Nostalgia can be cruel. We've all been there. You know that game that you swear you loved back in the day? And then you play it years later and almost wish it had just remained a quaint memory that you used to have. That's a little bit how I feel right now about the Double Dragon Trilogy, the new PC re-release of the first three arcade games. But to be fair, these aren't awful games. Well, at least two of them aren't. So let's take a closer look.



Before we delve into the games proper, let's first get acquainted with Dot Emu, the publisher responsible for bringing this trilogy to PC. Dot Emu is a very interesting company who is somewhat akin to GOG. While GOG concentrates on making old DOS and Windows games work on new operating systems, Dot Emu focuses far more on arcade and console games that are now getting new life on PC (and mobile platforms). Though you might scoff at this as just being a game file wrapped in an emulator and monetized, in fairness, the company does a nice job of polishing things up and offering modern luxuries to go along with those old games.

Some of Dot Emu's previous releases have been a version of Street Fighter II Championship Edition, which runs directly in your browser and is available to play for free. Of course you'll have to do some button mapping if you want to use a controller instead of a keyboard - of course you do. However, it was a nice way to promote Street Fighter IV at the time. They were also responsible for bringing an impressive number of arcade games (Vigilante, R-Type Leo, In The Hunt, Hammerin' Harry, etc) to PC in the Irem Arcade Hits compilation. More recently, they were behind the PC remasters of Final Fantasy III and IV. What I'm trying to express here is that I actually appreciate the work that this company does.


However, what I'm also doing here is that thing where you precede a criticism with a complement to lessen the blow. You see, before today I was pretty sure that I was a fan of the Double Dragon games. Now I can't help but think that I just sort of admire the place that they had in history. Certainly they helped cement a genre that would go on to output such enduring classics as Streets Of Rage or Turtles In Time, but oddly enough I just can't seem to find Double Dragon as compelling now as even its closest contemporaries like the early Kunio-kun beat-em-ups (Renegade or River City Ransom).

First of all, I'll give props to the added extras that Dot Emu provides. Though there aren't a ton of graphical settings to play with (as is to be expected with a 2D game), they offer lots of resolutions along with the ability to play in the traditional 4:3 or a new 16:9 (stretched) ratio. There's also two different scanline settings for those of you who want to make it feel really old school. They've also offered up two different soundtracks for each game: the traditional chiptunes and new remixed tracks. I have to say that I actually enjoyed the arranged music quite a bit. On top of the standard arcade modes, there's also new "story modes," which basically save your progress between levels so that you can come back to the games over several sittings. And of course the best addition is the inclusion of online multiplayer. If you are a fan of these games, that may definitely be a selling point for you.


After firing up the first Double Dragon, it became pretty clear to me that I had never played the original arcade games. I was used to the NES ports. While I remember those being challenging, I didn't remember them being downright unfair like this one. The framerate seems to run really fast, and as you progress to the right, groups of enemies come out of nowhere and mob you. They feel brutal. They gang up on you when you're down, they often drop kick you as you try to get up. If you do get up, they seem to know if you're going to move up or down on the screen and mirror you immediately. Knives are even thrown from barely off-screen. Somehow they manage to get in hits even when you're mid-combo. Weapons feel useless to pick up as they tend to miss their targets (except the knife) due to a slight delay in swinging. I never said I was a great gamer, but man, this makes me feel awful. I can barely make it to the end of the first level on a single credit. I will say the game still looks good, but it's punishing.

Moving on to the sequel, or the game that I really loved on NES, it feels like more of the same. To call it 'hard' would be quite the understatement. I lose a life just barely out of the first screen. I'm pummeled unmercifully by the time I reach the first boss and get caught up in an awful frame-loop trying to pick up a weapon because my sprite is standing over it. I get knocked back down immediately. I can't break free. I can only hope that the third game is the charm.


Booting up the third game kills my spirit even further. It also makes me slightly upset that I've spent money on this collection. I had never played Double Dragon 3 before, so it came as a huge shock to see the redesigned sprites and the horribly choppy framerate. I can't fathom what happened in development, but how did this game see release when it was so much slower than the first two? It literally feels like many frames of animation are just missing. I have trouble understanding if I'm in mid-walk or mid-kick. I keep mashing buttons thinking I'm fighting, only to realize that an enemy has already started his death animation. It is nothing short of a total mess, and I can't wait to burn through a credit so that I can just exit out and at least have some level of fun with the first two games.

So ultimately, I'm unhappy with this trilogy, but I'm not completely sure why. Dot Emu did a good job of making a nice package out of them, so it must be the games themselves. But what is it? Is it that I just remember the NES games being better than the actual arcade games really were? Is it that neither were that good at all? Or is it that such an early example of this genre can't stand up to the strides that were made since then? Perhaps I'm just spoiled by later beat-em-ups that had the chance to work out the kinks. I recognize that this is a lot of questions to end on, but really that's exactly where Double Dragon Trilogy leaves me: baffled.

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