Dominique and the Shadow Master are playable in the Super NES and Mega Drive/Genesis versions via a code. Only Bones, Sekka, Blade, and Dominique are original characters, with Blade's design being based on the generic Shadow Warrior soldiers who were on the show.
Many of the characters are taken from the Double Dragon animated series that aired during the game's release.
The Shadow Falls has a character roster of twelve fighters, ten immediately playable characters (the two "Double Dragons" and eight Shadow Warriors) and two end bosses. There is also a Dossiers mode, where the player gets to view the game's character profiles, as well as an Options mode to adjust the difficulty setting, control configuration and other features.
Watch Mode allows the player to pit two computer controlled characters against each other. In Quest Mode, the player can adjust the attributes of their own character. The player can also alter the storyline by having Billy be the Shadow Boss while Jimmy is good. In Quest Mode, the player can choose to play as one of the Lee brothers, who are on a mission to stop the Shadow Master from releasing a plague, or play as one of the Shadow Warriors, who must compete to replace the Shadow Master. Quest Mode is an alternate single player mode where one competes in a series of plot-based battles. Battle is a typical two player mode where one player competes against another. Tournament Mode is an arcade-style single player mode, where the player competes against a series of computer-controlled opponents, with each character having their own ending, while Vs. The game features four game modes: Tournament Mode, Vs. Shadow Master - He crouches down to his knees letting out a scream and suddenly vanishes, leaving a pile of ashes.Dominique - Feels ill, mutates and falls into a pile of maggots.Sekka - Her body starts glowing, and she disappears into thin air, leaving only her outfit on the ground.Countdown - Overcharges, his robotic skeleton becomes exposed and his arms fall off.Trigger Happy - His hand cannon overheats as he explodes, leaving a pile of ashes.Blade - Stunned, he melts into a puddle of goo.In the Genesis Version, he gets impaled by one of his sickles. Sickle - Starts spinning so fast that he spins through the floor, leaving his upper torso exposed (crosses arms in frustration after).Bones - Collapses, leaving him into a pile of bones.Icepick - Upper torso gets chopped in half, falling to the ground and shattering.Jawbreaker - Bends down on his knees shouting in pain as his teeth shatter (covering his mouth in embarrassment).Billy and Jimmy Lee - With a flash of light they turn into skeletons, their sword still intact.
The characters have several special moves, as well as finishing moves called "Overkills" where the losing character has their own unique death animation when they are defeated by a certain type of basic attack.
The Genesis version supports the standard 3-button controller (making use of the start button to toggle between punches and kicks), as well as the 6-button controller released during the previous year. The game follows the 8-way directional pad/stick with 6-button layout common to most fighting games (including Street Fighter II) at the time consisting of weak, medium and strong punches and kicks. The Shadow Falls was originally released for the Super NES and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, and later released for the Atari Jaguar by Telegames (publisher of the Atari Lynx version of the first Double Dragon) in 1995.
Technōs would later produce its own fighting game based on the Double Dragon movie the following year simply titled Double Dragon for the Neo Geo.
Unlike the previous games, which were side-scrolling fighting action games or beat-em-ups, The Shadow Falls is a head-to-head fighting game based on the animated Double Dragon TV series in the style of Capcom's 1991 arcade-hit Street Fighter II. Instead, the game was developed by Leland Interactive Media, a subsidiary of Tradewest. Unlike the previously produced Double Dragon games, Technōs had little or no credited involvement in the development of the game outside of licensing the series' name to publisher Tradewest (the publisher of the first NES version of Double Dragon and the Super NES title Super Double Dragon). 1 or 2 players (versus) Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls is a 1994 American-produced sequel to Technōs Japan's Double Dragon series.