Nintendo Power's first preview of the game, for instance, could only inspire a standard blurb that tepidly explained the game's plot (the Lee brothers' love interest, Marion, had gone missing, and they needed to acquire special stones to uncover her location) and mentioned the addition of a new fighting move-a flipping throw, which I thought sounded interesting. In comparison, the upcoming Sacred Stones registered as nothing more than a blip on their radar. The first sign of trouble was that gaming magazines weren't pushing Sacred Stones as zealously as they did Double Dragon II: The Revenge, which received significant coverage when it was first announced and spawned one enthusiastic preview after another. It was the safest of assumptions that its graphics would be prettier, its music would be more evocative, its controls would boast greater refinement, and its depth of content would dwarf its predecessors'.Īnd then there was the case of Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones. 3 planted one thought in my head, it was that the capper to a beloved NES trilogy was guaranteed to be bigger and better in every way. It was supposed to be that the atmosphere surrounding the release of a series' third installment was frenzied and celebratory, the excitement breeding expectations of a sequel that would ultimately establish itself as the absolute pinnacle of a company's creative aspirations-the masterfully realized culmination toward which all of its previous works were building! If games like Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, Mega Man 3 and Super Mario Bros. Now that's not the way it was supposed to go down.

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