Piko Interactive may not be a household name. Earlier today they announced they had acquired the rights to Rage of the Dragons on Neo Geo. For those that do not know, Rage of the Dragons is a fighting game featuring tag team mechanics. One of the most popular titles that used this method was X-Men versus Street Fighter by Capcom. The house of Street Fighter II would go on to use this style of game for many subsequent fighting game releases.

Piko Interactive – a little history

They are an independent game publisher out of Texas holding the rights to many titles. They don’t simply acquire a prototype then pretend to own the game. Piko acquires the rights to the games they release, many times finishing the title in question. Other times they port games to new platforms not originally planned.

Most of Piko Interactives titles are available on Steam as well. This allows more fans to enjoy the games even without the original hardware.

Enter Rage of the Dragons

Originally released in June 2002, Rage of the Dragons is a one-on-one fighting game. As mentioned already, there are tag team mechanics in place. This means, you pick two characters to take into battle but only one is active at a time. You can perform special combo moves that will utilize both characters though.

Interestingly, the developers behind Rage of the Dragons wanted this to be a sequel. Yep, this game was planned to be the follow up to Double Dragon, an earlier fighting game on the Neo Geo. As retro gaming fans probably know that game was based on the movie from 1994. Unfortunately, Evoga were unable to secure the rights to Double Dragon so a homage was created.

According to Hey Poor Player, this game also had Noise Factory involved in its development. Noise Factory is notable for having developed Sengoku 3, Metal Slug 4, and more.

Many characters share similar names to those in the Double Dragon games. Can you point them all out?

Source: Piko Interactive Twitter

Want to secure a Neo Geo in preparation for the release of Rage of the Dragons? Check eBay or Amazon for a deal.

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Carl Williams

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