When you think of arcade brawlers there are not many names that will top Double Dragon. Technos knew they had a good blend of unique to the competition game play and graphics with this one. Sure, there were other brawlers available before Double Dragon but none captured the fan base that this arcade unit did. When brought to the Nintendo Entertainment System this game caused what to happen?

Pulling brawlers into the mainstream

Brawlers are different from one on one fighting games in that you are fighting against a horde of, usually different, enemies. Your move set is also quite limited so that you can focus on taking out the bad guys rather than button combinations to do moves. Likewise, the move sets of the enemies are limited to one or two moves. This keeps the action focused on button mashing and simply surviving the horde.

Double Dragon has spawned two direct arcade sequels and even a spinoff that was more in line with the Street Fighter series. There have been a ton of copycat releases with Streets of Rage and Final Fight being two of the most recognizable.

Double Dragon ports are numerous

Companies have kept Double Dragon alive on other platforms such as:

Amstrad CPC
Android
Atari 2600
Atari 7800
Atari Lynx
Commodore 64
Commodore Amiga
iPhone
MSX
Nintendo Entertainment System
Nintendo Game Boy
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
PlayStation 3
Sega Genesis
Sega Master System
Steam
Xbox
ZX Spectrum

Differences to note

Some of the newer (last decade or so) releases feature many improvements. The Game Boy Advance version features new graphics, intermissions, discussion with the bosses and more while keeping a strong link to the original. DotEmu has kept the series alive with their Double Dragon Trilogy release for Android, iPhone and Windows via Steam.

Which version of Double Dragon is your favorite? Are you a purist or lean more to the GBA version? Check out eBay or Amazon for your next fix.

Carl Williams

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