Here’s a fun thought experiment.
If I were to walk into a random Dave & Busters or other arcade nostalgia pump station, and if I were to subsequently ask 100 people if they knew what “Double Dragon” was, how many people do you think would be able to answer the question in the affirmative?
10-20?
35?
Less than half?
Definitely less than half, right?
(I’m almost certainly not finding a functioning cabinet in said hypothetical establishment, either.)
As I scroll back through the first 36 entries in this retro gaming essentials list, I see about four or five other games I could probably say the same thing for: that the average person in an arcade, today, wouldn’t know anything about it.
But those other games are all genuine oddball weirdo games. They were never super popular to begin with. They were outcasts in an industry that perhaps never gave them their just due.
Games like “Air Zonk” and “Katamari Damacy” are relatively obscure treasures that I will go to the mat to in defending their honor – while also acknowledging that they were never especially popular or important to the industry at large, even at first release.
“Castlevania: Rondo of Blood” is a highmark achievement in platforming that everyone should get to experience, and yet it wasn’t released in this country.
Those games, put simply, are personal indulgences.
Double Dragon is … not that.
Released in 1987, Double Dragon was a side-scrolling beat ‘em up (or “brawler” as I prefer to call the genre) that set arcades on fire, going on to earn the distinction of being the highest grossing arcade game in the United States in both 1988 and 1989. It was eventually even made into a cartoon television series and a live-action movie, and its (many) ports to various home platforms (NES, Atari 2600, Master System, etc.) were all hugely popular as well.
If you were even moderately interested in video games at the time, you knew about Double Dragon. It was a certified blockbuster, among the most celebrated games in the industry.
But more than that, the game is also justifiably credited with popularizing the beat ‘em up genre, sparking a slew of sequels, copycats, and competitors who all wanted a taste of that delicious blood-soaked pocket change.
As such, it remains influential today – every time you see a new brawler get released, that Double Dragon DNA is likely in there somewhere.
Yet modern audiences rarely even give it a second thought.
So … what the hell happened?
Why isn’t Double Dragon talked about in glowing terms today as one of the all-time great video game properties?
Double Dragon at a glance:
Genre: Brawler
Released: 1987
Platform: Arcade
Highest-grossing arcade video game of 1988-89
Originally conceived as a sequel to Technos’ previous arcade beat ‘em up series “Kunio-kun,” the game “Double Dragon” ended up differing enough from its source material that it eventually morphed into a spin-off of sorts with its own setting and characters.
Featuring the ass-kicking brother duo of Billy and Jimmy Lee who set out to rescue girlfriend Marian from the clutches of the Black Warriors gang, the game innovated in utilizing a continuously scrolling environment and cut-scenes to provide a more cinematic feel.
Clearly inspired by such formative side-scrolling beat ’em ups as “Kung Fu,” and paired with the promise of good ninja-kicking action and a thumping soundtrack capable of piercing through the chaotic noise of your typical arcade, the concept and execution proved irresistible.
I was there on the ground floor, and let me tell you, this game had a way of standing out from the pack. Typical offerings like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Galaga had by the late 1980s begun to feel a little stale (or at minimum typical). One could stroll into an arcade, scan the offerings and see rounds and rounds of the same old thing – “Oh look, Donkey Kong Jr. 3 the sequel the revenge.” – and quickly move onto other pursuits.
Double Dragon was like a roundhouse kick to the face, thumping a high energy rock score paired with bloody gang violence to provide something different enough so as to become instantly appealing just by its relative uniqueness.
I dedicated rounds of quarters to this game, finding out that yes, the game had a way of murdering you in short order, but also that the game was possible to defeat. That seemed like an exotic animal at the time. Yes, it’s hard and maybe even a little unfair, but winning is feasible?
Insert “Fry take my money” gif right here!
I mean, that’s no small thing, people. This game had a narrative. Your character(s) saw your girlfriend abducted, you traveled from a hellish inner city, to a factory area, out into the countryside before encountering the villain’s evil lair, and finally you rescued her. A beginning, a middle, AND an end? I could, with enough money and skill, experience a complete story from beginning to end?
In an arcade setting in 1988, that was still the sort of thing that wasn’t the norm and maybe even seemed a little like sorcery.
Of course, the long-term appeal of the brawler genre itself hadn’t yet established itself fully in my brain by that point, but the idea of solving things with one’s fists was instantly attractive as a role-playing opportunity.
Beyond that, the game being a two-player offering kept things intriguing as well. One could theoretically experience an entire adventure from beginning to end, and do so with a buddy, which sort of validated the thing. Being able to yell at one another in real time was great, sure, but also being able to discuss a particular run after the fact was affirming too.
“Man, we almost got to the palace that time. That stupid Incredible Hulk guy effed us over.”
And moreover, that twist ending, of having to defeat the other player after dispatching the final boss to determine a “true” champion, provided an additional level of spice. It switched the nature of the game entirely from “we must work together to win” to “I’m going to kick a hole through your chest.” One could do the lion’s share of the work and “earn” the win, and yet in a winner-take-all scenario, the stakes ramped up considerably and you could choke it all away and be sad forever after.
It’s simple, but effective. Why play alone when you can play with others? And why play with others collaboratively OR competitively when you could play with others collaboratively AND competitively?
Ports and sequels were of course inevitable, and this is where some of the trouble began to seep in, as these games varied in quality and faithfulness to the original quite a bit.
I liked the NES game and its direct sequel, “Double Dragon II: The Revenge,” a lot. The former featured a really enjoyable leveling up dynamic, but it couldn’t bring home the multiplayer (except in a weird vs. mode?) for some reason, probably technical in nature, yet no less unacceptable in the final analysis. The game was good, but it clearly wasn’t the same.
(This was a recurring theme for the series.)
The NES sequel added some fun set pieces that built intelligently on the first game’s design and corrected that sin of leaving off a two-player option in the main game and was probably one of the better games the NES ever produced, but the incredible setting and music from the first game had been replaced. Again, not the same.
I had the PC version of the sequel, my parents’ concession to my obsession with the property, but it ran a little jankily on the setup we had. It looked better than the NES version, and it was okay, but it wasn’t the same.
(Are we picking up on the aforementioned theme here?)
Double Dragon III eventually came along, and it was mostly okay, but cracks were showing at this point. Several of the other ports to that point had been lackluster, and then DDIII was developed for different systems/formats by different teams, resulting in vast differences in the game from platform to platform (including a different subtitle: “The Rosetta Stone” on some platforms and “The Sacred Stones” on others).
Technos farming the game out to other developers was arguably the beginning of the trouble, as quality control seemingly started to become a secondary concern.
It would be like Nintendo giving Zelda to Philips or something.
OOPS.
Anyway, the property has seen a ton of sequels and spin-offs, handled by a ton of different companies, giving it a lack of clear direction or quality. It’s all sort of mystifying nowadays.
“Is Double Dragon Neon an official sequel?”
“Maybe!”
“Who are the BattleToads and why are they here?”
“Just go with it!”
“Why are these characters in River City Girls?”
“Who knows?”
Technos eventually went out of business, which accounts for some of the muddy waters here. Arc System Works owns the property nowadays and they employ a couple of the original programmers, but … and I’m trying to be gentle here … has this series produced a quality game over the last three decades? It’s pretty debatable.
Not helping matters is the classic trope of the game becoming a victim of its own success. The popularity of Double Dragon led to a million and one versions of the brawler being released over the next decade or so. Final Fight and Streets of Rage are two of the most obviously inspired franchises to be sure, though even the more fantastical licensed brawlers such as The Simpsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, and way too many more to list owed their beginnings to the Double Dragon model of success.
The brawling trend itself spawned an offshoot genre of fighting game when Street Fighter II gained popularity thanks to its awesome moveset, a large cast of playable characters, and a focus on one-on-one combat. And when that happened, the appeal of the brawler was officially on the decline.
Still, I look at traditional brawler series that have had modern success like Streets of Rage and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I wonder, “Why can’t Double Dragon have something like that?”
I think it comes back to that lack of a clear voice. Billy and Jimmy are a little boring as protagonists, and the story is pretty simple too. “Err, punch bad guy, err, rescue the girl, errrr.”
So, without a compelling story or interesting characters, now what you’re left with are things like style and gameplay and … well, a lot has been thrown against the wall with that, and is any of it truly emblematic of the series anymore? A jump kick and a hair pull and …? There’s not much more to latch onto.
Plus, let’s be honest. The whole enterprise is a little on the misogynistic side, it leans hard into violence for its own sake (problematic for some), it struggles with stereotyping (particularly of the aforementioned inner cities), and it’s had trouble finding a distinct voice for itself forever.
All of these are good reasons as to why the property has fallen out of favor.
And when you go back and play the original game that started it all, you can also really see the warts. The characters are a little floaty and glitch their way through floors and whatnot at times. The combat can feel a little feathery too, with the heft of most of your best brawlers being notably absent. Punches and kicks land lighter than they do in other games.
And yet…
What the original game did well – in addition to hitting at the exact right time and place – was look and sound great while providing a pretty special two-player experience.
That more people don’t realize this is frankly a little sad, and it’s something to be corrected.
In other words, if you have yet to do so, you really should circle back and play this game.
So what makes it worth playing today?
I’ve noted the problems above, and indeed, if we want to talk about scores and such, it should be plain to see why this game did NOT receive a perfect 10/10. It’s got issues.
But gosh, this game is still a VIBE, as the kids say.
The rough and tumble street fight trope so present throughout the lore of video game history truly became popularized here. And as I’m a firm believer in historical narratives being an important reason to engage with vintage games, that’s your No. 1 reason right there. This game mattered.
But also, crank up the volume and let the whole thing wash over you arcade style, and you might get a better feeling for why this thing took off in the way that it did. Few games have done a better job at creating a truly immersive atmosphere. And that soundtrack will engrave itself on your brain. You’ll be humming it forever.
It’s funny, but the original game, the one that started it all, that game just plain had it together. It had its shit figured out. The vibes were impeccable.
It was all the stuff that came along after that got things all weird and twisted and broken. And while yeah, the original idea and characters were shallow as hell and never fully developed into something better (contrast this with the lore for games like Mario and Sonic, which while not perfect in their attempts, have really worked hard to expand things for fans over time), that first game still had the tone nailed dead to rights.
It’s apparently an odd nut to crack, though, because it’s never really been better than it was from the outset.
Can the series ever recapture that magic?
I don’t really know the answer to that. But we don’t really have to. We can all go back to the original Double Dragon and still enjoy it on its own simple terms.
Punch. Kick. Jump. Win.
Sometimes, that’s all you need.
Dave’s Score: 9/10
Check out the whole Retro Gaming Essentials list here!
How to play
- Original hardware (Arcade)
- A gazillionty ports that vary in faithfulness and quality
- Arcade Archives (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC)