For me the stiffness was hard to get past. I grew up with these games, I was born in 1976, and remember having to scrounge enough money off the parking lot to get a quarter to give these games a try and at that rate, I just could not get beyond the shortcomings of Double Dragon. I later purchased Double Dragon II for the NES and loved it, but I was able to give it more time considering I didn't have to worry about having another quarter. I did try Double Dragon on home consoles and still could not get past my thoughts on it and I just chalked it up to being a title I simply did not get into. I did not get into the original Metroid or Legend of Zelda but loved Metroid on the Gameboy (and later Super Nintendo and GBA) and loved Zelda II and Zelda III (but could not get into the 3D Zeldas on the N64. I also cannot stand Bomberman but love Robowarrior. I am in a unique position with game tastes. Lol.
I would love to give Solo Dragon a try but I do not have an Atari 5200 to play it on so if this is cartridge only, I will have to sit out giving an in depth look. If there is a ROM available, I will definitely buy a copy and give it a try (I am a sucker for brawlers and lost YEARS to the various OpenBOR mods on my Dreamcast).