#4 – Double Dragon
76 Points, 6 Lists, Top Vote: #1 Stethacantus Production Date: 1987
Developer: Technos
Manufacturer: Taito (Technos in Japan)
It might be more accurate to call this "Daughter of the Mother of all beat em ups", since strictly speaking Renegade came first. But this was the first to have two player simultaneous play, which is what makes beat em ups fun. It also has t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e s-l-o-w-d-o-w-n when playing two players, and even in some parts of one player mode.
So, it's post apocalyptic America... Wait, what? That's right, in Japan the game takes place after a nuclear war. Palette swap brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee (known as Spike and Hammer in the first US release) own a martial arts dojo. Billy's girlfriend Marion is kidnapped by the Black Warriors, led by the terrifying "Willy", the only man in America with a gun. The brothers decide to rescue her. Then the brothers decide to fight over her. Makes sense to me.
The game is surprisingly complicated for its time, with separate punch and kick buttons, and a jump button. Unlike Renegade, you can also pick up and use enemy weapons. If you played, or at least saw, this game a lot in arcades, you probably know about the infamous elbow trick. IIRC, this was done by pressing Punch and Jump together. This attack hits behind you, does massive damage, and is largely invincible. You can beat most of the game just by standing with your back to enemies and using this move. The only really bad part is the total BS traps on the last level.
Fun facts: Double Dragon was followed by two sequels in the arcade: "The Revenge", in which the Black Warriors forgo kidnapping and instead just straight up kill Marion. And "The Rosetta Stone", which is God awful. DD3 actually expected you to pay REAL MONEY to buy power-ups. That's right, micro-transactions in an arcade game from 1990.
You most certainly can score 50K on Double Dragon, both the original arcade game, and the NES port, which is what's being played in The Wizard. It takes a long time though. Way longer than that movie suggests.
The buttons came as a single unit, and if that unit failed, the buttons stopped working. Most currently existing Double Dragon cabinets have had the button unit replaced by individual buttons, making the original units hard to find.
https://www.youtube.com/v/jo6R6LqpNNYUp next, I'm sensing a trend here.