Double Dragon
PUBLISHER: Tradewest
DEVELOPER: Technos
RELEASE DATE: Apr. 08, 1988 (JP), Jun. 1988 (US), 1990 (EU)
Double Dragon has perhaps the most uncomfortable opening to any beat-em-up ever.
A group of thugs walk up to a woman, and the leader punches her square in the stomach. She falls to the ground, he hoists her over his shoulder, then the gang walks off. Nothing is spoken, no garbled text or speech bubbles. Nevertheless, this scene accomplishes what it intends to. As you watch this horrific act, the desire to fight back rises within. Those jerks need to be taught a lesson. You must beat them up, beat them all up!
The woman in question is Marion, Billy Lee’s fly girl, and he too is tired of thugs thinking they own the streets. All he wants to do is practice kung fu, work on his sick Firebird, and listen to Poison with his lady. But no. His brother, Jimmy Lee, has been jealous of Billy since they were kids. So jealous that he decided to become the leader of the wicked Black Warrior gang and take Billy’s girl. That crap won’t fly. If it takes Billy smackin’ every single Black Warrior to the ground, he will find Jimmy and they will have a brodown showdown.
If that plot summary sounds curious, well, it’s because Billy and Jimmy Lee were never supposed to be rivals. In the arcade version of Double Dragon, the two brothers fight alongside each other as equals against Willy Mackey (brilliant moniker). In later sequels, the brothers never leave each other’s side; sometimes, they even team up with the Battletoads, which is pretty darn rad. As far as I know, this NES port of Double Dragon is the only version of the game that pits the brothers against each other.
Developer Technos altered the plot for a very specific reason: they couldn’t figure out how to get co-op working well on the NES. Rather than have the game run at five frames-per-second or less, they opted for a slightly expanded single-player experience with additional sections added in later levels. Billy and Jimmy would be separated more by technological limitations than Jimmy’s abrupt descent into crime.
Understanding that the lack of co-op might be a deal breaker for some gamers, Technos added a limited two-player vs. fighting game mode. Each player chooses from a roster of six characters, most of whom are enemies in the main game, like Linda and Chin. Punch and kick your opponent with your limited moveset until someone gets knocked out, then you’re instantly thrust back to the main menu. This mode doesn’t negate the lack of co-op by any means, but playing as Abobo, the massive human potato, is a treat.
Single-player Double Dragon is exactly what you’d expect from such an old beat-em-up. Billy walks forward a few feet, two enemies come out and try to beat him (two only because, again, technological limitations), Billy lays the smack down, rinse and repeat. As you fight, you gain points which increases your fighting level and provides new moves, like the jump kick and the hair-pull kick. The game admittedly feels mighty antiquated today, but the classic beat-em-up rhythm – fight, move, fight, move – is still here and remains as addicting as ever.
In 1988, Double Dragon punched the beat-em-up into the future. No longer would players endure the conveyor line of enemies coming at them a la Kung Fu or the Master System’s Black Belt. Now, Billy Lee could tackle groups of enemies in immersive open environments. Combined with belt-scrolling movement and Billy’s ability to level up and gain access to new moves, the genre would never be the same.
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Gosh, so many great memories of this game. It was one of the first I owned on the NES. Having never played a RPG before, I was amazed at how you could learn new moves by making progress in the game. But, having owned this game for 30 years, I have yet to see the ending. Maybe some day.
I love how Final Fight was made to basically be Double Dragon on steroids, even aping the scene where the bad guys haul away the damsel in distress at the start. And when Mighty Final Fight came to the NES, it was like an amped up version of NES Double Dragon.