Game Boy Double Dragons and Some Ocean Games! (Greg and James Beat 'Em Up!, ep. 72)
000:00 Opening (Theme Song by James)
2:18 Double Dragon (Game Boy; 1990; Technos Japan Corp.)
46:25 Double Dragon II (Game Boy; 1991; Technos Japan Corp.)
1:09:14 Double Dragon III: The Arcade Game (Game Boy; 1992; Technos Japan Corp.)
1:28:25 Darkman (Game Boy; 1992; Ocean Software)
1:49:45 Lethal Weapon (Game Boy; 1993; Ocean Software)
We're beating 'em up on the go with the Game Boy Double Dragon trilogy and two movie-license games from Ocean Software!
Double Dragon seems fun: it's a bit slow, but it's a solid fighting game that offers its own spin on the first game's general layout. We need to try it again with a set up to emulate link-cable two-player to get the full experience before we can render a verdict!
Double Dragon II, oddly enough, is actually a re-skinned Kunio game (which we'll definitely be checking out soon!). This is doubly-odd because not only does it not really feel like Double Dragon, it also doesn't quite feel like either the Nekketsu Koha Kunio-kun/Renegade or the Nekketsu Downtown Story/River City Ransom lines of Kunio beat 'em ups! It's a pretty fun game, though, with a really fun moveset that includes a two-stage (A+B once to crouch, and then again to spring into the air) leaping uppercut and a really emphatic attack to a downed opponent. We need to try it two-player!
Double Dragon III: The Arcade Game, not developed in-house by Technos Japan Corp., really shows me for a fool after I express early skepticism that it will be an actual adaptation of the arcade game. It is. It certainly is. Like the arcade game, it *blows*! One really standout failure here: all the enemies use the exact same path-finding and attack AI, so they're always running right up to your face, stacking on top of each other visually and swarming you with attacks! *VERDICT*: GOON Tier!
Ocean's Darkman adaptation stands out mostly for just being astonishingly tedious. What seems to be an introductory level drags on and on and on, as Darkman fights the same few slow-moving, overly robust enemies that take forever to defeat. It just keeps. on. going. I don't know that we've ever bailed on a game before completing the first stage before, but it also seems entirely possible that the entire game is just this opening brawl! *VERDICT*: GOON Tier!
One year later, Ocean grabbed another movie license and dropped Lethal Weapon, a game that has underdeveloped beat-em-up mechanics alongside boring shooting mechanics. Credit where it's due: they committed to having a sprite for both characters. Otherwise, the most notable thing here is how ill-conceived the mole-hole enemies are! *VERDICT*: GOON Tier!
More portable fun next week, including the GAME GEAR Double Dragon!
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Greg and James Beat 'Em Up is our ongoing exploration of the beat 'em up genre! Broadcast on any Tuesday evening where schedules and Greg's health allow at https://twitch.tv/58DreamStreet
In Phase One, we played 40 "notable or notable-adjacent" beat 'em ups released through the year 1993!
Now, in Phase Two, we're playing the NINETY-EIGHT other beat 'em ups released through the year 1993!
Theme Song composed by James, using Famitracker!