Original: Arcade · 1987
The arcade game that wrote the rulebook for the side-scrolling beat 'em up — and whose most-played home version had to cut the one thing everybody came for: playing it with a friend.
Technos Japan's Double Dragon reached arcades in 1987 and effectively defined the side-scrolling beat 'em up: two players on one scrolling street, weapons picked up off the floor, and a rhythm of crowd control that a decade of imitators would copy. Its home conversions are one of the clearest demonstrations in gaming of how completely a port is shaped by the machine it is squeezed onto. The version most Americans played — the NES release, developed by Technos itself and published by Tradewest in 1988 — is the one without co-op. Technos had converted only Renegade to the NES before it, and the console's memory and sprite budget could not carry two player characters alongside the enemy count the design needed, so simultaneous play was cut. What replaced it was not merely a reduction: the NES version added a turn-based two-player option, a separate one-on-one "Mode B" versus fight, and an experience system in which landing hits progressively unlocked new moves, giving the single-player game a structure the arcade original never had. The Master System version, released the same year, made the opposite trade and kept the co-op the NES lost. The extremes came later. The Game Boy conversion in 1990 had no business working on a monochrome handheld and was praised anyway — Electronic Gaming Monthly scored it 28 out of 40 and called it near-perfect. At the other end, Activision's Atari 2600 port arrived in July 1989, twelve years into that console's life, and is remembered less for its visuals than for a difficulty so punishing that the manual leaned into it and billed the game as "The Ultimate Challenge".
Developed by Technos and published in North America by Tradewest. The arcade's simultaneous two-player co-op was omitted — the studio had only converted Renegade to the NES beforehand, and the hardware could not carry two player sprites plus the enemy count. In its place came a turn-based two-player mode, a one-on-one "Mode B" versus fight, and an experience system that unlocked new moves as the player landed hits.
The 8-bit console port that kept what the NES version lost: two players brawling side by side, the whole point of the arcade game. The trade ran the other way — a less elaborate single-player game with none of the NES version's move progression — but for anyone who wanted Double Dragon as it worked in the arcade, this was the 1988 machine to own.
A conversion that should have been impossible on a monochrome handheld with two buttons, and was well received regardless. Electronic Gaming Monthly scored it 28 out of 40 and described it as a near-perfect version of the arcade game; ACE called it comfortably the best beat 'em up on the system to that point.
Published by Activision in July 1989 and programmed by Dan Kitchen, arriving twelve years into the 2600's life. The visual compromises were expected; the difficulty was not. The game is remembered chiefly for being close to unplayable, a reputation the manual anticipated by billing it as "The Ultimate Challenge".