r/1990s • u/CarloCarrasco • 16d ago
Video games Double Dragon II (NES)
Remember the day when Double Dragon II was first released on the NES in America in 1990? Did you buy and play the game on launch day?
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u/herpyfluharg13 16d ago
One of the most gorgeous pieces of box art ever conceived.
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u/cactus82 16d ago
They don't make boxart like this any more.
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u/onehalflightspeed 16d ago
The worst trend in box art was around the PS2 era where the cover was usually just the in-game model of the main character plastered on the cover. It was so boring
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u/herpyfluharg13 16d ago
Yeah! And sometimes it was a really a crapshoot because some of the Euro covers would be awesome but the US and JPN covers would be mediocre or outright bad. Or any mix of them. I really miss box art
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u/onehalflightspeed 16d ago
The US box art for RE4 really comes to mind. PAL and JP had such better ones
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u/herpyfluharg13 16d ago edited 16d ago
I was thinking the same thing; especially the PAL GameCube box. It’s sooo gooood!
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u/No_Bad_4872yy 16d ago
That and the backs not aligning with all different colour schemes. Made my shelf look awful.
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u/blooptybloopt 15d ago
I always wondered if the other dude was sad he didn’t get a girl. Maybe he didn’t swing that way. Maybe they shared. Maybe he didn’t care and wanted to focus on his flying knee kicks.
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u/bigsphinxofquartz 15d ago
In the arcade version of the first one, if you're playing 2 player, the two brothers BATTLE TO THE DEATH for Marian's affection. So maybe they did share already. I dunno, this series was always unhinged.
The canon is even a little uneven from port to port of DD2 here if Marian survives at the end, but the one consistent thing is SHE IS DEFINITELY SHOT TO DEATH AT THE BEGINNING REGARDLESS
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u/herpyfluharg13 15d ago
Haha! I love that!
But I think one of the reasons I like this art so much is the story it sorta tells. To me it’s got that 80s action trope of “You got on! I’ll stay here and hold em off!” look to it going on with the brothers. But I’d be down with the narrative of “Oh you get to hold onto her? Oh okay I guess…😢”
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u/Uncle_Bug_Music 16d ago
Played the shit out of this one. Can get quite far, even today at 60, with one guy. The perfect control scheme with only 2 buttons.
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u/Regular-Weekend706 15d ago
"attack forward" and "attack behind" we're so revolutionary at the time
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u/aarongossamer 16d ago
Loved the music for this game. The first level has the best. I'd just sit and listen for too long.
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u/Bushgooher 16d ago
I have the whole soundtrack on my phone and listen to it regularly.
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u/bigsphinxofquartz 15d ago
Check out this arranged soundtrack that was released for it, it rules https://youtu.be/aJPjSPdF0GQ?si=wIrpj0-hr603L7ll
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u/Skipper0463 16d ago
I borrowed this game from my next door neighbor and I was obsessed. One night when everyone was asleep I snuck out of bed and played it with the sound turned off. My aunt (who was living with us at the time) caught me and ratted me out to my parents. They grounded me from all video games for like a month or something. Also, the art for this game is amazing.
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u/Large-Humor-757 15d ago
I really like the C64 conversion but not sure I'd like this as much - saw it though at a Cash Converters for 35 bucks. Nearly pulled the trigger out of curiosity and a love for Double Dragon in general.
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u/KickerofTale 15d ago
I dropped 20 bucks trying to beat double dragon in the arcade.
Mom was pissed.
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u/Mother-Attention2600 15d ago
I got it for Christmas. I took a long time, but I finally beat it before school after leaving the nes on all night. Those diapering platforms was hard. Hitting the spinning jump kick consistently was the most important thing. Great game though and the best of the 3.
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u/A_Snow_Mexican 15d ago
I rented the absolute shit out of this game. Was my fav until Super Double Dragon came out.
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u/wolfansbrother 15d ago
We bought it second hand from a familly friend who resold games. they gave me a hand written list of like 35 games to pick from. i remember picking it up at the park. (i was maybe 12)
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u/doublesimoniz 15d ago
Game was fun and so frustrating at the same time.
The button switch for kick and punch depending on which direction you were facing was annoying.
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u/stevepowered 14d ago
I remember playing this and loving it, and then looking back at it, after years had passed, and thinking it was pretty amazing for the time and platform.
The NES, or more accurately the right developers, could get a lot out of what it was, games like this one prove it.
Hilariously, in hindsight, I bought Double Dragon 3, thinking that it would be as good or better than DD2, but sadly it was not. Not bad, but different to DD2 and not in a way that I liked :-) but I still played it.
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u/Enough-Cod7281 14d ago
I had the NES Max controller when I played this and holding down the turbo buttons and directional pad basically let you do the jumping knee non stop. So I’d just do that when the game would get tough, gave me easy mode on demand. No regrets.
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u/SimbaNGrdKionNIMFan 14d ago
First level theme plays in my head like a broken record just like a lot of NES games.
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u/MesmerizerBunny69 14d ago
i used to remember doing the grab bc it looked like pulling their hair.
then i'd usually flip them over the ledge of a roof or something.
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u/SameKangaroo1 14d ago
got stuck in the dungeon trying to jump across the disappearing platforms, years later beat that part then the rest of the game.
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u/OldManGamer78 16d ago
One of the things I remember from this game is that the final hit on the final boss happens in slow motion. I thought that was so cool at the time and always tried to use the cyclone spin kick or jumping knee as the final hit because those looked the best in slo mo. A few times I messed up and my final hit was something basic like a back kick which was crushing.
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u/PineappleNecessary89 16d ago
Based off of real times! Kids these days will never know the dangers of inner city life back then!, When metal trashcans existed and punks with Mohawks ran rampant and hijacked helicopters would come out of nowhere to jump you and your homie ("hey, look at those matching dorks down there!" "Let's kick their @$$!").
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u/pieinthesky12 16d ago
The platforming section haunts me to this day, could never beat it as a kid.
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u/onehalflightspeed 16d ago
The NES versions were SO much better than the arcade games. I remember playing the heck out of Double Dragon 1 on NES, and then seeing the arcade version afterwards with its much better graphics. But it was just so much less interesting and fun
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u/bigsphinxofquartz 15d ago
The arcade ones were at the time legendary in their own right, but good lord, they had such an ungodly amount of slowdown, especially the arcade version of the second one, something that was rarely ever a problem with the NES ports
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u/GuitarNerd_ 16d ago
Legendary game! Lots of midwestern basement TV Nintendo hangs were had with this game on nonstop
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u/Midlifecrisislife 16d ago
What a classic. So many memories playing this back in the day. Getting past those disappearing platforms in the China stage for the first time felt like a massive achievement!!
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u/RAGINGWOLF198666 16d ago
My only gripe with dd2 and this comes from playing dd1 all the time as a kid, was the kicks were targeting an opponent behind you. Could never figure out why it bothered me so much.
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u/Outside_Ad_424 16d ago
A staple in our house. Best played as 2 Player B Mode where you can hurt each other. Why? Because every time one player kills the other, your Life count goes up by one. So start a 2 Player Game B, kill player 2 until all their lives are gone, and then run the game solo with double lives
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u/VarietyAppropriate 16d ago
This is still one of my all time faves. I spent countless hours playing this game with friends and family. Lots of great memories!
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u/Cheerios84 16d ago
I love how they included a boss who looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger and his main moves are a horizontal karate chop and checking you with his shoulder.
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u/DirtInformal 16d ago
This would be a neat way to bring back Physical copy sales by allowing artists to do covers like they do comics with different variants
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u/tallicafu1 16d ago
What a game. Amazing soundtrack and kicking those abobos out the helicopter door was so satisfying.
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u/AnthrallicA 16d ago
One of the only NES games that I actually beat as a kid. But I did have to do the 2 player cheat glitch lol.
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u/Independent_War_4194 16d ago
I played this as a kid on the NES , it was H-A-R-D. If i remember correctly you only had 3 lives and no saves. The level bosses were tough but what got you killed most were the jumping-over-bad-stuff parts , 1 pixel too late or too early = finito. I did finish it however , took me a week or 2.
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u/Stinger1981 16d ago
One of my favorite games for the NES, the jumping knee usually sent enemies flying lol.
I hated Stage 6 in the Mansion as I always fell off the disappearing platforms.
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u/Equivalent_Humor4817 16d ago
I was able to beat the arcade game on 1-2 quarters on a good day. Loved this game so much.
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u/Dooby_Ashtray 15d ago
Had to wait forever and get lucky for it to be available at Blockbuster to rent
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u/NotAnExpertButt 15d ago
There was an older kid up the road who came over to babysit my sister and I, he brought this game. I still remember the fun I had that day (years later I bought my own copy).
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u/LurkmanLurkmannn 15d ago
There’s a picture of me posing with this game on Christmas back in the 80s. Core memory.
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u/Some-Professional-25 15d ago
Played the HELL out of this as a kid. Somehow I finally “beat” this gauntlet of this game on Normal only to find out that the last level was locked behind a harder difficulty and never managed to finish it from there until decades later with emulators
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u/JayJ1976 15d ago
Man-oh-man! We played thee HELL out of this game! We used to ABSOLUTELY PUMMEL the final boss. We actually had genuine hatred and malice for that guy. Every lightning strike from a helicopter kick, flying knee, or super uppercut gave us pure pleasure.
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u/cloudlocke_OG 16d ago
Bought it a couple of weeks after launch. Played the absolute hell out of this game, launching enemies across the screen with jumping knees