The History of Double Dragon 3 the Rosetta Stone arcade console documentary

happy little games if you grew up during the golden age of arcades what style of gameplay suited you best perhaps it was the run and gun [Music] how about the one-on-one fighter maybe it was the various shoot-'em-ups that tickled your fancy [Music] [Applause] [Music] for me though it was all of the above and especially the side-scrolling brawlers that i remember fondly [Music] there was nothing better than going to your local arcade or bowling alley discovering a brand new brawler with cool new characters and awesome multiplayer support it was these types of games that got me talking to strangers even without a pocketful of candy or a big white van there were a couple of games in the genre that spring to mind and i still play and enjoy to this day the first one being the final fight series and the second one being the one that caused an explosion in the arcades in the late 1980s the double dragon series double dragon one and two were hugely successful titles with a string of successful home conversions as well i have already covered these two games in length so today we are taking a look at the third game in the series double dragon 3 the rosetta stone what element was introduced in this title that would change the landscape of gaming forever and is still being felt today so insert your quarters and get ready to play as billy and jimmy or is it spike and hammer or maybe it's bimmy and jimmy this is the history of double dragon 3 the rosetta stone the year is 1990 and techno japan are looking to develop a sequel in their massively successful double dragon series at the same time though the company is hard at work developing two brand new ips including the combat tribes as well as wwf superstars [Music] so to say the programming staff was spread just a little too thin would be an understatement technos had wanted to get the game released as soon as possible so rather than wait another six months they handed the title off to developer east technology with a couple of mandates straight from the top the first being that the game had to support three players simultaneously similar to the upcoming combat tribes arcade game three simultaneous players meant more money for technos they were also instructed to introduce new characters and moves but put them behind a paywall which can only be unlocked at various shops throughout the game with real world currency which meant more money for technos this was one of the earliest forms of micro transactions that we all know and love today it wasn't the first though that would be 1982's arcade game lost tomb which allows you to purchase 99 whips for 25 cents there are also other arcade titles that allowed you to buy more health such as 1985's gauntlet or various other arcade games throughout history giving you the option to continue by inserting 25 cents along with your standard eight-way joystick you have a separate punch kick and jump button at your disposal the developers decided to abandon the directional attacks of double dragon 2 instead going with a normal punch kick and jump attack as found in the original double dragon by double tapping the joystick left or right you can run which you can turn into a running attack it's possible to do a double team move with your partner which includes a triangle jump kick and back to back hurricane kick there are a few other new moves at your disposal including a running clothesline a jumping knee drop and a nice german suplex that would make kurt angle proud what didn't make the cut were some of the coolest things from the double dragon franchise such as the hair pull and elbow strike along with anything even remotely resembling fun double dragon 3 the rosetta stone was regurgitated in the north american arcades in the summer of 1990. it was released in japan in the fall of 1990 but we'll get to that in a minute this is a simultaneous three player brawler in which you take on either jimmy billy and brand new player sunny who just happens to be a pallet swap version of the lee brothers it is generally assumed that he is the eldest lee brother in the family as the story goes billy and jimmy have been traveling abroad for the last two years honing their martial arts skills they come across a fortune teller by the name of hiruko who informs the lee brothers that they must seek out the three rosetta stones in order to face the world's strongest opponent even though the title of the game is rosetta stone as in singular you fight your way across the world through many different locations before finally coming face to face with your ultimate adversary the game takes place across five levels with many bosses all throughout as soon as the game starts you open up directly in front of the most evil and dastardly thing in the game the weapon shop at this point you have the option of going inside and after inserting a few credits for each item you wish to purchase you have a choice of extra guys which allows you to replace your current fighter when he dies this essentially replaces the extra live system as found in previous games there are three different character types available including the yukida's brothers who have the most energy over any other characters [Music] the chin brothers who are chinese men with powerful attacks and the oyama brothers who are karate masters who have speedy attacks certain fighters are only available on certain levels such as the urquides brothers being available on levels 1 and 5 for example thankfully you do keep your inherited weapons and moves from the previous character except for the agility which you have to repurchase for some strange reason which meant more money for technos you could also select tricks which will unlock more moves weapons which include a nunchuck and katana but they only work on certain stages keep in mind though that only the leads can purchase and use the weapons energy which will restore your current character to 150 percent and power up which will increase your character's agility now that you have these powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men you would think that the fun factor would be through the roof but there's only so many ways you can polish a turd for starters while the graphics aren't necessarily bad they're just average at the absolute very best what is bad though was the choppy animation i didn't know if this was the latest double dragon game or an episode of south park screw you guys the hit detection is absolutely atrocious and if you love cheap hits in your game then get ready for cheap hits a mundo fonzie because they are all over this game there was one time i was stuck in between two characters on each side and before i could even counter the attack i had lost 75 percent of my energy this is the type of game that if you wanted to get very far you had to purchase at least a few upgrades which makes it more about who has the deepest pockets and not about skill i can't imagine going into an arcade back in 1990 and inserting quarter upon quarter upon quarter into this machine just to play for a few minutes i was starting to get upset with having to press the credit button over and over in maim which means my head would have exploded if it were real money for a stinky little game like this as far as the sound goes it's pretty good the sound effects have a nice hearty punch to them which is about the only positive thing i can say about this game i'm sorry it's not queef worthy i asked my year fifteen-year-old son to play this game with me as i recorded footage but i had forgotten exactly how horrible it really was after we were done i apologized profusely the five stages you encounter are america [Music] [Applause] [Music] china [Music] [Music] japan [Music] [Music] italy [Music] [Music] and egypt [Music] the various bosses you face are jim the younger brother of big bad willy from double dragon 2. [Music] lee who just happens to look and sound like bruce lee runs out [Music] giuliano [Music] [Music] hiroko who turns to the dark side [Music] the mummy [Music] and finally cleopatra [Music] after kicking cleopatra's 2 000 year old butt she disappears and you are given a king's ransom a short ending plays out where it's revealed that you will give the treasure to charity what a perfect world we live in [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] a few months later the game was released in japan only this time it was heavily altered japanese play testers did not like the micro transaction feature so all of the shops were either blocked off or removed completely from the game this meant that all of your moves and abilities were automatically given to you at the start of the game when the game starts up you have four different characters to choose from also on the very first level you start immediately in front of the record shop and not the weapon shop which is directly to the left since shafts are no longer available weapons can no longer be purchased and instead are found on levels 2 3 and 5 lying on the ground certain moves such as the hurricane kick were altered to make it a bit more difficult to pull off damage inflicted by enemies was also reduced by 50 percent in this version the north american version was supposed to have a character select screen as well instead of four as found in the japanese version there were actually supposed to be five which included both jimmy and billy this has got to be one of the worst brawlers i have ever played in my life and that includes the so-called real crappy batman on the super nintendo that never saw the light of day as a matter of fact i think i enjoyed playing that game much more than this one we'll return after the [Music] double messages 3 the ultimate in nes martial arts action continues with all new weapons characters and street fighting moves against the world's most awesome villains double dragon 3 from acclaim the action keeps coming everyone thought double dragon 3 would be a massive hit just like his predecessors and storm stepped in to release home conversions for the 8-bit and 16-bit computer lines the sales curve were in charge of the computer ports but they just didn't turn out that great acclaim was in charge of the nes version and flying edge handled the 16-bit genesis version let's go ahead and take a look at them now the amstrad version is up first and if you ever imagined what it would feel like fighting ninjas on the moon then this is the game for you everything runs extremely slow and not just 80 or 90 percent of the arcade speed we're talking about 25 percent how anybody at the company expected consumers to be happy with this is beyond me the controls have been severely stripped down from three buttons into one and rather than adapt the control scheme they just stripped out most of the moves which is a common theme amongst all of the home computer versions you still have your punch kick jump kick and also a special hurricane kick but that is all everything else is gone to be fair the graphics are nicely detailed with a good amount of color on the characters but when it runs this slow what's the point the queef brigade is on parade because this is pretty much the only sound you're going to hear all throughout the game whenever contact is made with your mad fists of fury all five levels from the arcade game are here and you even get an abridged ending from the arcade complete with graphics the good old commodore 64 version is up next and despite the lack of moves it's really good the sales curve really did a good job cramming in almost the entire arcade machine everything from the arcade intro to the arcade ending has been included although scaled down to the 8-bit machine although there is no in-game music we do get a nice jingle on the title screen the graphics are finely detailed and although the sprites are a bit small they are nicely animated the scrolling and especially the player animations are very smooth much more so than its arcade counterpart the controls feel spot-on and there is no slowdown even with simultaneous two-player action this got a lot of negative reviews when it was released back in the day but i always enjoyed it it does have the same boring repetitive gameplay that was found in the arcade game but if you have a mate along for the ride it sure is a lot of fun let's keep it in the 8-bit family and take a look at the zenith spectrum version don't let the black and white fool you because this is actually a pretty good conversion although running a tad bit slower than the arcade game the same pitfalls that play the other versions are still present but what is here is impressive and runs great on the humble little spectrum machine the ai is also a bit of a joke so if you can stand still and do a front kick rapidly you will be able to take out the enemies in no time the reason being is that the front kick has a longer range than the enemies have the game does feature some excellent title music and shot music but that's it no in-game music so we are left with short sweet kweefy blast every time you make contact with your enemies it plays okay but considering the arcade game didn't play very good to begin with you can't really fault the conversion for that although the arcade version of double dragon 3 was developed by a different company technos went ahead and designed the nes conversion which is one of the best home versions on the market with a name change to double dragon 3 the sacred stones this is basically a brand new game from the ground up loosely based around the arcade story marion has been kidnapped once again and it's up to the lee brothers to go out and rescue her the two-player simultaneous mode is back and they now have cooperative moves that actually double the strength of their attacks you will need it though because the difficulty is extremely hard and you only have one life you can earn two additional characters throughout the game which brings up your total lives to three you travel the world across five countries in search of the sacred stones the graphics and presentation are extremely nice with each country featuring its own music weapons and characters if you enjoyed the previous two double dragon games on the nes then you will feel right at home here there is quite a bit of flickering especially in two-player mode but overall everything looks great the music is really good with the atmospheric tunes playing for each country you are in each character does have his own special weapon but you can only use it a certain number of times in each level billy and jimmy lee have nunchucks chin has an iron claw etc certain enemies will also carry bottles and knives the controls feel fantastic with two buttons at your disposal allowing you to perform all the various attacks that you need to take these criminals out this is by far the best home version of double dragon 3 although it's definitely not arcade perfect as i mentioned the game is extremely difficult especially in single-player mode this was also the game that mistranslated billy's name into bimmy during the game's intro years later this would lead to the creation of bimmy and jamie and double dragon neon they are muscular mutant versions of billy and jimmy lee and are found as boss characters on level seven [Music] let's check out the game boy version this was actually titled double dragon 3 the arcade game and surprise surprise it's a straight up port of the arcade title the graphics look nice and surprisingly they reported from the arcade game now granted everything is in shades of green or gray so sometimes things tend to blend together but i think they did a good job at differentiating the sprites from the backgrounds you also face three enemies on screen at the same time as opposed to two you would find on the nes the enemy ai appears to either be cheap or broken as a lot of times it just runs around aimlessly using unavoidable jump kicks you do get two coins per mission to spend at the weapon shop which you can use to purchase weapons more lives and energy the game plays pretty well aside from the horrendous ai with two buttons to play with the extra characters that you get to purchase in the shops are no longer there because the game is just about billy and jimmy you do get a simultaneous two-player mode with the game boy link cable [Music] okay moving right along to the 16 bits let's check out the amiga version the graphics are extremely nice although the color palette is not quite as vibrant as found in the arcade game the backgrounds are very detailed along with the character sprites that are well animated the sprites themselves look just as large as found in the arcade game which gives it an authentic feel the sound effects were ripped straight from the board which means these are only average at best but that's no fault of the amiga the excellent part of the audio comes from the music which was faithfully ported and in some cases sounds even better the dirty rotten ai rears its ugly head and will gang up on you like my first girlfriend on a box of twinkies they will beat you down and keep you down until you are either dead or very close to it one fire button is all we get many moves were stripped out of the game the frustrating thing is that it controls very well it's just that 75 percent of your moveset is gone you do get two-player simultaneous action so at least there's that the atari st version looks very similar to the amiga with the same arcade presentation including the intro and the ending the scrolling is fairly smooth and the animation does look nice aside from the decently rendered title tune the audio was a few steps below the amiga in terms of quality gameplay wise everything carries over from the amiga including the horrendous ai so plan on dying a whole lot the ms-dos version is up next and upon first glance it doesn't look too bad the size of the characters are just about in line with the arcade original and there is a good use of color all throughout although there is a lot of dithering going on as soon as it starts to move though it falls apart resulting in some very shaky animation various sound cards are supported which sound pretty good although the pc speaker is supported so if you don't have enough queef in your life queef on similar to the arcade game the ai is extremely cheap oftentimes not letting you get up off the ground before the enemies are knocking you back down into it similar to the other versions you can have two players at the same time you could also use a keyboard in this version but even with this option enabled you still only have one fire button [Music] the sega genesis conversion was developed by flying edge and if you're looking for arcade accuracy this is as good as it gets the graphics are large and in charge and are nicely detailed with only the genesis color palette letting it down slightly although the animation is a bit stiff it's a lot more fluid than what was found in the arcade original the backgrounds are nicely detailed and are almost identical the arcade opening and ending are also here and they look fantastic the sound effects are decent but they lack the punch that was found in the original double dragon 1 and 2 for the sega genesis they are a little bit garbled but the music is really well done some of the voices such as announcing what country you're in and inside the shop are missing the only home game released at the time to feature three button controls which is exactly what was found in the arcade game is this version this game also features all of the moves from the arcade game something no other home game had at that time the same design flaws that plagued the arcade original are here as well including the weird hitboxes and cheap ai for an arcade conversion it's really well done it's just unfortunate that the original source material was also an original piece of crap [Music] foreign [Music] there was even a tiger handheld electronics version of the game in 2013 publisher.mu released double dragon trilogy for android ios and steam this is a compilation of the first three double dragon arcade titles that are running under emulation so if arcade perfection is what you are after then this is it there are a number of new features including a story mode which unlocks new stages and achievements customizable controls three difficulty levels two different soundtracks including the original and a brand new remastered one two different graphic filters multiplayer via bluetooth local or online co-op through steam and more it's an excellent little collection of games and until september 13th of 2021 the game is listed for 2.39 on steam you can't get a much better deal than that double dragon 3 was a bit of a rarity at least in the area i grew up i can recall only one arcade ever having it and soon thereafter it was gone forever it's too bad that technos did not have a hand in developing this title because it could have been something special but then again anything we received would have been a whole lot better than this unless we're talking about crappy batman if you've never tried double dragon 3 i can't really recommend it but if you're curious just to see how bad the gamer really is be sure and give it a shot you'll be sad you did if you liked this video be sure and like share comment and subscribe i really do appreciate it also if you would like to support me on patreon please click the link below thanks everybody for watching you

Channel: PatmanQC - History of arcade game documentaries

Views: 18,335

Keywords: NES, arcade, SNES, amputee, Xbox, PlayStation, Sony, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft, retro, video, gamesAtari, Colecovision, Intellivision, Jaguar, entertainment, system, Game, Boy, Genesis, Mega, drive, CD, X68000, Amstrad, spectrum, MSX, 2600, 5200, 7800, 400, 800, 1200, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, 360, one, switch, GameCube, wii, wii-u, Technos, Japan, tradeWest, flying edge, sacred stones, combatribes, WWF superstars, martial arts, Billy, Jimmy, Bimmy, Marion, mUmmy, Cleopatra, LEE, Bruce Lee

Id: eF9f4DsMH5o

Length: 30min 53sec (1853 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021