| “ | The Dictator. He owns several martial arts gyms, but most of them were taken by force. His background is a mystery. | „ |
| ~ Super Double Dragon manual description |
Duke (デューク De~yūku) is a recurrent boss in the Double Dragon series. He is the final boss in Super Double Dragon and the penultimate boss in the one-on-one fighting game Double Dragon, originally released on the Neo Geo.
History[]
Duke is the founder of Duke's Dojo. As an advocate of dictatorship, he has taken over several dojos by force. His personal background is a mystery and very little is known about him.
Duke also appears in the Neo Geo version of Double Dragon as the final opponent before Koga Shuko. In this game, he's portrayed as Shuko's bodyguard and personal assassin.
Appearances[]
Super Double Dragon[]
Duke is a mysterious martial artist who founded the Duke Dojo and secretly acted as the current leader of the criminal group known as the Shadow Warriors. He started to expand his own dojo by taking over other dojos by force, eventually setting his sights on the Sousetsuken Dojo ran by the Lee brothers. When Marian, now a policewoman, starts investigating Duke's activities and his connection with the Shadow Warriors, Duke orders her kidnapping and sends a letter to the Lee brothers, demanding them to surrender their dojo in exchange for her life. Instead of submitting to him, the two brothers decide to fight the Shadow Warriors and save Marian by themselves. They eventually defeat Duke and rescue her.[1]
As expected for being the main antagonist in the game, Duke is fought in the last room inside his hideout (in the Japanese version, which has additional areas, Duke is fought in a totally different final room). He wears loose, yellow sports pants, a black tank-top shirt, and martial arts boxing gloves.
He has a wide repertoire of attacks, which range between a straight punch that can instantly stun the player, a quick double side kick, a reverse round kick, a somersault leap over the player where he kicks them back as he descends, a ground sweeping kick for crowd control, and perhaps his most devastating attack, a full-body forward spinning double kick.
Duke cannot be defeated if there are other enemies around, so any thrown weapons used on him at the beginning of the match will be a waste (that is, unless momentarily knocking him down is preferred in order to get some breathing room to deal with the rest of the opponents). His health counter will only start depleting after the last remaining enemy has been disposed of.
While at the beginning Duke may appear not to do much in comparison to other bosses, once he starts attacking he may potentially inflict serious accumulated damage by performing a combination of his many special moves.
Double Dragon (Neo Geo)[]
Duke is Koga Shuko's mysterious bodyguard. He was born in San Francisco and practices Moukohisouken (猛虎飛爪拳, lit. "Tiger's Flying Claw"), a martial art feared in Chinatown as "the shadow murder". He is calm and unemotional, and favors a method of fighting that causes pain without letting one either live or die. Whenever something big and evil is going on, he's said to be in the shadows of it.
While retaining a similar color scheme and fighting stance than those seen in Super Double Dragon, Duke's appearance was drastically changed in this installment; now looking thinner and way less muscular, and featuring several Chinese-styled ornaments on his clothes; most prominently, his hair now being tied in a bun on the top-back of his head. His race also appears to have been changed; while in Super Double Dragon his face (according to his portrait in the Japanese manual) and body complexion made him look more western-like, in the Neo Geo game he appears to be Asian-American (presumably Chinese-American).
He becomes a playable character by the use of a special code.
Personality[]
As a boss character, Duke is very confident on his fighting abilities and he calls both Eddie and Abobo hopeless upon facing him in battle. Duke also shows his compassion to the female characters, such as both Marian and Rebecca, and is very concerned about the world they currently live in. He also insults his opponents, such as the Lee brothers, Burnov for being a masked vigilante, and Dulton; and he also wanted to succeed Koga Shuko as the leader of his kingdom, as seen in his win quote against him.
- Personal data
- Voice: Hisao Egawa
- Birthplace: San Francisco
- Height: 6′ 4″
- Weight: 189 lbs.
- Fighting style: Moukohisouken
- Hobby: Origami
- Moveset
- Tiger Claw Fierce Palm Dance:
- Fierce Tiger Intense Palm Strike: Duke charges forward with a fiery tiger aura surrounding him. This attack is a direct counterpart to an attack by the Lee brothers.
- Soaring Claw Kick:
- Flying Claw Kick:
- Flash Wheel Kick: Duke jumps in the air, holds his legs out and then spins around vertically. This move debuted in Super Double Dragon.
- Leaping Palm Break:
- Fierce Tiger Intense Palm Hellfire Break: A more powerful version of Fierce Tiger Intense Palm Strike.
- Phoenix Sky Flying Kick: Duke performs a jumping kick that hits multiple times as his aura takes the shape of a phoenix.
- Phoenix Earth Shattering Kick: A variant of Sky Flying Kick performed in the air where Duke charges directly forward.
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons[]
| “ | Though considered a skilled mixed martial artist, Duke is judged for being young and arrogant. His strength and flamboyant personality however, attracted many young delinquents into pledging their loyalty to him. Before long, Duke organized the Royals into one of the biggest and fiercest gangs in the city. |
„ |
| ~ Official description |
Duke appears as the boss of the Royals, one of the four gangs that seized control of New York City after the nuclear war. His outfit is based on his appearance in Super Double Dragon, while his moveset references both that game and Double Dragon (Neo Geo). Depending on the player's choices, he is fought either in a subway car, a loading bay, or on a moving freight train.
Besides a basic kick combo, his attacks have high mobility but require brief charge-up periods--most notably, his Charging Cougar, a flaming charge tackle. He can also teleport forward, before performing either a spinning double kick or Rising Falcon, an upward knee strike. If he is launched into the air, he can flip and perform a spinning double kick as he descends, making air combos more difficult. He can also pick up and throw discarded melee weapons.
If the player chooses not to side with with The Mayor after defeating all four gangs, Duke will appear alongside the other gang bosses to defend him in one last battle before facing The Mayor himself.
Gallery[]
Artworks and portraits[]
Sprites[]
Trivia[]
- Due to Super Double Dragon being rushed to release, much of Duke's backstory and role was cut out from the final product. In the original script, Duke would be a childhood friend of the Lee brothers and a former practitioner of their Sousetsuken style. After being defeated, his shadow would emerge and the players would fight it in his burning dojo.[1]
- Developers' comments revealed that Duke's original design in Super Double Dragon was based on Terry Silver, the main antagonist from the 1989 martial arts drama film The Karate Kid Part III. Both are tall, muscular, martial arts instructors owners of their own chain of dojos who fashion long, well-combed hair tied in a ponytail.
- Return of Double Dragon artworks depict Duke with a mullet hairstyle (even fashioning a slim mustache in the cover artwork), although his in-game sprite appears with his hair combed in a ponytail.
- Duke's fighting style being themed around a tiger refers to a trend in martial arts movies of practitioners symbolizing a tiger and a dragon.
See also[]
- Royals
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Duke at the Villains Wiki.