Is Double Dragon the most flawed game ever?

MaximRecoil

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• No sound effect when you hit someone with a bat (but I believe there is one when an enemy hits you with a bat).

• Enemy AI that is at times laughable, featuring, among other things, zero fear of their own dynamite.

• A near useless "head butt" attack which is programmed wrong; i.e., instead of only performing the head butt when the joystick is quickly tapped twice left or right, it is always counting left or right joystick input as the first tap; meaning you can be walking along for a while, stop briefly, and then start walking again, and your character will head butt the air, leaving you completely vulnerable to attack.

• A near useless jumping back kick that has next to zero range.

• An elbow smash attack that is so overpowered that it renders all other moves pointless.

• Pressing the two buttons for the elbow smash will pick up a weapon if one is at your feet, leaving you completely vulnerable to attack, even though pressing those two buttons clearly indicates that you want to perform an elbow smash rather than pick up a weapon.

• Ridiculous amounts of slowdown. Quite a few games have occasional slowdown, but Double Dragon really shines in this area. There are entire sections which have excessive slowdown the whole time, e.g., the top of the building with the conveyor belt and elevator, and the final area where you fight Machine Gun Willy and company. The slowdown is bad in single player mode, and of course, even worse in 2-player mode. The funny thing is, some of the bootleg boards have less slowdown than the real thing, because the bootleggers ponied up for faster hardware than Technos did.

• Various random bugs, with a better than average chance of at least one of them showing up during a game.

Oddly enough, despite all these glaring flaws that never should have made it past the testing stage, Double Dragon is a fun game (it defines the genre as well), especially with 2 players. The classic kick > head grab > knee bash > overhead throw has to be one of the most satisfying attacks ever in a brawling game (very well animated too). I played the hell out of it when I was a kid in '87/'88, and everyone else did too. There was always a crowd of people watching and/or waiting to play.
 
• Ridiculous amounts of slowdown. Quite a few games have occasional slowdown, but Double Dragon really shines in this area. There are entire sections which have excessive slowdown the whole time, e.g., the top of the building with the conveyor belt and elevator, and the final area where you fight Machine Gun Willy and company. The slowdown is bad in single player mode, and of course, even worse in 2-player mode. The funny thing is, some of the bootleg boards have less slowdown than the real thing, because the bootleggers ponied up for faster hardware than Technos did.

In the Hunt has some of the worst slow down of any JAMMA game I've owned. It renders some of the later levels nearly unplayable.
 
And all that and the game is (insert synonym for awesome)!

I have a bootleg board that fails the cpu test, man I wish I could get it working.
 
Or you could buy my working boardset... It's already boxed up due to a couple people not following through on the sale. PCB worked fine the last time I tested it before boxing it up.
 
This is what we call overthinking it Max..... Seriously just play the games and have fun :) That said Double Dragon is one of the first games I remember there being TWO lines of people waiting to play it. Part of the reason I own one today....
 
Double Dragon was one of my final nostalgic "arcade" game experiences, as I got my drivers license in 1987 and quickly shifted my interests in other directions (driving places and dating.)

But, yes, the frame rate issue of the game, even when playing it nowadays in MAME, is maddening.
 
• No sound effect when you hit someone with a bat (but I believe there is one when an enemy hits you with a bat).

• Enemy AI that is at times laughable, featuring, among other things, zero fear of their own dynamite.

• A near useless "head butt" attack which is programmed wrong; i.e., instead of only performing the head butt when the joystick is quickly tapped twice left or right, it is always counting left or right joystick input as the first tap; meaning you can be walking along for a while, stop briefly, and then start walking again, and your character will head butt the air, leaving you completely vulnerable to attack.

• A near useless jumping back kick that has next to zero range.

• An elbow smash attack that is so overpowered that it renders all other moves pointless.

• Pressing the two buttons for the elbow smash will pick up a weapon if one is at your feet, leaving you completely vulnerable to attack, even though pressing those two buttons clearly indicates that you want to perform an elbow smash rather than pick up a weapon.

• Ridiculous amounts of slowdown. Quite a few games have occasional slowdown, but Double Dragon really shines in this area. There are entire sections which have excessive slowdown the whole time, e.g., the top of the building with the conveyor belt and elevator, and the final area where you fight Machine Gun Willy and company. The slowdown is bad in single player mode, and of course, even worse in 2-player mode. The funny thing is, some of the bootleg boards have less slowdown than the real thing, because the bootleggers ponied up for faster hardware than Technos did.

• Various random bugs, with a better than average chance of at least one of them showing up during a game.

Oddly enough, despite all these glaring flaws that never should have made it past the testing stage, Double Dragon is a fun game (it defines the genre as well), especially with 2 players. The classic kick > head grab > knee bash > overhead throw has to be one of the most satisfying attacks ever in a brawling game (very well animated too). I played the hell out of it when I was a kid in '87/'88, and everyone else did too. There was always a crowd of people watching and/or waiting to play.

You just broke my heart. I love DD I have been wanting to pick one up, but you just killed it. Dream killer.
 
• No sound effect when you hit someone with a bat (but I believe there is one when an enemy hits you with a bat).

• Enemy AI that is at times laughable, featuring, among other things, zero fear of their own dynamite.

• A near useless "head butt" attack which is programmed wrong; i.e., instead of only performing the head butt when the joystick is quickly tapped twice left or right, it is always counting left or right joystick input as the first tap; meaning you can be walking along for a while, stop briefly, and then start walking again, and your character will head butt the air, leaving you completely vulnerable to attack.

• A near useless jumping back kick that has next to zero range.

• An elbow smash attack that is so overpowered that it renders all other moves pointless.

• Pressing the two buttons for the elbow smash will pick up a weapon if one is at your feet, leaving you completely vulnerable to attack, even though pressing those two buttons clearly indicates that you want to perform an elbow smash rather than pick up a weapon.

• Ridiculous amounts of slowdown. Quite a few games have occasional slowdown, but Double Dragon really shines in this area. There are entire sections which have excessive slowdown the whole time, e.g., the top of the building with the conveyor belt and elevator, and the final area where you fight Machine Gun Willy and company. The slowdown is bad in single player mode, and of course, even worse in 2-player mode. The funny thing is, some of the bootleg boards have less slowdown than the real thing, because the bootleggers ponied up for faster hardware than Technos did.

• Various random bugs, with a better than average chance of at least one of them showing up during a game.

Oddly enough, despite all these glaring flaws that never should have made it past the testing stage, Double Dragon is a fun game (it defines the genre as well), especially with 2 players. The classic kick > head grab > knee bash > overhead throw has to be one of the most satisfying attacks ever in a brawling game (very well animated too). I played the hell out of it when I was a kid in '87/'88, and everyone else did too. There was always a crowd of people watching and/or waiting to play.

I have a technically working board of Double Dragon. The audio is a little rough in terms of quality, but the biggest issue is that the video is completely scrambled. Basically playing blind because coin ups still work and makes an audible noise, game starts, characters if where visible and not like garbage do move and etc.

Need to get the board fixed by someone with experience with these. Sadly not easy to find someone with a Fluke for a 6309 or 6308 processor. I checked with www.OneCircuit.com he's pretty good at narrowing down issues and making simple board repairs but he doesn't have the fluke harness needed for a Double Dragon boardset.
 
Oddly enough, despite all these glaring flaws that never should have made it past the testing stage, Double Dragon is a fun game (it defines the genre as well), especially with 2 players. The classic kick > head grab > knee bash > overhead throw has to be one of the most satisfying attacks ever in a brawling game (very well animated too). I played the hell out of it when I was a kid in '87/'88, and everyone else did too. There was always a crowd of people watching and/or waiting to play.

I'm glad you added these final comments. Like many games we grew up playing, many of the "flaws" are part of the nostalgia. At least in my opinion. I know some guys try to find ways to "fix" these types of things.
 
You just broke my heart. I love DD I have been wanting to pick one up, but you just killed it. Dream killer.

Don't say that... if you love it, still get it.

DD is a great game to own. The only really flawed thing about its the resolution isn't full screen.

The control layouts are a little flawed as they should be symmetric to the facing sides. Attacks are always out of balance.

Many of really nice touches:

Built in attack combos.
Blocking a knife throw with a kick.
guys jumping out of a tree still have a hit box. so you can jump attack them.
Falling into a hole instant death.
throwing boxes/barrels as well as kicking them around the ground.
picking up weapons was awesome.
the vs play at the end of the game was just epic.
fullnelson holds on enemies as a hold. Letting your partner beat on him.

yes the game was feeling out of balance and rushed to market with some pretty nice sized bugs.

whip on a enemy doesn't knock them out of a full nelson.
full nelson an enemy at the end of a level can hold the timer at zero and level does not end.
combo these two bugs and you can have a bunch of few free men.

The cab was even pretty awesome.
reversable bezel for changing out the games to another taito game.
PCB drawer for easy swaping out the jamma boards.

This game is a great game to own. I have a few of these cabs... I just love them.
 
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The only really flawed thing about its the resolution isn't full screen.

What do you mean by that? Resolution doesn't determine whether an arcade game is full screen or not. The game isn't letterboxed, pillarboxed, or windowboxed, so if it isn't filling the screen then you need to adjust your monitor's horizontal and vertical size and position controls.
 
For real. +1 what Prairied said. There seems to be at least one available for sale every month or so. They aren't hard to find at all. Hell, there is one for sale in the bay on KLOV right now.

Gameplay wise, this is why you also make sure to have DD2, DD3, Final Fight and any other 2-3 button JAMMA beat-em-up ready to swap in. DD1 had shitty QA standards (if any back then), but it still stands up. The biggest downfall of DD, and the genre in general, is just that once enjoyment peaks, it's downhill to oldsville VERY quickly. I usually can't play some of the greats like Final Fight or Aliens vs. Predator for a month or two after a couple of play sessions. Awesome games, but they were designed to drag on a bit and drain quarters.
 
Gameplay wise, this is why you also make sure to have DD2, DD3, Final Fight and any other 2-3 button JAMMA beat-em-up ready to swap in.

Double Dragon II would have been great if not for the Renegade style control scheme. Renegade was not a hit. Double Dragon was a huge hit. Obviously far more people were familiar with Double Dragon's intuitive control scheme than Renegade's counter-intuitive control scheme. It is hard to believe that they reverted back to the Renegade scheme.

Double Dragon 3 is a lost cause as far as I'm concerned. I do like the Capcom brawlers though, but not as much as Double Dragon. I'll probably get a Final Fight boardset at some point. I'd like to own a Double Dragon machine (instead of just the boardset) but I haven't had any luck finding one around here.
 
And another thing:

If you beat the game you don't get to put in your initials and your score doesn't go on the board.
 
What do you mean by that? Resolution doesn't determine whether an arcade game is full screen or not. The game isn't letterboxed, pillarboxed, or windowboxed, so if it isn't filling the screen then you need to adjust your monitor's horizontal and vertical size and position controls.

it actually does get Pillarboxed a little. The width of the game is only 240 pixels so typically it gets stretched out a bit to fill the game.

The awesomeness of the easy to swap boards cab gets ruined DD is in the rotation and you like to fill out the width of the screen. I end up living with the pillarbox or I need to adjust the width everytime I go to and from DD in my cab.

Check out Gary's spreadsheet for his boards and resolutions.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc...NX3F6Z1p1T2xITlE&authkey=CN62v64J&hl=en#gid=0

I'll also say. BITD I was like a master of this game with my brother. We didn't even have to rely on the infamous elbow to win the game. We always got to the end and saved free men for the spears to get by. After I finally got one last year I still play it every once in a while. With my twin boys, it fits in my twins theme to my arcade. Mario Bros WB - Double Dragon - Operation Thunderbolt.

It's a keeper for me with the awesomeness of the Taito cab. I call my cab the Rast-dash-Growling-Dragon. If you are into JAMMA games it's just a great cab to have. I also hope to have a F3 Elev-Action 2 someday so that I can easily swap between BubbleBobble3/ElevAction2 in this type of cab also.
 
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