The dying days of the world’s most expensive platform
QUByte Interactive has presented the fighting game community with the most unpredictable of announcements. It appears that the highly obscure tag-fighting title Rage of the Dragons — previously only available on the Neo Geo platform — will be getting a revamped re-release at some point next year on PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
Released in both arcades and the premium Neo Geo platform in 2002, Rage of the Dragons is one of the last games created for home Neo Geo hardware and was a co-development of studios Brezzasoft, Noise Factory, and Evoga. Originally conceived as a sequel to SNK’s Double Dragon fighter of 1995, the intellectual rights to Double Dragon could not be acquired. Thus, while suspiciously familiar characters such as Billy, Jimmy, and Abobo appear, I assure you they are absolutely NOT the Billy, Jimmy, and Abobo from Double Dragon. Honest. Yes, Jimmy’s girlfriend is “Maria.” So What?
Players pick a team of two characters from a pretty large roster of 14 individual fighters. Battling on a 2D plane, Rage of the Dragons plays out like most Neo Geo fighters of the SNK Playmore era, but does feature some neat pixel art and a hard-rocking soundtrack. QUByte did not offer any details in the way of added features, but its upcoming rerelease Breakers Collection will include a training mode and online play with rollback netcode — so hopefully Rage of the Dragons will be afforded the same cool additions. We’ll be sure to give y’all a heads-up when more info is forthcoming.