Double Dragon * GAMEPLAY [GENESIS / MEGA DRIVE]
3Double Dragon is a 1987 beat 'em up video game developed by Technōs Japan and distributed by Taito for arcades across Asia, North America and Europe. It is the first title in the Double Dragon franchise. The game's development was led by Yoshihisa Kishimoto, and it is a spiritual and technological successor to Technos' earlier beat 'em up, Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun (1986), released outside of Japan by Taito as Renegade; Kishimoto originally envisioned it as a direct sequel and part of the Kunio-kun series, before making it a new game with a different cast and setting.
Double Dragon introduced several additions to the Kunio-kun belt scroll beat 'em up formula, such as a continuous side-scrolling world adding a sense of progression, two-player cooperative gameplay, the ability to arm oneself with an enemy's weapon after disarming them, and the use of cut scenes to give it a cinematic look and feel. The game's title is a reference to the two-player gameplay and Bruce Lee's martial arts film Enter the Dragon (1973), which was a major inspiration behind Kunio-kun and Double Dragon, while the game's art style and setting were influenced by the Mad Max films and Fist of the North Star manga and anime series.
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In 1992, Accolade released a Mega Drive/Genesis port of the game in North America and Europe under the Ballistic Software label. This version was released as an unlicensed third-party cartridge. Although the Mega Drive/Genesis has a smaller color palette than the arcade original, due to the more powerful 16-bit hardware it actually fixes all of the slow down problems from the original arcade game. In contrast, it had a number of deficiencies (especially in sound quality) because Ballistic Software were forced to use a small 512 Kilobyte (4 Megabit) cartridge ROM for cost reasons. This version came closest to the arcade game at the time.
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#GENESIS #MEGADRIVE #Gameplay
Platform(s)
Arcade
Release
Arcade
JP: April 22, 1987
NA: April 1987
EU: June 1987
Famicom/NES
JP: April 8, 1988
NA: June 24, 1988
EU: 1990
Master System
October 1, 1988
Genre(s) Beat 'em up
Mode(s) Up to 2 players, simultaneous
Arcade system Custom