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Common Gamer Review for Double Dragon1, 2, 3 on
NES
Double Dragon is the Grandfather of Side Scrolling
beat-em-ups. Not untill Final Fight would any game truely
surpass the fun and quality found in the original Arcade
Double Dragon. I still enjoy a game or two of DD on Mame
every now and then. Unfortunately back in 1988 the
technology to reproduce DD on any platform other than Arcade
was woefully lacking, this didn't stop Nintendo.
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DD1 on NES is perhaps the worst of all three DD
ever seen on the 8 bit system. Lacking that all
important 2 players simultaneous the game went on
to try and compensate by having a sort of RPG
experience scale. When starting a new game Billy
could only punch and kick, no uppercut, no spin
kick and no all important elbow or knee bash! Also,
the art style didn't really match up with the tall,
thin, nearly "Fist of the North Star" look, opting
for more of a super deformer vein. Unable to
recreate the arcade new never before seen enemies
and venues popped up. They even had the audacity to
put in some platforming elements, in a game where
fighting was the whole point. Clearly this was not
DD. It DID feature a rather interesting 1 on 1
feature with very nice graphics for such an old
system. Although no Street Fighter 2 this mode was
quite intersting now and again.
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Far more intersting was the NES sequel, Double Dragon 2:
The Revenge. This game is far more accurate and true to it's
arcade roots. Featuring very colorful and as accurate as can
be for 8-bit graphics this was shaping up beautifully. Most
importantly Billy AND Jimmy could be played simultaneously!
This included modes where you could and could not hurt each
other and 3 different difficulty settings. Although the
stages themselves were not identical to the arcade they did
not stray so far as the orginal NES port had. The game even
boasts more moves than the arcade version. Acclaim
and Technos added some definately storyline to the game with
cutscenes and dialogue in between stages. All together this
was probably the most in depth and fun Double Dragon ever on
NES.
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Far more intersting was the NES sequel, Double
Dragon 2: The Revenge. This game is far more
accurate and true to it's arcade roots. Featuring
very colorful and as accurate as can be for 8-bit
graphics this was shaping up beautifully. Most
importantly Billy AND Jimmy could be played
simultaneously! This included modes where you could
and could not hurt each other and 3 different
difficulty settings. Although the stages themselves
were not identical to the arcade they did not stray
so far as the orginal NES port had. The game even
boasts more moves than the arcade version.
Acclaim and Technos added some definately storyline
to the game with cutscenes and dialogue in between
stages. All together this was probably the most in
depth and fun Double Dragon ever on NES.
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Thinking the days of Double Dragon were over me
and my friends went on with our lives, untill one
day in the summer of 1990 we saw Double Dragon
III:The Rosetta Stone at the rental store. Amazed
we immediately snatched it up and took it home. It
started out with some of those neat cut scenes and
stuff from Double Dragon 2 and it even had 2 player
simultaneous still, we were filled with hope! A
little bit of playing we found that you could even
talk to people in game to further your quest as you
fought wave after wave of enemies. Soon we had
discovered the "helper" characters whom you could
freely switch to and play as and thought "Wow this
is pretty fun." Then the difficulty set in. See, in
Double Dragon 3 you need to basically deal out a 6
pack of whoop ass to every enemy you encounter.
After a while it starts to take several minutes per
group of baddies just to scroll the screen a bit!
Once we died it was also discovered that you
only had one life! This was inconcievable
given the sheer play time and effort involved.
Luckily one of us owned a Game Genie or else we
would have had to buy the game in order to play it
enough to pass it! While definately better than
Double Dragon 1 it just didn't have the fun and
speed of Double Dragon 2.
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Overall the Double Dragon series was merely an above
average collection on NES. The extremely evil original
Double Dragon was barely better than an D- really. Double
Dragon 2 picks up the slack though with a definate A-
outing, that game was truely fun and had quite a bit of
replay with the difficulties and multiplayer capabilities.
Double Dragon 3 is a B- with the difficulty and repitition
dragging down an otherwise very nice game. If you decide to
try these games out definately look up some Game Genie codes
for the 1st and 3rd games. Much like my Final Fight CD
review, the Double Dragon arcade game is begging for an
arcade perfect conversion, port or emulation on a newer
system. Perhaps hidden in some new 3d rerelease as a easter
egg or something at least. Untill then we will have to make
do with the current crop of emulators, like Mame, in order
to enjoy this classic.
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