Double Dragon
Gangs have taken over the streets, your girl has been kidnapped, and the only answer is the fist. Double Dragon on the SEGA Mega Drive is a pure-blooded beat 'em up, the genre of brawlers that this brand helped fundamentally shape and popularize.
The original arcade game was created by the Japanese company Technos Japan in the second half of the eighties and became one of the cornerstones of the entire genre. Brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee fight their way through city streets full of thugs to rescue the kidnapped Marian. A big draw was the ability for two players to cooperate at the same time, which turned playing into a social experience both in arcades and at home.
The gameplay is built on advancing from left to right through waves of enemies, whom you must take down with combinations of punches, kicks, throws, and grapples. The game lets you pick up weapons such as bats, whips, or knives and use them against your opponents, which adds variety to the fights. Each level culminates in a tougher opponent, and the overall impression is raw, streetwise, and uncompromising.
Double Dragon had an enormous influence on the entire brawler genre and opened the way for later classics like Final Fight or Streets of Rage. The brand saw many sequels and ports to all sorts of platforms and became one of the symbols of the arcade era. Cooperative two-player mayhem became a model for countless other games.
The Mega Drive version offers a hearty dose of good old street action, best enjoyed with a friend at your side. It is a title that does not pretend to be anything complicated, it simply drops you into the streets and lets you brawl until you reach the end.
Why play it: A founding brawler you will enjoy most with two players, full of fists, kicks, and raw street atmosphere.
Game 64 of 151 for SEGA Mega Drive
The same title elsewhere (9)
The differences between Double Dragon versions are among the most striking in the genre's early history. The NES version couldn't offer simultaneous two-player action like the arcade due to hardware limits — fights run in alternating turns or a duel mode — but developers compensated with an experience system and new moves, which many players still consider more enjoyable than the arcade. Versions for 8-bit computers like Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and Amstrad CPC drew sharp criticism for clunky controls, slow animation, and imprecise hits. Atari Lynx delivered a portable version many rank among the console's best action titles thanks to fluid movement and good sound. SEGA Master System and Mega Drive offered more colorful graphics closer to the arcade spirit, including two-player co-op.
