Developer: Technos Japan
Publisher: SEGA of America
Released: 1988
Completed: March 4, 2020
The good: Double Dragon on the SEGA Master System is more faithful to the arcade, and features two player cooperative play!
The bad: Just about everything else.
OK, so maybe that's a bit of an overstatement. On paper, Double Dragon for SEGA's 8-bit machine sounds like a dream come true for fans of the coin-op. Two player simultaneous play! Stages and enemies mirror the original much closer than the NES version. There is no poorly conceived level-up system that locks moves behind experience points in a martial arts beat 'em up. There can even be more than two enemies on screen at once and, gasp, they can be different enemies! It all sounds wonderful until you start playing.
That's when you'll see some of the worst sprite flicker you'll ever see, especially in two player mode where sprites all but disappear entirely, or spend more time fighting the sluggish controls while your character's stubby little arms flail harmlessly at enemies mere inches away. You know that warning in game manuals about how some people are at risk of epileptic seizures while playing video games? Double Dragon on SMS is the posterchild for that warning because of the flicker.
Though it was also programmed by Technos, it's obvious not much effort went into this port, and it's a damn shame. It could have been so good with just a little more polish. All the elements were there, but the programmers just lacked the skill, the desire, or both to bring it all together into a coherent package.
The most critical thing to nail in any beat 'em up is the controls. It may have predated much more advanced games like Final Fight, but Double Dragon actually has a more complex move set. It translated well to the NES, in spite of having one less button and having to unlock the moves, but on the Master System it's like trying to control the game with a fat baby. No matter how hard you push, it just doesn't do what you want half the time. I never could get certain moves like the unstoppable elbow smash to work at all, though they're allegedly all programmed into the game.
Matters are not helped at all by the atrocious reach of Billy and Jimmy Lee in this version. Enemies have to practically share the same space as you to be susceptible to punches and kicks, and you'll likely take just as much damage while you trade hits. This means the game devolves into non-stop jump kicks. Just four levels of jump kicking everything because your basic attacks are useless, and half of the special attacks are impossible to pull off.
The graphics aren't particularly pleasing. Like the NES version, this uses a more anime-influenced look with odd color choices (Jimmy's blue hair). In many ways, I feel they're inferior to the NES game. Take the game's opening stage - on the NES you see a nice backdrop of the city between the buildings. There's chain link fences and barrels for decoration, and a good sense of depth. On the Master System there's a large brick wall, followed by a large brick building (which, to be fair, was in the arcade version), followed by a mostly empty alley will oil drums and it all looks very flat.
About the only good thing I can say for SMS Double Dragon is the FM music is decent, if you have a way to access it. If all you have is an unmodified US Master System, prepare yourself for some pretty mediocre PSG renditions of the classic tunes.
What a bitter disappointment. So much potential, squandered by inept programming. I love Double Dragon. I'll never forget the first time I saw the coin-on, hearing the crisp sounds of the punches and kicks, and the digitized voice samples. As letdown as I was with the NES version's differences, I'm thankful I didn't have a Master System in my youth because if this was what I had been stuck with, I would have been beside myself. The scary thing is this isn't even the worst port of Double Dragon, but for the hardware it was on, it should have been much better.
Double Dragon was completed on the Analogue Mega SG with no cheats.
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