Double Dragon isn't a terribly long game, but you only gt three lives to work with, and that makes it somewhat of a feat when you finally do get to the last boss (spoiler alert, I guess).

But what might not be obvious (at least it wasn't obvious when I first played this stage) is that where the blue stuff is on the bottom of the screen is the wall of whatever building you're in, and there's no rail there, so stray too far down there and

You dead.

So you might want to stay up in the top 80% of the screen just to be on the safe side.

In Double Dragon's Mission 3, you will eventually come across a pair of green Abobos. They're kind of tough, since you have less room to maneuver than normal.

But you can use that to your advantage.

If you can back Abobo up so that his back is touching the wall on the left

And give him a jumpkick to the face, he'll fall through the wall!

Saving you precious life-points.

The Battletoads games are hard. So are the Double Dragon games. Mash them together for whatever reason, and you get a game that's also pretty tough.

But you have a secret weapon.

If you go to the Character Select screen

Then press

B, A, Down, B, Up, Down

You'll hear a noise. Finish selecting your character by pressing Start and behold!

The Super Warp Zone! Which also gives you five lives to play with.

And you're going to need every one of them.

You might remember this screen shot from a prior tip about Double Dragon for the NES.

I said that I liked walking off the edge of the platform like that because Billy makes a silly face when I do. But was that the wrong thing to do? Page 58 of Compute!'s Guide to Nintendo Games seems to think so, Steven Schwartz writes:

Also, don't just walk off the end of the wall. Jump if you don't want to lose life points.

I tested this by walking up to that same ledge and walking right off a dozen times in a row. The result? No life lost.

So go ahead and make Billy pull that silly face by walking off that wall, it won't cost any life points.

Sorry, Steven.

I mentioned the other day that Double Dragon had its fair share of glitches and oddities, I wasn't kidding, the game's chock full of them. Here's another one.

Toward the end of Mission 1 you see this screen.

You see those vertical... things on the right-hand side? Position yourself between them and press Up on the control pad. Then, behold!

You start moving up the wall!

To get down, you can climb back down by pressing Down (duh), you can press Left or Right to magically reappear back at the bottom, or you can press an attack button to fall down in a comically tragic fashion.

The third choice is my preference.

For such a small, short game, Double Dragon sure has its share of glitches and oddities.

Like this drum in Mission 1.

If you pick it up

Walk over to the nearest building (before it's been scrolled off the screen) and walk diagonally-up-right at the corner, you kind of go 'inside' it.

Once there, toss your drum and behold!

It glitches out and flies up and off the screen, possibly into space.

Too bad that's the only drum in the whole game.

In Double Dragon's Mission 2, right after you get all your hearts, you probably want to continue on with the game. Go a little further in, and you fight Chin.

Now, you could just beat on him until he flashes and disappears like normal, or you could go back down the ladders. Go down two ladders and he dies somehow... I don't think I'm up to rationalizing it.

Or you could use one of your new abilities to grab his hair and toss him off the side.

Either way and you'll be well on your way to the next Mission.

In the NES version of Double Dragon, you have this weird Heart System to deal with that earns your moves. Essentially, as you beat up bad guys you get heart points, get 1000 heart points and you get another heart and another fighting move.

It's kind of tedious to earn moves this way, I'd much rather have all my moves up front for maximum face-smashing potential.

So, to speed the process along, go to Mission 2, right past the big pit. Go just far enough to make the two Williams appear. Let the top one get to about the end of the girders in the background and then hop back on the fence, they'll freeze in place.

Go all the way back to the left as far as you can. You don't have to fall off the ledge like I did here, but I think Billy's face is pretty funny if you do.

Then go back to where the upper William was and start attacking. You'll hit him over and over again, even though he's not there.

Keep going until you have 7 hearts, the maximum.

Then you'll have your entire martial arts toolbox available to use.

Good luck!