Double Dragon Dojo Forums

Amongst a random search for old reviews, I found this and it made me smile...

http://amr.abime.net/review_12482

Commodore User give the DD arcade machine top marks from way back in August 1987. Reminds me of how I felt the first time I played the game.

Awesome find Steve. Some neat things I noticed:

- The reviewer didn't know who Abobo was (oh the blasphemy!)

- The term "beat 'em up" existed even back then

- The writer's arcade-owner sources predicted Double Dragon would be a big hit (understatement of the year)

I didn't know who Abobo was until the home versions! In fact, I didn't know who Billy and Jimmy Lee were either (There's no way of finding out in the arcade game!)

Have to wonder where "beat em up" came from though! It seems to have been universally recognised from as early as perhaps Kung Fu Master!

It's funny you say that. I remember that a few of my old school friends made up names for some of the characters themselves. Jeff was known as Phoenix and Willy was known as Machine Gun Murphy. Also we had the Spike & Hammer art work in our local arcade so no one called them Billy & Jimmy Lee.

I was really disappointed when I found out their real names

I was a bit confused in regards to their names until I realised the Bruce Lee link much later (the whole "Lee" thing didn't occur to me till later. Seems blindingly obvious now!). Now I couldn't imagine them and the Shadow lot being called anything else.

They gave it a 10, for endurance. Prophetic.

As for characters' names, I learned them when I got the Melbourne House C64 version (which I actually enjoyed, despite its major shortcomings).

However, at the time, I was still learning to read.

So, Billy, Jimmy, Willy and Marian were no problem.

Abobo was "Obo". This name would later be used for all large bosses, such as Tiptoes Tommy, from Street Smart (incidentally, I thought that the player 2 character, "Crusher", was Billy Lee. You've gotta admit, there is a pretty strong resemblance.

)

Williams, Roper and Chin Taimei were all "Chin Cha". This sounds kinda racist, but I assure you, I was just a kid, without ill-will. Although, I have no idea why Taimei is mentioned in the C64 manual, given that he isn't in the game. Anyway, that was the name applied to all grunts.

I don't think any of the enemy characters from the arcade games were officially named (or least publicly revealed) until the home versions. In fact, the only sources I could found that the gave the names of the enemy characters from the arcade games were the manuals for the Master System and Mega Drive versions of I and II respectively, the latter which came out only in Japan, and the soundtrack album to Combatribes/DD3, which gives the names of all the bosses.

Another great find which should be added to the Archive (perhaps under the Arcade port).