Game Review: Double Dragon (Amiga, Melbourne House)

Once upon a time, Double Dragon was the beat-em-up. Before Street Fighter 2 reframed the genre, this scrolling brawler set the standard for two player fisticuffs. Fighting through the streets, taking out violent thugs on a mission to rescue your girlfriend, and with fantastic graphics and brutal, violent gameplay, Double Dragon wowed players round the globe.

In the arcade it did anyway. On the Amiga it was a bit crap.

Finding Their Feet

It’s an early Amiga game, from 1989 and developers Binary Design were given little time to complete it. Graphics are basic, sounds are feeble and the controls are loose. Sprite design is wonky and animation is poor, though there is quite a nice background on level four. Enemies frequently flip awkwardly between frames and it’s often unclear whether your attacks are going to connect.

You control one, or both, of twins Billy and Jimmy Lee on a mission to rescue badly drawn Marian from ruthless gang, the Black Warriors. Even for the 80’s, the main characters’ haircuts look strikingly bouffant, and along with their flat coloured blue and red jumpsuits it looks like they’ve been drawn in about half an hour. They look so bad it’s frankly not surprising that they’ve drawn the displeasure of the city’s less salubrious citizens.

Issues Galore

Double Dragon starts on the streets, then takes you through a warehouse, followed by a wood on your way to the enemy base. The many environmental hazards are difficult to navigate and easy to die from. There’s an awkward jump and various drops into nothing that can easily consume several lives. While this feels clumsy, it is often very funny. At one point I fell off a cliff, only to be followed by about four baddies, so it worked out quite well.

Collisions seem fairly random. It’s hard to tell if you’re lined up with enemies properly. If you are, you can usually stay in the same spot and repeatedly whack a recovering enemy, but if you shift up or down, it’s anyone’s guess whether you’ll hit them.

The AI isn’t very sophisticated either. Enemies usually end up in clumped groups following your around in the same pattern, so you have to try and whack them all at once.

In practice you often just move the stick towards the enemies and hammer the fire button in the hope you’ll do something that connects, and to be fair, you usually do.

On the other hand, you have a strong move set, with punches, kicks and elbows at your disposal. The flying kick is hit and miss, but very effective when it works. Get it wrong though and you’ll just do a jump. The grab move looks more like a clumsy attempt at the Heimlich manoeuvrer than a brutal combat attack, but you get the picture. You can also fling people over your head if luck goes your way.

There are weapons to pick up too, whips, bats, dynamite and more. These are highly effective and add to the fun. Yes, that’s right, fun.

Entertainment is What Counts

Because despite all these things to moan about, Double Dragon is basically decent fun to play. You can’t really go wrong with Double Dragon, and since the game is quick and throws plentiful enemies at you, remains enjoyable, despite the high level of jank on offer.

It’s also very easy, and can be finished quickly, even in one player mode. Then again, Double Dragon has never been a particularly tough game on any format. The final boss, named Willy according to the manual, has a machine gun, but isn’t super tough. The only thing that might trip you up is the gauntlet of semi-unavoidable environmental hazards on the last level.

Though easy to beat, the fun is in playing it with a pal and smacking your way through to the end, and it’s the kind of thing you’d be happy to do over and over again as a kid. There’s also a final scrap off at the end to decide who gets the girl.

Enjoyable, Despite Many Problems

It’s easy to mock Double Dragon as a poor early example of what the Amiga could do, but despite its limitations, it’s perfect for a quick, bit of two-player after school fun.

While it’s sloppy and amateurish, it’s still fun and comes from a time when Amiga developers were finding their feet. Let’s not be too generous – Rainbow Island and Populous came out too in 1989, but it’s really not fair to judge it by the standards of the many technically better games that came later.

On the other hand, if I’d paid 29 pounds for it, I don’t think I’d be pleased, but we’re looking at the budget release so that’s not a factor. Double Dragon is technically poor, but fun and that’s what matters. Many better games followed however, and there’s also been a recent fan-made remake of this one, which should probably be your first port of call if you’re interested in playing it on the Amiga.

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