Excerpt

Technos' Double Dragon opens with a group of tough guys, members of the evil Black Warriors gang, apprehending a woman in a bad part of the city. One of them walks up, punches her in the stomach, loads her on his shoulders, and carries her away. The scene might feel a bit awkward in light of today's atmosphere in the gaming world, but in 1987, this was the way to establish the players' motivation and mission in an arcade game within five seconds. As soon as the villains leave, a garage door opens to reveal the martial arts masters (and brothers) Billy and Jimmy Lee, who of course have to rescue their would-be girlfriend Marian, beating up every hoodlum in their way.

Even though Double Dragon made major contributions to codifying the formula that became known as the beat-em-up genre, it was hardly the first game where the heroes run around beating hordes of bad guys with their fists and feet. Developer Technos had made early strides in before with Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun in 1986, a game about delinquent high school students fighting each other and getting in trouble with the mob. Fearing that the cultural references might be lost on an American audience, the game – now renamed Renegade – had the visual design of its characters and backgrounds changed to live and breathe the flair of the 1979 film The Warriors. This dystopian vision is of a near-future New York that became progressively grimier and under the control of street gangs, an image that hadn't lost its cultural relevance.