the likes of Street Fighter and Guilty Gear. Not having cross-platform play is an additional barrier that seems to already be making online an actual ghost town. That’s unfortunate. But if you’re interested in gaming history, fighting games, and the weird intersections thereof, Rage of the Dragons NEO is really cool. I can see it coming out in-between sets of the bigger titles, a fun side game at local tournaments, or just a cool thing for enthusiasts to satisfy their own curiosity with. The Bleem! IP is also involved somehow, making perhaps even this new version a novel relic of its own.

Rage of the Dragons NEO is available now for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X|S. A PS5 code was provided by the publisher for review.

Lucas White

Contributing Editor

Lucas plays a lot of videogames. Sometimes he enjoys one. His favorites include Dragon Quest, SaGa, and Mystery Dungeon. He's far too rattled with ADHD to care about world-building lore but will get lost for days in essays about themes and characters. Holds a journalism degree, which makes conversations about Oxford Commas awkward to say the least. Not a trophy hunter but platinumed Sifu out of sheer spite and got 100 percent in Rondo of Blood because it rules. You can find him on Twitter @HokutoNoLucas being curmudgeonly about Square Enix discourse and occasionally saying positive things about Konami.