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4,440 machines: 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Manufacturers | Top 100 Videogames | Visit The International Arcade Museum for 13297 coin-operated listings. |
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4,440 machines: 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Manufacturers | Top 100 Videogames | Visit The International Arcade Museum for 13297 coin-operated listings. |
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Manufacturer:
Taito Year: 1987 Class: Wide Release Genre: Scrolling Fighter Type: Videogame Monitor:
Number of Simultaneous Players: 2 Maximum number of Players: 2 Gameplay: Either Control Panel Layout: Multiple Player Controls:
Sound: Amplified Mono (one channel) |
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Double Dragon DescriptionMartial Arts masters, Billy and Jimmy Lee (AKA Hammer and Spike), must defeat the savage street gang known as the Black Warriors to rescue Billy's girlfriend, Marian.Know anything more about this game? Cabinet InformationBehind a clear front glass, the dedicated cabinet has a decorative cardboard frame surrounding the monitor that includes instructions for game play. The cardboard frame is usually two sided. There is the TAITO design on one side and the Double Dragon design on the other.The marquee and control panel art feature a drawing of a dragon and pictures of Spike and Hammer -- the "good guys". The control panel includes their names. Most cabinets used blue buttons for player one and red buttons for player two, but a middle release cabinet used yellow buttons for both players and used thicker bezel glass with white plastic protectors along its outer edges. The side art features the name "TAITO" at the top with a Y-shaped pattern of lines in red, white, gray, and black. The first cabinets of Double Dragon had a different color combination for the side art. The black part of the side art was orange and the gray part was yellow. The cabinet features a lockable pullout drawer at the bottom that contains the power supply and gameboards. Cheats, Tricks and BugsBUG: This only happens in two player mode. On the second level right before the end of level baddie comes out, if one player looses all his lives, the boss will not appear and you will NOT be able to continue the game.CHEAT: Use the elbow smash against any enemy and you should be able to defeat them without any problem. CHEAT: This cheat requires two players. At the end of level two (the one with the lift), player one should get the green enemy in a full nelson from behind when he is nearly dead and therefore low on energy. When all the other enemies have been killed, the game's countdown timer should stop and if player two picks up the whip, the green bad guy should be able to be whipped indefinately, provided that this is done carefully. Player two's score will continue to increase and after about 20 minutes his score should reach 99,950. After that, everytime player two hits an enemy or scores some points the player should receive an extra life. TRICK: Sometimes, enemies will come out wielding sticks of dynamite. if you let them throw it, walk backwards and they should walk right into the explosion! One of the oldest Double Dragon tricks. ConversionMost standard-video horizontal JAMMA games should work in this cabinet, with the possible addition of more buttons or different controllers. Also, the monitor in the original cabinet is rotatable so the cabinet can easily be converted to a vertical orientation. It takes about five minutes at the most to do this which makes it a very nice JAMMA cabinet to own!Game IntroductionMarion has been taken away by the Black (or Shadow) Warriors and is being held hostage. If the game is being played by two people, both players can fight enemies throughout the game, but they are also able to hurt each other. When both players finally reach the end of the game, there is a one-on-one fight between the two to see who wins the girl.Game PlayPlayers advance through four stages. You start in a street, move into a factory, through a jungle/forest then end up in a castle. There are a variety of moves such as back-kicks, elbows, head-butts, uppercuts, knee-ing in the face and throws. You can steal weapons from enemies such as knives, clubs, whips and dynamite among others and use them against any of the enemies. You can also use oil drums, crates and big rocks to throw at your enemies. Not much else to do except walk along and beat the crap out of anyone in your way until you finish the game.The third level is quite long, so unless you have played the game a lot you may not be able to complete this stage within the time limit, in which case you will lose a life. There are also instant die situations when you must jump over a bridge and holes. The fourth level is very short. It only contains about six enemies! The player can play either Billy (blue, blonde, and blue eyes, player 1), or Jimmy (red, brunette, and green eyes, player 2)
Enemies: MiscellaneousLICENSOR: TechnosThe game was developed by Technos and then licensed to Taito for manufacture and distribution in America and Europe. Technos manufactured and distributed the game themselves in Japan. If you want to pause the game, simply leave the coin input high and the gameplay stops, but the music carries on. This is useful for getting screenshots or taking sound samples. VAPS Arcade CensusGAMES OWNED, WANTED, or FOR SALE BY MEMBERS OF THE VIDEO ARCADE PRESERVATION SOCIETYVery Common - There are 187 known instances of Double Dragon owned by one of our 900 members. Of these, 59 of them are original dedicated machines, 12 of them are conversions in which game circuit boards (and possibly cabinet graphics) have been placed in (and on) another game cabinet, and 116 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired. Wanted - There are 9 VAPS members currently looking for Double Dragon. There are 3 VAPS members looking for Double Dragon board sets. For Sale - There are 7 VAPS members with Double Dragon machines for sale. There are 7 VAPS members with extra Double Dragon circuit boards for sale. VAPS members are totally independent of VAPS and the International Arcade Museum, and we are unable to recommend, endorce, or guarantee any person or company selling games or game parts. Rarity is NOT necessarily an indication of value. Some common games show up as very rare here because collectors don't want them (they are common because arcade operators might be sitting on tons of them in warehouses), while some fairly scarce games are grabbed by collectors every time they show up. Additionally, some games made in the last 5 years are still making money for operators and are thus not yet affordable to the typical collector. For a clue to value, compare how many people have this game vs. how many people want this game and then click on the eBay links to help determine an accurate price range. TechnicalThe game uses Yamaha YM2151 and 3012 ICs for generating sound. The main processors are two 6809s and one 6309.TriviaThe second in a long line of walk-along beat-em-ups that helped spawn a large number of other games in this genre over the next several years. Still, it's not a bad game which is probably why it made such an impression on the market.The Kanji characters in the title screen are (in order): 'Sou' (Twin) 'Setsu' (also pronounced 'Sai') and 'Ryuu' (Dragon). Sou-Ryuu is another title for this game. The original Japanese version by Technos Japan has a different storyline than the one used by Taito in the International version. The Japanese storyline is more developed and does not use the Spike and Hammer aliases. Here it is: In the year 19XX, half of the world was ravaged by a nuclear war and violence ruled the streets in America. One of the most violent gang in America was called the Black Warriors, who ruled the streets with no mercy. Yet two siblings named Billy and Jimmy, trained in the arts of the Sousetsuken and owners of the Sousetsuken Dojo, were brave enough to face the Black Warriors. They taught their Martial Arts to their city and people gave them the nickname, the 'Double Dragon'. Among Billy and Jimmy's pupils, there was a female instructor named Marian, who was also Billy's lover. The Black Warriors waste no time to capture her and lure Billy to their hideout. Now, Billy must penetrate the Black Warriors to save his girlfriend and face agaisnt the boss of the Black Warriors, Willy, once and for all. Billy enlists the help of his twin brother Jimmy in order to save Marian. Most of the home versions of the game used this storyline for their adaptions. The Sega Master System version uses a combination of both Taito's and Technos' storylines (the original Mark III version uses the original storyline). As a side note: Most of the characters in Double Dragon were named after characters from the Bruce Lee's film, "Enter the Dragon." This arcade game was even seen momentarily in the 1993 movie "Double Dragon" which also happened to be based on the game. In that movie, Scott Wolf played Billy Lee and Mark Dacoscos played Jimmy Lee. FixesThe original buttons for this game were a self-enclosed design that failed regularly. Operators had to replace these buttons (usually with the mini switch buttons) making the original manufacturer buttons hard to find. The Ultimate Pushbuttons are good replacements and are available from http://www.happcontrols.com/ (53-9200-XX).eBay ListingsClick here to automatically search eBay's Arcade, Jukebox, and Pinball categories for the Double Dragon Videogame machine and items related to it.Click here to automatically search eBay's Arcade, Jukebox, and Pinball categories for machines and parts made by Taito. Alternatively, check out the IAM/KLOV custom report of the hottest coin-op machines on eBay, powered by Ace.com (updated throughoutthe day).
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