While the early ’90s marked a pivotal turn in game development in terms of 3D modeling and graphics, the era is still best known for its side-scrolling action, beat ’em up titles, and top-down perspective adventures. This includes 1991’s The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past — hailed as one of the greatest video games ever made. Home video game consoles were becoming more and more popular at the time, but most kids still went to the arcades over the weekend to spend their saved or leftover lunch money on interactive, pixelated entertainment.
One of the most popular titles in the late ’80s and early ’90s was Double Dragon, a 1987 beat ’em-up video game developed primarily for arcades. The game became a cornerstone of the genre and directly influenced other popular beat ’em up titles that followed, including 1989’s Final Fight. This one is perhaps best known for its deuteragonist, Mike Haggar. In truth, Double Dragon was a massive hit, and its mechanics and style laid the foundations for many gaming titles that were subsequently built. Here are the six things about the Double Dragon franchise that make us crave the ’90s.
Iconic Gameplay
Double Dragon brought plenty to the table when it comes to beat ’em up games. The game was originally released in 1987 for arcades as a spiritual successor to 1986 Nekkatsu Koha Kunio-kun, and it introduced a continuous side-scrolling world that added a sense of progression, as well as a two-player cooperative gameplay and the ability to arm oneself with a weapon acquired after defeating an enemy.
The co-op, which we’ll discuss below, added a particularly addictive quality to the game that kept gamers coming back for more, as there was something so satisfying about taking down waves upon waves of thugs with your sibling or friends in tow.
The Co-op Play
As previously stated, Double Dragon has an exceptionally satisfying co-op mode in which a player could grab an opponent from behind and allow player two to attack unimpeded, and both players would lose a life if one of them dies in combat, falls off the bottom of the screen or into a bed of spikes, or if a timer runs out.
However, the game’s ending is what makes co-op interesting. Upon defeating the final boss Willy, the game pits protagonists (brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee) against one another. This means that players now had to fight one another, and some friendships definitely ended over the abuse of an elbow strike off-screen during these battles.
Pixelated Martial Arts
Pixelated martial arts will never go out of style, and the rise of recent titles, such as Fading Afternoon, Maiden Cops, 99Vidas, the iconic Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game, and River City Girls 2, attests to the fact. However, the pixelated martial arts moves in Double Dragon, though outdated by today’s standards, were actually the major selling point for fans. Admittedly, stuff was limited by the technology of the time, but there was something undeniably cool about spamming pixelated spinning kicks that the game offered.
The B-Movie Vibes
The Double Dragon games never had any deep plots, but they nailed the cheesy, over-the-top action movie vibe that was prevalent during the ’90s. The rivalry between Billy and Jimmy Lee, along with their quest to rescue Billy’s girlfriend Marian from an evil gang, really played out like a B-action movie.
And there actually was a movie adaptation of the game. Sadly, unlike its source material, the movie was a flop both critically and commercially, reinforcing the notion that video games make for bad movies and television.
Great Soundtrack
Like many arcades, the Double Dragon soundtrack, especially the original, featured a synth-heavy, adrenaline-pumping soundtrack that became synonymous with arcade action, even after the games were ported to home video consoles — of which the NES version completely omitted the player-vs-player ending.
In all honesty, music was always the strong point of the entire franchise. It’s really no wonder that one of the most praised elements of the most recent Double Dragon game, Double Dragon: Rise of the Dragons, is the soundtrack — though it’s modernized.
The “Cool” Factor
Double Dragon was packed with the ’90s coolness, along with leather jackets, ripped jeans, denim vests, and the all-around tough-guy aesthetics of both its protagonists and its baddies. Billy and Jimmy were everything you’d expect from the ’80s and ’90s gaming equivalents to Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo and Mel Gibson’s Martin Riggs but with the apparent kung-fu twist; everything you’d want in action heroes in a time of action-packed, martial-arts-infused entertainment.
Final Thoughts
The Double Dragon franchise is a pretty nice time capsule of what made the late ’80s and early ’90s such a golden era for arcade gaming. For those who grew up with pocketfuls of quarters and weekends spent at the arcades, Double Dragon is much more than just a game. It’s a gateway to a simpler, pixel-filled era whose titles made some of us fall in love with gaming in the first place.