Retronomicon 03.17.10: Double Dragon

Posted by Lee Price on 03.17.2010

The Retronomicon stumbles out of RPG territory and right into a thug's fist this week as 411's Lee Price looks at the most influential game in the scrolling beat-em-up genre and the game that inspired the likes of Final Fight and Streets of Rage, Double Dragon.

Hi to all and sundry out their, this is the Retronomicon and as ever I am your host, the ever alluring Mr Lee. I'm here to help you sort the wheat from the chaff in the cavernous world of retro gaming, and perhaps shine a light on the games that helped bring the industry to what it is today. My week has been pretty uneventful. I found out I can't get even a little bit tipsy off three quarters of a bottle of Amaretto. I have a new appreciation for the awesomeness of Ong Bak. And I finally finished BioShock 2. The game certainly picks up towards the end, and the narrative does become more interesting once you get to the final areas of the game, however it still isn't a patch on the first game in my eyes. I now have to give some time over to Modern Warfare 2, as I have still yet to properly play it, plus of course my ever looming Persona 4 addiction has reared its ugly head again. Still enough about all that, because nobody reads this part of the column and it literally exists to get us past the little advert. This is the...




Comments

I was a little leery when it came to inducting Final Fantasy IX last week. Though I love the game, I've never been certain of its fanbase, as there seems to be so very few works around that try to showcase it. Luckily it seems to have been a popular choice for Final Fantasy week, so lets dip our toes into the comment pool.

First there's an absolute bucket load of praise for the game;

Hyde - Completely agree. IX remains one of my favorite FF. Sadly, it is also the last I got into. I found VIII to be horrendous. X and beyond didn't catch me either. Hopefully, XIII will be better.

Archer - FF9 was easily my favorite of the PS1 FF's. It was a return to it's roots that the series was desperately in need of. It was nice after 7 and 8 to have a protagonist who wasn't a complete and utter douchenozzle. Also, chocobo hot and cold is the best mini game of all time.

Kerry B. - I only have one thing to say about FF9:

Dramatic ending > FF7 "Tifa's breasts catch the ledge and save her" ending.

(There should be about 10 > there, but that would look tacky.)

Guest #8418 - This is my 2nd fave ff, after 10. I even went through it all gain just last year and it was still awesome.

Steve B - IMO the best Final Fantasy on both the PS1 and PS2 (and I loved 7 and 10).

Of all the playable characters, Amarant was the only one I didn't care for. Almost like he was tacked on because they thought they had to have a 'badass' character in there.

And Quina rules all.

contraman - I love FF9 as much as any game in the series. The ending is a real tear jerker (in a good way) and it tells a great story. I still pull this out every couple of years to play through it again.

Penguin - Absolutely love this game. It very well might be my favorite of the series (neck and neck with 6). I really hope that we get a current gen game that goes back to the roots of the series like this one did.

August - I can never decide if I like 9 or 6 more. 9 is by far my favorite PlayStation FF.

And yes, that fight between Alexander and Bahamut made me giddy for weeks. I kept a save slot there so I could watch that FMV any time I wanted. Most epic.

RavenTazECW - This is by far my favorite FF game. I just love it so damn much, haha. It was one of the first games I bought when I purchased a PS2 in 2001, since I didn't have the PS1 before then. I've played through it three times, and I feel like restarting it again soon. In fact, when my first PS2 could no longer read blue or black backed discs, I bought a PS1 just to play this game.

I really hope they return to this style of FF soon.

Now that's a whole lot of love for a game that really does deserve it. In quick answer form to some of the comments stacked up here;

• Final Fantasy VII is still my favourite PS1 Final Fantasy, though I do consider IX to be superior to VI. I know I'm just a tad in the minority in that I don't rate Final Fantasy VI as highly as many others do. Its still a great game mind.
  
• Amarant was kind of pointless in all fairness.
  
• The ending of the game was probably the best of all the PS1 Final Fantasy games I'd say. It actually provides solid closure on the story which, as much as I love them, both Final Fantasy VII and VIII fail to do.
  
• Douchnozzle is my new favorite word.
  

Finally we have gooched stepping up to defend the FFIX soundtrack;

FYI Lee, Nobou himself has stated that ff9 is his favourite score that he worked on, and it shows, it really is his masterpiece, i honestly think based on the soundtrack alone, this final fantasy blows nearly all of them out of the water. That being said, thank you for choosing to bring light to this massively underrated masterpiece. It's no wonder why its overlooked, mainly cus of the drastic change in visual style, it would be hard to go from a realistic proportioned futuristic style to a disneyfied medieval style. Make no mistake in my opinion the subject matter, the storylines and the characters have never been written better in the series, they took a old fashioned concept and modernized it for the cd age, coming up with probably the most classic final fantasy tale for the ages, i love its innocence and maturity. Gameplay wise the battle system is a little flat i thought, but all in all this is probably my 2nd favourite ff next to number 6.

I didn't know that the man himself held this soundtrack in such high esteem, but I personally still put it behind VII and VIII, and possibly VI and X as well. Having said that it is still of a quality most games can only wish to attain.

Alright then, I think that's enough talking for one day, its time to get down to the business at hand. So strap on those rose-tinted specs as this week the Retronomicon takes a look at Double Dragon.



The Background

The scrolling beat-em-up genre was essentially newborn in 1987. Techno has pretty much invented the genre back in 1986 with Renegade. That game started life as Kunio-kun in its native Japan before being published on Western shored by Taito to satisfy gamers craving for a game that was different to the glut of shooters and sports games that dominated the arcades.

Taito, of course, were already a massive name in arcade gaming. This was the company that brought us Space Invaders, the most popular arcade game of all time, so to say they has a solid reputation would be an understatement. The company were acting as the Western world's publisher for Technos games in the late 1980's, and this relationship ended up helping them get their names onto another revolutionary title.

Technos, for their part, had been releasing as string of serviceable games. Renegade was probably their biggest title up to this point but it didn't start the boom in popularity that beat-em-ups went on to enjoy. The company hadn't really made a dent in the arcade market yet, and most of their games slipped into relative obscurity.

The same fate would perhaps have befallen Renegade if Techno hadn't pretty much invented a genre with the game. This meant that it played a pivotal role in the game that would become its spiritual successor and the game that sparked a revolution that would bring us some of the finest games to grace our arcades and consoles. That game was Double Dragon.



The Game

I have to make a bit of a confession before I start this entry. I'm not the biggest Double Dragon fan. While the game is certainly revolutionary, and was the standard bearer of its genre for years, I was spoiled on the games that reaped the benefits of its innovations in later years, namely the SoR series and Final Fight games. Having said that, I recently managed to get a play on the arcade version of the game rather than one of the console ports, and this helped give me a renewed appreciation for the title. This entry will mostly focus on the arcade game and the NES conversion, though there are a multitude of other conversions out there, some good, some so horrendous that they aren't even worth looking at.

The story goes as that Billy Lee and his brother Jimmy are happily running their little martial arts dojo, teaching the style of Sou-Setsu-Ken. They are enjoying life until one day Billy's girlfriend Marian is kidnapped by the slightly unfortunately named Black Warriors gang.

This doesn't sit well with the brothers, and they take it upon themselves to rescue to fair maiden, rather than disclose their martial arts secrets to the leader of the Black Warriors, the extremely threateningly named Willy. Ignoring the obvious question as to why Willy doesn't just go to the brother's dojo to find out these secrets, the player is thrust into the shoes of Billy as he battles the Black Warriors through New York in an attempt to rescue the love of his life.

Double Dragon's first bit of innovation comes in the little twist in the tail at the end of the game when it is played in two player mode. Having fought their way through the Black Warriors and defeated Willy, Jimmy will turn on Billy and fight him in a deciding battle to see which one of the brothers gets the girl. While she is ostensibly going out with Billy at the time, she apparently isn't that fussed which brother she bags if this little twist is anything to go by. In actuality it acted as a cool little bonus to those who played through the game in co-op mode, having them fight to the death for the lady they both loved.

Innovation is a word that is often used in the gaming industry, but Double Dragon is one of the few games for which the word has genuine merit. The game was only the second real side scrolling fighter, and was the very first to introduce a number of gaming features. Remember that co-op mode that was just mentioned? This was the game that established that particular trope into the beat-em-up lexicon. Never before had gamers been given the option of pounding skulls together, and playing Double Dragon in co-op is tons of fun, and the company even created a co-op move for the brothers to use, wherein one character can grab an enemy from behind while the other wails on them from the front.

Outside of co-op gaming, Double Dragon was also the first beat-em-up to allow a player to pick up weapons mid-level and use them on their foes. This provided a little variety to the endless punching and kicking that the game employed, as well as being yet another. Its strange to think of this as being in any way something to shout about, as every beat-em-up lets you do the same, but Double Dragon was the first.

Outside of the little bits of innovation, the game plays much as you would expect it too. You take control of your player character and gradually prowl the streets, beating the snot out of anything that comes near you. You have regular punch and kick attacks, as well as being able to execute flying kicks, hair grabs and some elbow punches. There is also the jumping back kick that can floor enemies trying to sneak up behind you.

One of the main flaws I find with the battle system is that the characters seem to have very little range in their strikes. You really have to be up close and personal to land your strikes and, until you become experienced with the game, this can be a good way to take a lot of damage as you try to judge the distance and timing for your strikes.



Difficulty was one of this games main features though, especially in the arcades where the main aim is to get the player to pump more quarters into the machine. While level 1 is a cake walk in some respects, as you progress through the games 4 levels, the difficulty is upped to joystick smashing levels of frustration. Level 4 is so chock full of enemies and traps that it takes a special sort of skill to complete with with an level of competence.

There are small range of enemies that the player will encounter, as well as a recurring group of boss and mini-boss enemies to provide a little extra challenge. Luckily the weapons provided to Billy and Jimmy are pretty damned useful in themselves. Ranging from knives to baseball bats, the lads have a decent arsenal at their disposal to pound the enemy into the dirt. The only problem comes when an enemy turns up that has a weapon as well. Again skill is tantamount in besting Double Dragon, especially if you intended on getting through the arcade version without losing a week's worth of pocket money.

There are an absolute boatload of conversions of the arcade game, ranging from the good (NES, Genesis, GBA) to the downright awful (Atari 2600). What possessed to powers that be to recreate a game made in 1987 for a console that was dead and buried by 1983 is anybody's guess, but it happened. The only plus point were the backgrounds, which weren't half bad for a 2600 game. However the game's main innovations all disappear. There are no weapons or two player co-op action. A 3 Button layout is mapped to a single button, so you can imagine the problems there. Plus it looks as you would expect a game to look on a console that was retired 4 years before it existed. The real kicker to this story though is the company who handled the conversion. It was none other than everyone's favourite gaming corporation, the mighty Activision. Guess it kind of proves that even the mightiest have humble beginnings.

As for other conversions, the most played would be the version on the NES. While the graphics weren't arcade quality for obvious reasons, the gameplay itself is quite faithful to the original, and it is by all accounts a pretty damned solid conversion. The Genesis and GBA games benefit from increased console power and all the advantages that come with it.

As for the arcade game itself, graphically it was pretty nice to look at for a late 80's game. Characters were well defined and chunky, background were solid and had a good bit of variety and it all generally made fine use of the power of arcade machines at that point of time. It is astonishing the see the graphical difference between the arcade games and their relative consoles in the 1980's. These days there isn't a jot of difference, however back in the heyday of the arcades, the fact that Double Dragon, and pretty much anything released in arcades, looked and played so much better in the arcade than their console conversions made your local arcade the place to be.

Sound wise the game, while not lacking, is generally nothing too special. That didn't stop the release of a special soundtrack, with re-arranged versions of the music, in its native Japan. However the music and SFX are not of special note in my opinion, though I may be slightly tainted by the awesomeness of the Streets of Rage soundtrack to see the quality in Double Dragons.

In summary then, Double Dragon is a hit and miss affair in some ways. If you get the arcade game, or one of the decent conversions, then it is very much a hit. You get the game that molded the genre into what it would become, and a pretty decent game to boot. Just avoid any conversion that is lacking either Nintendo or SEGA's stamp of approval.



The Aftermath

Double Dragon was released to huge critical and commercial success. The arcade cabinets made an absolute shit ton of money thanks to gamers that had become burned out on endless shooters, which of course prompted the multitude of conversions that ended up popping up.

The game itself spawned a number of sequels, both direct and as spin-offs. Double Dragon 2 and 3 were decent, as was the one-on-one fighter that Techno developed in 1995 for the Neo-Geo that was based around the Double Dragon universe. There was of course also Super Double Dragon on the SNES, which suffered a little thanks to the emergence of Final Fight, but was still perfectly playable.

Not only this, but the series saw success outside of the video games medium, on of the first franchises to do so. Outside of its scant appearance in the Nintendo licensed film The Wizard, there was also a 6 comic series created by Marvel in 1991 and an animated TV series that ran from 1993 to 1995. Best of all though was the live action movie, which was as bad as you expect a video game film to be.

Double Dragon's true legacy doesn't lie in the sequels it spawned, but in the genre it helped define. Without Double Dragon there is no Streets of Rage. No Final Fight. Not even The Simpsons Arcade. Every scrolling fighter owes a debt to the one that kick started them all, Double Dragon.

The Price is Right

There is no way in hell that I am going to try to search down every conversion of Double Dragon, principally because most of them are shite. What I will do is list the ones that are worth playing. As usual higher prices for better quality.

UK

NES - £5 – 10.
Megadrive - Its pretty hard to find a PAL version of this, so I'm guessing it might hold some value.
GBA Double Dragon Advance didn't get a European release.
Virtual Console (NES Version) - 400 Points.

US

NES - $10 – 20.
Genesis - You're looking at anywhere from $30 all the way up to $100.
GBA - Again a decent whack here. Look to blow between $20 – 40.
Virtual Console (NES Version) - 400 Points.

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Enjoy and see you guys next week.