Double Dragon - Game Boy - Review

Aah, Double Dragon for the Game Boy. It was one of the first games I ever owned and I guess that means I’ve been enjoying it for over a quarter of century now. In all those years though, I could never beat it. In fact I could never even make it past the third stage. Still that didn’t stop me enjoying it the hell out of it, and over the years I must have played those first three missions a hundred times. 

So where to begin with this iconic game?

 Double Dragon first hit the arcades in 1987. Developed by Technos the game was the brain child of Yoshihisa Kishimoto who had already found huge success in Japan with his semi-autobiographical high school brawler, Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-Kun. Double Dragon was the result of Technos asking Kishimoto to create a game with international appeal, and so the Japanese high school setting of Kunio-Kun was ditched in favour of the post-apocalyptic, gang ridden city we see in Double Dragon.

The game follows the story of two brothers, Billy and Jimmy Lee as they take on the Black Warriors gang to win back their joint love interest Marian who has been kidnapped by a gun toting bastard named Willy. 

I like the fact that stories didn’t need to be complicated back then. You had bad guys and you had good guys. The bad guys would do bad stuff and the good guys would kick the crap out of them for it. What more do you need?

The game offered two player co-op to double the fun (hence the title Double Dragon) and kids and adults around the world found themselves throwing coin after coin into the arcade cabinet.

The arcade game was a huge success and over the subsequent years it found itself being ported to every system imaginable. Everything from the Playstation to the ZX Spectrum had a Double Dragon game, some of them great and some of them borderline unplayable. For me though the Game Boy version is the only one I’ve ever needed. In fact growing up I had no idea there were so many different versions of the game, and so although I’m sure everyone has their own favourite port, for me Double Dragon is synonymous with the Game Boy. 

The game takes place over 4 stages and follows the same story and locations as the arcade original. Due to the limitations of the 8-bit handheld the game has been scaled back somewhat and amongst other things the option for co-op play has been removed and so you’ll have to take on the Black Warriors gang as Billy single-handedly. (Maybe they should have called it Single Dragon? Or maybe just Dragon?)

Luckily Billy has some sweet moves he can pull off with the developers managing to make the A and B buttons on the Game Boy feel more than adequate for the job. In fact it’s pretty amazing how varied your attacks can be in the game. In basic terms the A button is used for punching and the B Button is used for kicking. Pressing A and B simultaneously is used to perform a flying kick. Sounds basic enough, but when you  start to string together combinations you’ll realise that you can also perform spinning kicks, elbows, throws, knees and uppercuts. There isn’t much difference in gameplay terms between the different attacks but it’s just so damn fun mixing them up. At times it makes me feel like I’m choreographing an epic fight scene from an 80’s kung-fu movie.  

Occasionally enemies will be armed with bats, barrels, whips, rocks and knives which after lamping the owner you’ll be able to use yourself for a short while. Again they don’t seem to be any stronger than your fists but who cares it’s just… fun. 

All of the enemies in the game are pretty much just punching bags for you to show off your martial prowess. Occasionally they’ll get a lucky hit in which will barely dent your health bar and so all in all they won’t be offering much resistance at all. The first time you’ll have a proper fight on your hands is when you come across the Mission 1 boss; Abobo. Abobo is built like the proverbial and hits like tank so you’ll have to be quick on your feet to defeat him. As long as you don’t stand in front of him for too long you’ll be able to show him whose boss without too much trouble. 

Aside from the awesome combat you’ll also have to tackle some less than awesome platforming sections. Remember the flying kick I mentioned? That’s how you’ll be getting across the gaps. To say its awkward and annoying is an understatement and messing up these jumps has always been by far the main cause of death for me over the years. 

The first time you need to make a jump like this is in Mission 2. You fight a few bad guys and gals, climb a few ladders and then you find yourself confronted with a conveyer belt leading to nothing and so you have to jump kick your way across to the floating platform. This bit isn’t too bad but then you’ll have to jump kick over another gap and onto a conveyer belt which as soon as you land is trying to push you back down the gap you just jumped over.

If you fall you lose a life and its back to the start of the level for you! Oh, and did I mention you only have three lives to finish the game? No continues, no password saves, no mercy! Can you see why I never managed to finish this game?

To be fair, mission 2 is otherwise pretty easy. You have to fight your way through a bunch of grunts and climb a few more ladders before taking on a mini-boss called Chintai on a rooftop.  Chintai isn’t as strong as Abobo but he still takes a lot of hits and he even has a few crafty tricks up his sleeve. Occasionally he’ll try countering your attacks by back flipping away and launching back in with an attack of his own. He can even wriggle out of throws, by flipping over and landing on his feet. Pfft. Showoff. He doesn’t seem to have any answer to the good old one-two though and after a good face pummelling he’ll go down quick enough.

It’s mission 3 where things get really tough. It starts out easy enough, apart from an awkward platforming section where you have to jump across a broken bridge whilst avoiding being battered by a baseball bat wielding dominatrix, but towards the middle of stage you are ambushed by Abobo on a narrow cliff face. If you are lucky enough you can get him into position to sending hurtling to his doom before he can do too much damage but expect take a beating in the meantime. Straight after this you have to fight, not one, not two but three Chintai’s on a narrow bridge. Luckily the Game Boy’s limitations prevent more than two enemy characters from appearing at a time and so one will patiently wait off screen to replace his fallen comrade. If you survive this it’s time to take on a couple more jumps, a few thugs and …another Abobo. This is as far as I ever managed to get.

It’s not so much that it’s too difficult so much as it’s too punishing. Getting towards the end of the stage only to succumb to a missed jump, or having your health whittled down to empty in the fights with Abobo and Chintai means having to back track your way from the beginning of the stage and before long it’ll mean having to back track from the beginning of the game. 

I’d pretty much resigned myself to never getting past this point in Double Dragon. But then I thought; how can I properly review a game that I haven’t even finished? Almost every other game I’ve reviewed so far I’ve made a point of completing first and so why should this be any different? I knew now was the time to conquer the game that had bested me for two and a half decades. 

I pushed on, trying to learn new ways of taking less damage, of making sure I made the jumps first time. I learnt how to deal with bosses without getting hit and I forced myself to try and try and try again until finally… I did it! I’d finally beaten the last Abobo and entered to door to start Mission Fo..

What the hell it’s still Mission 3?! Well surely it can’t be much left now? Oh, what the hell is this? And what the hell is this? Oh no… moving platforms. And what… the… hell… is… this? You have to fight Abobo on a 2D plain while the floor falls away. This is bullshit. 

Well no-one said it was gonna be easy. I wanted to give up but pride took over and kept persisting. I wouldn’t be beaten and so I stopped recording and knuckled down. After many, many attempts I finally managed to beat Abobo by leaping over him and knocking him off the ledge (sadly not recorded) and I made my way through the door and into stage four. 

Things ease off a bit here and although you have to jump over gaps a fair bit it’s all pretty straightforward as you climb the rock face and make your way to the final boss’s palace.  

It’s here that things really start to heat up again. Before long you find yourself in front of three doors which when open draw you in. If you get too close, you’re dead meat so you have to fight against it by walking in the opposite direction. To make it worse you have spikes at the front to stop you getting too far away from the doors. And all the while you have to fight. After defeating four thugs it’s time for one last showdown with Abobo. Mercifully the doors stay closed for this one.

After this you have to negotiate past a wall of particularly aggressive drawers before taking on yet more thugs, then three more Chintai’s and then finally it’s time for the final battle against the gun-toting bastard himself; Willy! Come on then Willy, you… Willy!

That’s it! I did it! I beat the game I thought was unbeatable! It took me 25 years but I did it!

Beating a game from your childhood is a funny thing. It always leaves you with that unmistakable bittersweet feeling. The initial buzz from the achievement is quickly replaced with that sense of it somehow being the end of an era. Memories flood back of years gone by and it reminds you that these aren’t just games they are experiences like any others, and they can be meaningful.

Well I set out to review Double Dragon but honestly that’s a hard thing for me to objectively do. What I can say is that it’s one of the games that made me fall in love with gaming. The epic title screen music made me fall in love with the Game Boy sound chip and in all the years since its original release I’ve never tired of its ‘oh so satisfying’ combat.

The game can be picked up cheaply and easily, so if you like what you’ve heard why not seek out a copy of Double Dragon for the Game Boy and take to the fight to the Black Warriors Gang and win back the kidnapped Marian.