Double Dragon II -- Mission 9: Final Confrontation?

Yes, question mark. "Final Confrontation?" is the name of this mission...and I had to leave it in, unlike say the mission intros where for some reason they'd have a trailing period after the mission's name, this one would have to be part of the mission's title rather than...well, I have no idea why some of those other mission titles were punctuated with periods...because not every one of them was. It's the great and confusing mystery of the Double Dragons. Oh, and can you blame me for thinking that the way this plays out, it feels like you're actually being set up to fight Marian as the final boss or something? Let's run with that idea for just a little bit: "Double Dragon II: The Revenge"...revenge for Marian's death acted out upon...Marian...for not being dead! Ha! At least it couldn't have been any more nonsensical than what we actually got. Obviously good writing and storytelling is not within the "G • R • A • S • P!" of the brothers Lee, but that's not fair to our huggable, thuggable avengers...they probably got a couple of ghostwriters, who were fired and disintegrated for going rogue at the end of The Double Illusion. --- Mission 9: Final Confrontation? For crying out loud, Marian does dress like a prostitute...even the thug-ettes have more modesty than she does, and that's only because they're wearing pants. Then again, I have no idea what the fashion trends would be in a post-nuclear war urban setting...maybe textiles are really hard to come by, and...yeah, I'm just going to stop trying here. Whoa, what?! Exposition mid-level?! What on earth is this?! It's...a guy...we've never met before...and whom we've not heard any more than a whisper about under thuggish interrogation which was really only setting up that stage's boss, so actually I don't know how much "credit" we want to give the game for even setting this up at all. The pre-battle pep-talk that Jimmy gives to Billy here is actually variable depending on the number of players you've got left. There's even a specific version for just Jimmy, but I can't for the life of me seem to find any proof of it online, so maybe I'll just have to make an addendum to this series later on, because it's interesting that they bothered to do that at all. Wait, why does Billy have 3 lives now? He very clearly only had what he finished The Double Illusion with when this stage began. The bad guy shouldn't have bothered gloating for so long that he could catch his second wind...or something. Anyway, this...is...well, it's kinda like fighting blind for the first part, since the guy randomly gets to go invisible and do whatever he wants. I advise that you go nuts with your spin kicks and flying knee attacks, because those are the ones that stand the best chances of hitting him and also happen to be your strongest moves anyway. Oh, and turning invisible is really the least of your worries when it comes to this guy, since being invisible won't change his movement patterns, and he will go ahead and just line himself up with you, eventually you will lay enough of the beating down upon him he so rightly deserves that he'll cut it out and fight without that little trick. Actually, even his non-illusion attacks are complete nonsense...he does his back flip, but...something is seriously wrong about the way he moves, like they pulled him way faster than his displayed animations should allow. He also does a partial front flip just to kick you...clear across the room, and he even did this first thing in the battle before Billy was ready. Oh, and worst of all is his...bizarre spinning double-knuckle tornado...thing...as it does more damage than any other move in the game. He's not at all shy about using it and using it often. Joy. Oh, and in case you were wondering, no, the ending doesn't make any sense. Jimmy, thanks for all your help, but you can go and get lost, it's clearly Billy-and-Marian-time. What's the deal with a bad guy citing a "prophecy" (please tell me that they're joking) that would only be good for his enemies...claiming that they were going to die soon? Why on earth would beating that guy enact a "prophecy" that would specifically undo the entire course of the whole game? I think it's more likely that Billy got totally trashed on some kind of mind-altering substances, because he's a street thug on steroids with delusions of being some kind of superhero...then he comes home one night, knocks Marian's block off, and then he freaks out at this and decides to take "revenge" upon any "shadow warriors" he happens to find. Once he tires himself out and comes home, he finds that Marian's regained consciousness, and she is mysteriously okay and just as...much of a non-character helplessly stuck by Billy's side as she ever was. Marian really should've been the final boss, if only to try taking that Billy punk down a peg.