We’re continuing our look at beat-em-up games in honor of
Adamant Ditto’s Beat-em-up month: the Revengance. Let’s take another look at
one of the series that helped popularize the genre with Double Dragon 2: The
Revenge (that sounds familiar) for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
There are a lot of changes between Double Dragon 1 and 2 on
NES. First off, you’ll notice that in Double Dragon 2 you can play as both Billy
and Jimmy Lee, which is confusing since Jimmy was the main antagonist in the
first NES game. Double Dragon 2 is a lot more of a straight port, while a lot
where a lot of things were changed in the first game. (This might be a result
of Acclaim and Technos now handling this instead of Tradewest.) Jimmy becoming
a good guy might have been necessary anyways, since you can now play 2 players
simultaneously, a big plus on this game over its predecessor. However, this
comes at the cost of the leveling up system and though it doesn’t really hinder
this game (since you still have all the skills), I do miss it.
One more change I have to mention is the controls: B and A now
do the same thing, but in different directions. If you’re facing to the left
and press B, you’ll do a regular punch to the left, but if you press A you’ll
do a kick towards the right (and vice versa). This can be a good way to prevent
enemies from sneaking up on you, but it is odd to have to keep remembering to
switch buttons so you don’t start kicking air.
The graphics are weird, as it looks like they were trying
too hard. I think “Rob Leifeld like” best describes it: the characters have
tiny heads when compared to their massive arms and chests. They got weird bumps
all over their bodies, so it’s funny to see them walk on such relatively tiny
feet. And that’s the last thing I really have to say about Double Dragon 2,
otherwise I think I’d be explaining obvious things, like you beat people up in
this beat ‘em up. So, how about I move on to a related game? Here’s Renegade
for the NES.
Guru Larry does a better job at explaining how Renegade and
Double Dragon are related in his review of it, but basically Renegade could be
considered Double Dragon’s father, while the Kunio-Kun series would be the
mother. The first Kunio-Kun game was released in May of 1986 in Japan, but when
Taito got the western distribution rights, they decided to make a few changes
(mostly re-skinning the game) and called it “Renegade”. Technos apparently liked
“Renegade” and decided to combine elements from both versions, and so Double
Dragon was born.
It’s important to note that Renegade came before a lot of beat-em-ups
because it doesn’t seem that impressive. Don’t get me wrong, the game is still
fun, but it’s very restrained: you mostly stick to side streets and just punch
regular people. The game is also hurt by the fact that the multiplayer is turn
style and it also uses the “B attacks left, A right” control scheme. Punching
is still satisfying, but a lot of enemies can break your combos and get in
cheap hits easily.
The graphics are kind of bad. A lot of backgrounds look flat
and most people are really oddly shaped, making their animation frames look
weird. However, the music is really good. For most tracks, the rhythm is really
up-beat and lets you know to have fun. This might have to do with the fact that
this game was possibly inspired by the 1979 movie “The Warriors”, and some of
the music from that sound track could easily be compared to the tracks in
Renegade.
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