Double Dragon (Arcade)

It's Super Adventures' 14th anniversary today, which means I really should've made a new logo for you. I've been too busy though, too busy to do it properly at least. But I've come up with a new logo every previous year since the site began, including the year that I quit and didn't write anything, so enjoy that one up there while it lasts because I don't expect it'll last much longer.

Also, enjoy this article I wrote about an old arcade game where you walk down the street and punch people.

Developer:

Technōs Japan

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Release Date:

1987

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Systems:

Arcade, NES, Master System + everything else

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm checking out another classic game for the very first time. Well, alright, I've probably played a bit of one of the ports, and I got Battletoads & Double Dragon - The Ultimate Team with my second-hand NES. But I assure you, when it comes to classic coin-op brawler Double Dragon, I am getting all my facts from Wikipedia and not my brain.

The game was released for arcades in 1987 and started appearing on home systems a year later (or three years if you were a NES owner in Europe). At first the Wikipedia infobox had me thinking that it was only ported to the NES and Master System and I wouldn't have 10,000 other versions to investigate, but nope the site was hiding the rest of the list in an attempt to protect me from the truth.

It even got released on TV, with a 1993 cartoon that influenced a 1994 movie that was adapted into a 1995 video game. Oh, and the cartoon got a game too. And then developer Technōs went bankrupt in 1996, so I'm assuming they weren't huge hits.

Though to call the original game a huge hit would be an understatement. It was the highest grossing arcade machine in the US for three years running, until Final Fight and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles took its spot by basically doing the same thing. And when the console and computer ports came out they went and topped charts as well. People really loved Double Dragon.

Alright, I admit this isn't really my genre but I'm giving it an hour to win me over. It's an arcade game, so you could probably make it to the end in that time, but it's from the '80s, so I probably won't.

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Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun (Arcade)

Though first I'm going to take a quick look at the game's immediate predecessor, Technōs' Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun. This block of text could double as my entire article on the game though, as I gotta be honest, I can't get past the first brawl.

A typical belt-scrolling beat 'em up lets you take on three or four bad guys at a time as you make your way down the street to tougher challenges, but here the entire stage is only a couple of screens wide and the punishment is immediate. Another thing that makes it stand out from a typical brawler is that it has 'punch left' and 'punch right' buttons, which actually works quite well. Plenty of games let you smack the guy sneaking up on you with some combination of buttons, but here it's a single tap and you don't even need to keep track of which way you're facing when you press it.

Though it didn't save me when the boss got tired of watching me beat up his lackeys and came down from the train like a tidal wave washing away whatever was in his path. My defeat was sudden and it was complete, with no option to continue.

Renegade (Arcade)

My favourite part of the game is Kunio's run move, as he charges through enemies, losing momentum as he goes. Though this is a shot of the Western release, Renegade, so this is actually his unnamed American equivalent that's flying fist-first through foes.

By the time that Kunio-kun had made it across the ocean it'd gotten a makeover inspired by the movie The Warriors, and everything but the pompadours had been changed. I don't think they upgraded the hardware at all, they'd just gotten better at using their colours and adding detail.

Also, Kunio was a Japanese delinquent taking on rival gangs who had attacked his friend, but in Renegade you're beating up '80s street thugs in order to rescue your girlfriend.

Alright, now I'm playing Double Dragon, which is seems to be inspired by The Warriors and starts with the hero's girlfriend getting kidnapped by '80s street thugs. In fact she got punched right in the thigh right outside of the heroes' English Tear building and then they showed her panties to the whole street.

But this is Double Dragon, so this time there are two players coming to kick ass and save her. In their matching outfits.

Their names are Spike and Hammer. Or Billy Lee and Jimmy Lee in the Japanese version.

Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones (NES)

Or Bimmy and Jimmy in the NES version of Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones... which is actually not the same as arcade game Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone.

I'm not old enough to have played any of these games in arcades, but I remember seeing that title in a magazine as a kid and being fascinated by it. How do you even get into a situation where street thugs are fighting over the Rosetta Stone? I guess the developers were going for a Raiders of the Lost Ark thing, but couldn't think of a more powerful ancient artefact than a slab of granite granodiorite inscribed with a decree in three languages.

Though it is the most visited object in the British Museum, apparently!

Anyway, I'm playing the single player game, so Spike/Jimmy will not be joining me. Sorry buddy, I only brought you out to show off that stylish pink outfit and it's going to be Single Dragon from now on.

Now I'm trying to figure out what type of car that is. Looks a bit like a Corvette or a Pontiac Trans-Am.

It also bears a passing resemblance to the hero car from Data East's 1985 laserdisc arcade game Road Blaster. It's kind of crazy how this was the earlier game by two years with visuals like this.

The two games don't share the same universe but they do share the same director: Yoshihisa Kishimoto. I guess he liked cars almost as much as he liked beating people up (Kunio-kun was semi-autobiographical, inspired by his own experience).

Oh sorry, it turns out that I've already hit my picture limit for this article, so I'm going to have to stop this here. Please let me stop this here, I already suffered enough playing Kunio-kun and I know I'm not going to enjoy the game. Or at least let me go grab a cup of tea first.

Hey, wanted posters! If these guys I'm fighting are averaging $10,000 each I could be rich by the end of this. Assuming I can ever make one of my hits connect. If this was Kunio-kun I'd charge into them with my double-tap run, but they've replaced it with a boring headbutt!

Billy/Hammer has more moves than Kunio, with the 'punch left' button changed to 'kick', and backwards elbow strikes triggered by pressing jump and punch together. He doesn't have the one I could really use though: dodge roll. Block would also be helpful, even if I've got a poor track record when it comes to remembering to use it.

Once I'd cleared the area a big hand appeared on screen, assuring me that I was done depopulating this section of the street and that it was time to step forward to trigger the next set of enemies. Is this the first time any video game had done this? I don't know, but it seems possible. Also wow I just realised that there's a whole forest between me and those skyscrapers in the distant background. No buildings, just trees. Also the paving here is pretty fancy.

The level one music's pretty fancy too. It almost sounds like a cover of an '80s pop song.

There's lots of stuff going on in this GIF. You've got enemies smashing through a brick wall, enemies using ladders, and enemies smacking me across the head with a metal bat. Also a billboard advert for a classic VW Beetle. Scoop!

Funny thing is, I was actually hitting that guy at the top, that's why he kept dropping the bat, but it still didn't save me from getting knocked down. I don't know what more the game wants from me!

I can pick up the bat myself, which is handy. There are no super attacks though. I can't cast lightning magic, or summon a dragon, or call in a cop with a rocket launcher to rain fire upon my enemies.

I guess this guy is a boss, as he keeps picking me up and throwing me. It's really damaging my dignity. But hey look at the cat on the bin in the alley!

Oh damn, I beat him? Bonus Point 3000!! That means I've got a score of... 4700. Because I used a continue and my old score got wiped. And now the game's just continuing straight into the next stage seamlessly.

MISSION 2

I like the fake physics on the box. I especially like how I can kick it into their legs and knock them down with it. Shame they both started flashing before I could lob the box on them and finish the job with style. They've been throwing dynamite at me so it's only fair.

Incidentally, that's about as far to the right as I can go when I hit the end of the current section. It's like there's an invisible wall blocking my path and preventing me from grabbing any items I may have thrown over there.

This level's getting a bit more vertical than the first one in the street.

Though I think I've gone too high here as there's nothing to do up on this ledge at the top. But I'm on to this game's tricks; I know that if I try to drop down I'm going to go splat on the floor. That's why I'm going to carefully step down onto that beautifully pixeled stack of cardboard boxes on the right.

Well, it was worth a shot.

Though I'm sure I would've gotten hit if I'd taken the ladder instead, because I get hit whatever I do. I can't seem to stunlock lone enemies, and if I attack an thug when there's three of them on screen, the other two are just going to come around and hit me from behind.

I do have that reverse elbow move to hit them when they're creeping up on me, but it involves pressing two buttons and that's one button too many for me to pull it off consistently. It's weirdly difficult to fight people in this.

I've also noticed that they like to dart backwards whenever I take a swing and it's even more obvious when they're on a conveyor belt. But I did learn something here I didn't already know: this conveyor belt leads nowhere that boss wanted to be. Sorry mate, but I'm the only one with continues here.

I also learned that the lift at the bottom of the screen makes a really irritating sound when it's use. But it's my way out so down I go.

MISSION 3

Wow, I'm already out in the woods? I haven't even walked that far! This is all still just next to their garage. I guess this explains why Billy didn't just take the car.

I like this bat, by the way. It doesn't flicker away and disappear when it's knocked out of my hands, so I can just keep picking it up again and get back to playing baseball with their faces.

Well this was predictable. The first rule of gaps in side-scrolling brawlers: when you try to jump over them, you're going down the hole. Second rule: when there's an enemy hitting you, you're going down the hole. Basically, one way or the other you're going down the hole.

There are no pretty parallax trees in this forest level, but then you wouldn't really expect that from this genre of game. You also wouldn't necessarily expect a sewer level, but I'm still going to point out that there wasn't one.

Okay, I've quickly stitched together all the screens so far into this microscopic mess of an image, just to illustrate how far you travel in the first three missions. Because I'm about to go through a door into a new area now which will finally break the streak of connected levels that started with their garage and ended in the hills beyond the forest.

The game's supposed to have taken a bit of inspiration from the Bruce Lee movie Enter the Dragon, but nothing seems familiar so far. The character names are full of references, but you never actually see what they're called in game. So I'm curious to see if things get more familiar when my dragon enters the villain's lair.

MISSION 4

Nope, but things have gotten a lot more Raiders of the Lost Ark. What the hell kind of base does this gang have?

Well, there goes my 3,000th continue. I haven't actually been keeping count, but it feels like a lot. It's not skill that's getting me through the game, that's for sure.

I love luring the enemies into their own traps though, that's always hilarious. And quicker.

Don't you guys live here? Isn't this the hallway to the bathroom or whatever? How are you folks wandering into every trap like this? And why does this look like a Castlevania game all of a sudden?

Man, I liked this boss better when he was just an ominous pair of legs watching me from a balcony. You can't bring an assault rifle with infinite ammo to a street fight, that's wrong for a whole bunch of reasons! Okay sure, this is America and I just broke into his house, but we're clearly doing fist fighting today. Everyone else got the memo, he should read the damn room.

Hang on, why does everyone else look like me except with pale yellow clothes? Are these the ghosts of all the dead Billys I left behind after using a continue? I hope not, because I'm about to use another one.

Yeah, piss off you washed-out clones. I just took your boss down, you're all fired!

Oh, I forgot to mention that they had Billy's kidnapped love interest hanging by a rope, I guess as bait? Either way, it doesn't look like it's been comfortable for her.

To be completely honest, I edited one frame of this GIF and one of the next just so I could freeze them on a better image. Only a tiny edit, not even worth mentioning, but I take my GIF authenticity very seriously. Also, the actual game has music and sound effects and runs at 60 FPS and my aspect ratio's a little off... the GIF's not a perfect representation of the experience is what I'm saying.

Any slowdown you've been seeing is straight from the game though.

MAY YOU LIVE

                   HAPPILY FOREVER.

                                         (UNTIL THE SEQUEL.)

Okay, I'm starting to think that she's deliberately putting on a show with that dress. Also, could she have escaped the ropes at any time, or only when it was funny?

And 30 minutes in I've reached the credits! The game has just 4 short levels and then it's over. Which I'm sure must have been a huge relief for people trying to beat in on one credit.

But if you're playing two-player, the ending isn't so simple. You see, you're out to rescue the player character's girlfriend... but with two people playing who's girlfriend is she? The answer is: whoever can beat up the other one. She respects strength it seems, so if Jimmy were to beat Billy to a bloody pulp, then she'd be going home with him instead. The first two-player brawler ends with the two players fighting each other! That's pretty crazy.

NES

I can't show you a picture, because I'm not going to beat the whole game again with two players, so here's a screen of the NES version instead.

The NES version doesn't have two players during the main game, it's strictly Single Dragon, but it does have a two player VS mode, where every match is a mirror match. But Billy's mirror is Jimmy, so you can jump straight to the surprise betrayal at the end and kick the crap out of your brother. Not that his treachery is that much of a surprise to people who read the NES game's manual:

The clues were there all along. But only in the NES game, where he's more of a bonus last boss than a knife in the back.

Well that's it, the game's over. So I guess I've reached the point where I have to say something about the ports.

THE PORTS

Atari 2600

Mega Drive/Genesis

ZX Spectrum

Amiga

Okay, the way my site works is that I post a picture and then I type under it, so I thought "I'll take screenshots from some visually diverse conversions so I can write underneath them that I won't be covering all of ports." But now I have to write about these four, don't I? I've played myself here.

• Some consider the Atari 2600 version a bit of a technical marvel because you can actually tell what game it's supposed to be. Plus it has a background and it even plays music during gameplay. I mean that's really not bad for a console from the '70s. But it ain't a good game. 
• The Mega Drive/Genesis port ranged between 82% and 13% in game magazines, so mixed reviews there. It's certainly one of the prettier versions, and it gets rid of the slowdown, but the feel isn't great and the hardware was capable of more. 
• The ZX Spectrum port shows why a fancy detailed floor isn't always a good thing. Like the Atari 2600 game it's probably technically quite good, but it makes the argument that 8-bit hardware isn't where this genre shines.
  
• And I had to double check that the Amiga version was a proper commercial release when I saw the graphics. Though it was the title music that first made me suspicious, as it sounds just like you're in an arcade... in the toilets, listening to the muffled sounds through a door. I think it actually may have been recorded from an arcade cabinet. Funny thing is, there's also a not-proper non-commercial release in development and it already looks way closer to the arcade game.

Okay, but seriously I can't compare all the different systems this time because there really are too many. And the number of ports is even higher! More than one computer got this game twice, because its first version turned out so bad. Like the Commodore 64 game for instance.

C64 first release

The most obvious issue here is that the characters have have been sliced in half, with their torsos floating above their legs. I guess that's just how people are on this planet, or at least it is when the programmers are too rushed to do the job properly. There's even an explanation about it in the manual.

They've tried to map multiple attacks to a joystick with one button by having you hold it and pull the stick in different directions, and it's not great when the game was already difficult enough with three buttons. Though the AI is also a bit... restricted, so that balances it a little.

C64 second release

Here's the second version on the C64, and it really does look like it was made from scratch by different people. They decided to make the enemy sprites a lower resolution, which might have helped with the torso separation problem, I dunno. The guy with the red pants is still coming apart a little.

This version feels a little better to me, but it's still pretty much the same deal. The only reason this exists is because people were buying more C64s than arcade cabinets, but if you can play the arcade game instead it's unambiguously the one to go for. In my experience nothing else comes close.

Oh, wait a second. Didn't the arcade game get a remake?

Double Dragon Advance (GBA)

Double Dragon Advance on the Game Boy Advance takes the original game and fills it out a bit so it's less of a coin-eating 30 minute challenge and more like what you'd expect to get on your game cartridge. They've doubled the levels, adding four extra missions in between the original ones... so I guess now it lasts a full hour.

Double Dragon Advance (GBA)

They've also added cutscenes that explain how the Dragons always know where to go next and show you who the villains are. Like, now I know that this guy is called Abobo and by the look of those tears he really regrets all those punches he took to the face.

See, this is why games should give you some way to avoid getting punched! Like a dodge roll.

Double Dragon Advance (GBA)

Or I suppose they could add a new block move that doubles as a parry if you get the timing right!

I never remember to block in games and you'd definitely never catch me getting the timing of a parry right, but here it's an actual relief to have the option. The button's not much help if you press it after the enemies have started pummelling you though; you've just got to take that beating.

Double Dragon Advance (GBA)

Here's some advice: if you ever see martial artists in sunglasses and a nice suit, those are the guys you have to worry about. Especially if they calmly fix their tie after pummelling you senseless. These guys have taken a break from starring in the latest Matrix movie to take turns kicking me off the back of this moving truck. I can't even be mad at them, because they look so impressive doing it; they've got all kinds of great kicks.

Fortunately I only needed one kind of kick to send them all off the back too. Now if they want to fix their tie they'll have to fix their neck first.

Double Dragon Advance (GBA)

I had trouble with the regular punch though, as Billy would get locked into wailing on some imaginary opponent. I was trying to begin the process of turning around and doing something about the guy behind me, but I suppose the game wanted me to quit tapping the button for a second first.

I've got no complaints about it giving me my double-tap run back though! Or to be more accurate, it gave Kunio's run to Billy. And Jimmy, obviously.

Double Dragon Advance (GBA)

Poor Jimmy gets a bit left out in single player... except in the GBA's new 'two players, one controller' mode where you have to look after both of them!

It seems like it shouldn't work, alternating between two characters in a brawler, and it probably doesn't, but I get knocked down enough in this game that I often had a few seconds free to switch to the guy standing idle and get him knocked senseless as well. Sometimes it was even me who was hitting him, accidentally, as the game has friendly fire! So if you think that co-op's going to make fights easier... maybe not.

Double Dragon Advance (GBA)

Please don't assume that this GIF is the normal play experience for me. Look down at my credits if you want to see the truth. There's no way to put more coins into this version, this is a few seconds before my inevitable game over.

But this GIF proves that you can play the GBA game and make it look good, it's just a challenge to use the moves you want in the chaos of gameplay. There are four buttons, one more than the arcade game, but the manual has four pages of moves, showing all the various button combinations you need to press to pull each of them off.

That Hyper Uppercut was 'tap A+B to crouch, then A'. The Jump Back Kick to hit the guy moving behind me was 'tap R then Left+B'. I've only been playing for 30 minutes, I haven't practiced any of this, I'm really struggling here!

Double Dragon (NES)

I'm pretty much done now with all these coin-op conversions, but I had to at least mention the most famous and perhaps beloved of the ports: the NES version. Here you apparently just tap backwards twice to smack the guy creeping up behind you. Not that there's much danger of getting absolutely surrounded in a game where there's only two enemies on screen! And no second player until Double Dragon II: The Revenge.

It's kind of a relief to go back to something simpler for a while, as this port only has three pages of moves in the manual and you don't even get to use them! Not until you've levelled up a bit anyway.

The game came out at the point where developers still hadn't nailed down what ❤️ should mean. The Legend of Zelda used hearts as a health bar, Castlevania used them for special attacks, and Double Dragon uses them to indicate your level. Collect 1000 points, get an extra heart.

Double Dragon (NES)

The NES version surprised me by sending me back to a checkpoint when I lost a life, not that I had many enemies to fight before I got back to where I was.

To make things worse, you can't earn extra lives and I don't think this gives you any continues! You can get through the arcade game with button mashing and perseverance, but the NES game ain't letting you see an ending until you get really damn good at it.

But like I said, it's got that separate fighting game mode so you can skip to the part where you beat up your brother any time you want.


CONCLUSION

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The main thing that distinguishes Double Dragon from games like Streets of Rage and Golden Axe is that it's older. In fact, you could argue that it's the oldest. It's not the first game where you walk around a playfield and hit people, I already mentioned Kunio-kun/Renegade, but this is the game that most side-scrolling beat 'em ups are descended from. It set the standard for the games that followed it.

That said, it's got all the moves and weapons you'd expect from a '90s brawler, special attacks aside. What really gives its age away is how it sometimes strains against the limitations of its less powerful hardware. I thought the slowdown was bearable, but it gets worse the more players are on screen, and having player two around means there's always one extra. Plus the graphics aren't exactly on the level of Undercover Cops, so there's another clue. But it looks fine for its time and everything's very readable.

It's not really my genre so I don't feel entirely qualified to judge the gameplay. I'm certainly not qualified to play it. I mean it's not exactly a brain teaser, there are two attack buttons and a jump button, and if you press attack, bad guys fall down. But when I'm playing a game like Arkham Asylum, Sleeping Dogs or Shadow of Mordor, it's possible for me to build up some momentum and get the hang of controlling a fight. You saw a hint of that while I was playing the GBA remake. But in the arcade original I'd end up trading punches and kicks back and forth until one of us fell down. And it was often me, as the enemies had the unfair advantage of knowing how to step back when I took a swing at them. A little knowledge of the extra moves you have really helps and I've heard mastering the reverse elbow attack makes it too easy, but I only beat the game because I had more lives than my opponents.

I've pretty much shown off the whole game here, there's not much I haven't talked about. There's not much to it at all. Though I suppose I haven't shown off the music, which is occasionally iconic. It's one of the most '80s sounding '80s video games I've played, and the theme is pretty damn heroic.

Would I recommend Double Dragon? Well, a lot of people had fun with this back in the day and it's likely some people still do. Though I'd say the main appeal here is getting to experience a smash hit genre pioneer for yourself and satisfy your curiosity. You can't talk about the evolution of platformers without trying Super Mario Bros., you don't know your FPS history if you haven't played Doom, and Double Dragon is another important artefact, just like, I dunno... the Rosetta Stone.


If you want a proper look at all the different ports, check out Hardcore Gaming 101's article.

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Thanks for reading! Also, thanks for leaving a comment, if that's something you're going to do. Maybe you'd like to mention something about Double Dragon, or share your own opinions, or maybe you just want to take a guess at what the next game will be. Either way it's all good, I'm just happy you decided to drop by.