{"id":1746,"date":"2022-06-01T15:05:14","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T15:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/01\/celebrating-double-dragons-35th-anniversary\/"},"modified":"2022-06-01T15:05:14","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T15:05:14","slug":"celebrating-double-dragons-35th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/01\/celebrating-double-dragons-35th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Double Dragon\u2019s 35th Anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">My name is Takaomi Kaneko from Arc System Works. In the past, I worked on the River City series and Double Dragon 4 as a producer, illustrator, etc. When PlayStation asked me to reflect on the series as it marks its 35th anniversary this year, I decided to \u00a0interweave stories I personally heard from the game\u2019s creator and then director (1988) Yoshihisa Kishimoto as well as WayForward\u2019s Tomm Hulett.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52097087881_1d11b55bb8_h.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"\">The origins of the original\u2019s co-op mechanics<\/h2>\n<p class=\"\">In the 1980s, the video game business\u2019s strategy was focused in the arcade sector, chiefly sales of arcade cabinets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In this way, the number of players for any given game would be determined before development would commence, so the game would fit the cabinet type that needed to be sold. As such, Technos Japan\u2019s in-house sales team \u2013 which was very powerful at the time \u2013 made a strong proposal to the development team that it should consider creating a game for a two-player cabinet. The result was the first Double Dragon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">At a later date and in similar fashion, the team proposed a title that\u2019d use a three-player cabinet, resulting in 1990\u2019s Double Dragon 3. For the first time, the series\u2019 story was altered to include a third brother for the third title.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ps-age-gate-container\">\n<div class=\"ps-age-gate-container__inner\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"ps-age-gate-container__overlay\">\n<div class=\"ps-age-gate-container__overlay-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<button class=\"ps-age-gate-container__unlock-button\">\n<p>\t\tVerify your age to view this content.\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Verify your age to view this content.<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/button>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"\">Balancing the game around two players<\/h2>\n<p class=\"\">As the game was designed for arcades, there was no plan to balance its gameplay. To encourage players to team up with friends, Double Dragon was designed to be extremely difficult to complete for a solo player, requiring considerable skill. This encouraged cooperative play to make the challenge surmountable \u2013 and therefore add more coins to the machine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Cooperative play continues to thrive today, be it local or online, letting players complete challenges by inviting friends to team up to overcome difficulty spikes.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"\">The decision to include friendly fire or not<\/h2>\n<p class=\"\">Friendly fire was a relatively new concept back in the 1980s. It added a layer of strategy to combat, as players would need to communicate with each other during gameplay to avoid striking each other. However, its inclusion in Double Dragon came about from player interactions during location tests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Location tests in the arcade sector are a way of gaining player feedback. These allow the development team to see how the game performs by bringing the cabinet to a small number of select locations and monitoring players\u2019 reactions. Friendly fire had been designed and implemented in the game at this point. During the US localization tests for Double Dragon, the team observed that many players who started a two-player game not only played cooperatively, but also started attacking each other. The mechanic would remain for the game\u2019s full release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">More recently, games have separated cooperative and competitive game modes partly, perhaps, to avoid player frustration at friendly fire. But I believe Double Dragon has been loved for so long partly because of the inherent danger in its implementation of friendly fire. It increased excitement, with a single punch \u2013 accidental or otherwise \u2013 causing the affected player to cry out, and even retaliate. It also led to one of its most memorable moments, as two players would ultimately face off against the other at the game\u2019s end during a cooperative playthrough. That the brothers Billy and Jimmy could strike each other would inspire players to set out their own rules and devise gameplay strategies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">It\u2019s worth mentioning the game\u2019s high difficulty. Double Dragon\u2019s AI and combat was intended to be as true to real life as possible. This, coupled with the nature of arcade games at the time, meant a playthrough \u2013 even with a teammate \u2013 wouldn\u2019t become too easy.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"\">Inspiring generations of brawlers<\/h2>\n<p class=\"\">Tomm Hulett is a director at WayForward, which has produced many co-op games such as River City Girls. I asked him about the impact Double Dragon has had on the co-op game genre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cIn the late 1980s, the first machine we\u2019d look for in an arcade was Double Dragon,\u201d he recalls \u201cOf course, it was an exciting action game with detailed graphics and a cool setting. But the biggest draw was being able to play side-by-side with a friend, working together to defeat gangs and rescue Marian. Alone, Abobo felt almost insurmountable, but working as a team to topple such a powerful opponent was something very few games could match back then. Double Dragon also had so many different options \u2014 punches and kicks, jump attacks, knives, bats, and whips that you actually took away from your enemies! It seems very simple now but at the time it felt like a kung fu movie you could play. Double Dragon was not the first brawler, but it canonized most of the elements players still expect from the genre today \u2014 most importantly, two-player co-op.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Exactly as Mr. Hulett said, most of the elements of today\u2019s belt scrollers were implemented in Double Dragon in 1988. It can be said that it was a game worthy of being the original beat \u2019em up game.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52097087856_ee0f175e93_h.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I hope you enjoyed this look back at the origins of the game. Stay tuned for more Double Dragon developments in the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><em>Double Dragon, Double Dragon II, Double Dragon III, Double Dragon IV and Arcade Archives Double Dragon and Double Dragon II are available on PlayStation 4.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Celebrating Double Dragon\u2019s 35th Anniversary<!-- wp:html --><\/p>\n<p class=\"\">My name is Takaomi Kaneko from Arc System Works. In the past, I worked on the River City series and Double Dragon 4 as a producer, illustrator, etc. When PlayStation asked me to reflect on the series as it marks its 35th anniversary this year, I decided to \u00a0interweave stories I personally heard from the game\u2019s creator and then director (1988) Yoshihisa Kishimoto as well as WayForward\u2019s Tomm Hulett.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52097087881_1d11b55bb8_h.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"\">The origins of the original\u2019s co-op mechanics<\/h2>\n<p class=\"\">In the 1980s, the video game business\u2019s strategy was focused in the arcade sector, chiefly sales of arcade cabinets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In this way, the number of players for any given game would be determined before development would commence, so the game would fit the cabinet type that needed to be sold. As such, Technos Japan\u2019s in-house sales team \u2013 which was very powerful at the time \u2013 made a strong proposal to the development team that it should consider creating a game for a two-player cabinet. The result was the first Double Dragon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">At a later date and in similar fashion, the team proposed a title that\u2019d use a three-player cabinet, resulting in 1990\u2019s Double Dragon 3. For the first time, the series\u2019 story was altered to include a third brother for the third title.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ps-age-gate-container\">\n<div class=\"ps-age-gate-container__inner\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ps-age-gate-container__overlay\">\n<div class=\"ps-age-gate-container__overlay-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<button class=\"ps-age-gate-container__unlock-button\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\tVerify your age to view this content.\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Verify your age to view this content.<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/button>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"\">Balancing the game around two players<\/h2>\n<p class=\"\">As the game was designed for arcades, there was no plan to balance its gameplay. To encourage players to team up with friends, Double Dragon was designed to be extremely difficult to complete for a solo player, requiring considerable skill. This encouraged cooperative play to make the challenge surmountable \u2013 and therefore add more coins to the machine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Cooperative play continues to thrive today, be it local or online, letting players complete challenges by inviting friends to team up to overcome difficulty spikes.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"\">The decision to include friendly fire or not<\/h2>\n<p class=\"\">Friendly fire was a relatively new concept back in the 1980s. It added a layer of strategy to combat, as players would need to communicate with each other during gameplay to avoid striking each other. However, its inclusion in Double Dragon came about from player interactions during location tests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Location tests in the arcade sector are a way of gaining player feedback. These allow the development team to see how the game performs by bringing the cabinet to a small number of select locations and monitoring players\u2019 reactions. Friendly fire had been designed and implemented in the game at this point. During the US localization tests for Double Dragon, the team observed that many players who started a two-player game not only played cooperatively, but also started attacking each other. The mechanic would remain for the game\u2019s full release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">More recently, games have separated cooperative and competitive game modes partly, perhaps, to avoid player frustration at friendly fire. But I believe Double Dragon has been loved for so long partly because of the inherent danger in its implementation of friendly fire. It increased excitement, with a single punch \u2013 accidental or otherwise \u2013 causing the affected player to cry out, and even retaliate. It also led to one of its most memorable moments, as two players would ultimately face off against the other at the game\u2019s end during a cooperative playthrough. That the brothers Billy and Jimmy could strike each other would inspire players to set out their own rules and devise gameplay strategies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">It\u2019s worth mentioning the game\u2019s high difficulty. Double Dragon\u2019s AI and combat was intended to be as true to real life as possible. This, coupled with the nature of arcade games at the time, meant a playthrough \u2013 even with a teammate \u2013 wouldn\u2019t become too easy.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"\">Inspiring generations of brawlers<\/h2>\n<p class=\"\">Tomm Hulett is a director at WayForward, which has produced many co-op games such as River City Girls. I asked him about the impact Double Dragon has had on the co-op game genre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cIn the late 1980s, the first machine we\u2019d look for in an arcade was Double Dragon,\u201d he recalls \u201cOf course, it was an exciting action game with detailed graphics and a cool setting. But the biggest draw was being able to play side-by-side with a friend, working together to defeat gangs and rescue Marian. Alone, Abobo felt almost insurmountable, but working as a team to topple such a powerful opponent was something very few games could match back then. Double Dragon also had so many different options \u2014 punches and kicks, jump attacks, knives, bats, and whips that you actually took away from your enemies! It seems very simple now but at the time it felt like a kung fu movie you could play. Double Dragon was not the first brawler, but it canonized most of the elements players still expect from the genre today \u2014 most importantly, two-player co-op.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Exactly as Mr. Hulett said, most of the elements of today\u2019s belt scrollers were implemented in Double Dragon in 1988. It can be said that it was a game worthy of being the original beat \u2019em up game.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52097087856_ee0f175e93_h.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I hope you enjoyed this look back at the origins of the game. Stay tuned for more Double Dragon developments in the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><em>Double Dragon, Double Dragon II, Double Dragon III, Double Dragon IV and Arcade Archives Double Dragon and Double Dragon II are available on PlayStation 4.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!-- \/wp:html --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}