Play Double Dragon V - The Shadow Falls on sega Online

Double Dragon V takes the classic beat 'em up series and throws it into a one-on-one fighter, Street Fighter-style. It’s weird at first—Billy and Jimmy Lee trading punches in a tournament setup instead of cleaning up the streets—but once you get past that, it’s a decent fighter for its time.

The roster pulls from the old cartoon (yeah, there was a Double Dragon cartoon), so you’ve got weirdos like the cybernetic Dominique and the masked Shadow Master himself. The controls are stiff compared to something like Street Fighter II, but there’s a weird charm to landing a spinning kick combo with Marian or pulling off Burnov’s ridiculous flame attacks.

Story-wise, it’s basically "beat up bad guys, save the world," but the real fun is in the goofy character designs and seeing how they translated brawler moves into a fighting game. Just don’t expect it to feel like the arcade classics. The Shadow Master’s waiting at the end, and he’s as cheesy as you’d hope.