NES 434 - Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones

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Double Dragon Three, The Sacred Stones. Only one man knows the real story behind Marion's disappearance, and he's dead.

And welcome to Nestalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike.

I'm Sean.

And I'm Joe.

Double Dragon Three. Um there's a two and a three going on in there. Uh I'm fine with it. Double Dragon one and two essential games.

Single dragon to the third.

Yeah, do we have like strong feelings about this franchise? Like we've put both games on the Essential Games list and we haven't voted to take them off, but like do we don't talk about Double Dragon that often?

No, we don't. I I I have to admit, I it it'd been a very busy week. I really wanted to go back and play the first two, but I I only ended up getting through the the third one. But uh'cause I I wanna remind myself, like what yeah, what what where do these fall on my like best games of the NES?

I I think we don't talk about them too much because Th they are th th they were so competent and they feel so much like like even modern beat'em ups that we just don't even think of them in the same realm as Some of the games we're playing, uh, which very often don't feel like they're from this century, which they're not. So uh maybe that's why.

That's a good point, Sean, that like beat'em ups when they're good are also kind of like turn your brain off.

Yeah.

You know, like y you j you just keep doing punching and kicking and it just keeps working and it just feels good to keep clearing enemies and moving forward. It's not the kind of thing of like a super satisfying platformer where like you kept missing the one jump or uh the RPG where you had to grind it out and you remember like the memorable story or something like that. The they do have stories and this does pick up where Double Dragon 2 ended, but it's not the kind of thing where it's like

Yeah, I don't think I've ever I mean, aside from maybe some games for this podcast, I don't think I've ever beaten uh a beat'em up because you don't really need to. Like you get your Vic. Yeah you usually don't have save points and you move on.

Yeah. one of the TMNT games when I was a kid. But yeah, it was I played beat'em ups a lot. But yeah, it's just you just you play, you play with a friend, you have fun, and then you're like, Alright, shut it off. Like you don't save it or anything, you're just like you don't care.

And Double Dragon Three picks up one year after uh Billy and Jimmy defeated the Shadow Warriors. Uh Marion, who's been kidnapped times before, kidnapped again. Uh the only witness to that, as mentioned in the back of the box, is dead. That's Brett. Uh he dies before revealing anything. So a fortune teller named Haruko shows up and says that the kidnappers are searching for the three sacred stones of power. But my question is what would Marion have to do with that? She's just a regular person.

No no no. No no no. Okay. However how often has she been kidnapped?

Yeah, this is the third time.

This is the third time she's been kidnapped. The only reason that we know she's been kidnapped is the the dying breaths of the guy on the floor in the first screen. I I think she just wants to get away from Billy and Jimmy.

Ha ha ha.

Maybe she's working with them and just getting kidnapped is act like she's like a double agent. When she's actually with the enemy and you think she's being held She's actually working with them and like when she's with you, that's when she's with the enemy. They're trying to lure you to find these stones for them, making all this up right now.

The the people just don't get kidnapped three times. That's all that's all I'm saying.

So you're saying it's kinda like the Princess Peach theory where like she wants to be kidnapped by Bowser?

Yeah.

But that that makes a lot more sense because it's it's just like a Mario thing and there's no there's not even lip service to the idea that whatever's happening in a Mario game is i is is a real thing. Whereas this seems to be taking place in the real world, so

Now the the Lee brothers, their names Billy and Jimmy, um but maybe that's not true because in uh Double Dragon Three, if you're playing two player uh on the intro screen Uh it says, A year has passed since Bimmy and Jimmy defeated the Shadow Warriors. Uh An obvious typo, a funny one at that, and uh did wind up getting referenced in later Double Dragon games as like uh okay, okay, we're in on it too now. But there's something funny about their names being Bimmy and Jimmy instead.

It's just funny that it's like it it feels like it's such a blatant typo that it feels like at the last second they're like shit, we didn't do a title screen. They typed it out real quick and shipped it. Like nobody read it again. It's the it's the f first screen you see in the game. And and there's like the one of the main characters name is spelled wrong blame.

I mean I have a friend from high school named William and we we called him Bimmy.

Oh that's great.

Yeah.

Well maybe it's not a typo. Maybe all the billies are typos. Every time it says Billy, that's the typo.

Or maybe this was just like BIMI normalization for your friend. Like they were just trying to make it like Yeah, no no, it's fine, some people can be named Bimmy.

So do you think Jimmy's full name is Jilliam?

That is awesome. Um all right, and so as the Lee Brothers and uh two additional fighters, uh, you will travel through uh the United States, China, Japan, Italy, and Egypt uh in search of these Sacred Stones of Power. Uh in the original arcade version of this game which came first though, they weren't Sacred Stones. It was the Rosetta Stone. And I that just feels like a weird thing to change.

That seems like a a a real operations problem there.

Yeah, and it seems like they anticipated a lot of a lot of sales too, because uh surely Double Dragon 2 would have indicated that. And I don't think word of mouth was what it was now, like that you would have found out if a game was good or bad. But I will say, just to like get into it, uh like Double Dragon Three is a

That that was what I was gonna say. This feels much harder than the others. Um I I don't remember it being so punishing that as soon as you die at any point in the game you have to start the game over. Uh d was that the case before?

No, you had lives in the other games and I can't understand removing lives from from this game entirely. Like that is that is nuts.

Was the idea that they were try like this is the third game, it should be harder, like we should we're s it should feel like progressively harder and they just kind of did it in a cheap way or something because'cause yeah, that is like unforgiving and like it's almost like the opposite of your characters getting more powerful from game to game, like power creep. It's like power drain, power leak. I don't know, but you're like,

Yeah.

Yeah, I I kinda I I like that too, just coined it. But um I I also just feel the game is I don't remember Mike, you can tell me if the first two games are like this. frustratingly slow in the way you move. You're trudging. It's like you're walking on like underwater the whole time. It like that make like I feel like the whole time I'm playing I'm pressing the button the directional buttons really hard because like subconsciously I'm like go a little faster people are attacking me

Well you got a double you got a double tap.

Well yeah, you can double tap but like it still feels stiff and trudging and like, you know. You run and you can't like stop out of that. But just fe the whole game feels uh it doesn't feel smooth, I guess.

Yes, so smooth is the issue because Double Dragon III looks a lot like Double Dragon II. Like graphically and how the car uh you were asking about movement, like you do move at the same speed, you are the same size and everything, but Something happened with the actual combat of your character specifically. The other character the enemies, they're doing just fine. They're capable and they seem to always be able to attack.

And

I I don't think that like that alone can be the issue, but there's just something about the timing of your attacks that feels off and winds up making it so that the enemies land a lot more of their hits on you, especially because you're dealing with multiple of them at a time in two different directions.

Yeah, and you're right about that. I I hadn't even like thought about it as the hit boxes, but that's the huge problem. Like especially your punch, like it just feels like you have to be you have to be so close to them that you need to have gotten hit once. before before you're able to like punch them. You know, not literally, but it does feel like that a lot of times. And like that that hitbox thing combined with like the fact that you're There's like the feedback doesn't seem

Yeah, I don't know if it's because the uh the first and second game didn't have like this super move thing. Um but I got into a lot of situations like, you know, I was playing the game normally for the first three or four times that I died, but then I just ended up spamming like that

The spinning game.

Um or I guess maybe it's a more more Chung Li kick. Uh that I I it stopped being a beat'em up and I was just cheezing it and I never really thought to do something like that in the other game, so I think that th that that speaks a lot.

Yeah, I that's because uh you know, and we were joking on the T M and T two episode that like you basically just wind up uh jump kicking everything because it covers enough ground and it just makes it this way the enemies get hit back and then this way you could when they get back up you can just jump kick again

And that one that you're describing, that grabbing them by their hair and flipping them, that's what I did, Sean. Like I I I the instead of the uh spinning one, I was constantly flipping these people over to f one, get them away from me, and two,'cause it was just like a move I could do.

Yeah, th that that like again, just the spin kick was the only way that I could be the the first boss against uh

No, I I've got a I've got a um a trick, a tip for ya against the first two bosses is just use the nunchuck. Yeah. I after I like died like on the boss the first time I had to start the game over, it's like I'm just saving the nunchucks until the boss. And it was like, yeah, uh the first boss I could just beat him one, two, three, four, five hits with a bunch nunchucks, he's down. He doesn't do anything.

Mm.

And Chin uh who uh that is his actual name, uh Chin Sei May uh Sai Mai, um he is the first boss that you take down or not He's in the second stage. Uh, but when you take him down, uh he joins your uh party and so he's one of the new playable characters, previously just Billy and Jimmy. Now you have Chin and um

I I I get that and I appreciate that they have a different playstyle as sort of not unlockable character well yeah, they're unlockable characters, basically, but I don't think that they're a good

Yeah, I I um I feel like That idea that you're describing, like it could work as a game mechanic, but not in this game of like, oh, instead of a light like you die, now you have to play the game a little differently. This game wasn't built around that. It doesn't feel like I mean, even playing as chin to me doesn't feel like

Yeah, the only preference really is like to s to ch exchange health, right? Like if you're low on one guy and don't want him to die, you would you would go to the next. Uh but like I they couldn't even have done something like, Oh, you need this character you need to switch to this character to complete this section because then you would wind up having a bunch of softlock things if they had previously died. But do the different characters even make like

I didn't think so. I I think they're just i i it's just a more potent attack and uh they're they basically s fe they they all play the same purpose Getting a few kills with less effort for a little bit.

I I I also like I I don't I get it as a game mechanic and I even get the logic of like in some cases like uh a weapon I guess breaking after a certain amount of hit. But I hate like a melee weapon having ammo. You know, it's basically what it is. You get five hits with your nunchucks. Nunchucks don't break after five hits. That's just like.

Use Munchucks professionally, Joe?

I I have actually, yeah. Before before this podcast, um Mike saved me from the streets of

I mean we couldn't play the the other games, but you did have nunchuck training time, I see.

I did, yeah. That that's why. But um but like that and then there's like the weapons that you pick up that other enemies drop. And you like if you get hit, you drop that weapon. Which is good. That's a good game mechanic. But also you get like five hits with that weapon. And then it breaks. And I feel like pick one or the other. Pick one way to punish me or the other. Like one way for me to lose this weapon or the other. It's just like

It's stupid. Logic is that You you can use that weapon all you want, but as soon as the guy that dropped it dies. That's weapon like is just removed from your inventory.

Did notice that by the end. That's you're right, you're right. So I mean and I guess that is how weapons work'cause they are

Yeah, they're all tied to our life force.

Force.

Ha ha.

For a game mechanic it's just it's almost like they put two mechanics in there to balance it and that unbalanced it.

And even the ones that do have limited uses, you know, the nunchucks only having five or whatever, um, th they're s they're more powerful, so like, you know Smart Money says save them for the b the boss fights and then just rotate through your characters uh once you have them all unlocked and just go like, Okay, five hits of the Nunchuck, five hits of the Ironclaw, five hits of the shuriken, you know, it's like you're just gonna

Right. And and for that reason too, I did feel like at least for the first few bosses, I felt like they were easier than any one given regular enemy. Because I would just use the nunchuck on the boss and just hit him five times and he's dead. And you know, that gets harder as it goes, but like every single enemy feels like I gotta square up against them and knock them down a few times and like hitbox problems r uh you know, abound are just like ruining the uh my chances.

The five stages, uh again, the different uh countries, US, China, Japan, Italy and Egypt, uh d you know, they have unique visuals and themed enemies around those locations, but And you know, this is a problem with other NES games where like the scope is just kind of implied. It's not really delivered. Uh it it feels like you're just like going from like

What do you mean?

No, you know. It maybe maybe like maybe I'm asking a little much here, but Ninja Gaiden and games like that are able to do cinematic storytelling on the NES in an appropriate way. And Double Dragon 3, like, is trying between the manual and uh the dialogue in the game, like it it happens during gameplay. It's trying to deliver a fuller story and I feel like it just needed a little extra connective tissue between stages to to flesh out the third entry in a franchise rather than just feel like

I I guess I don't really know what they could have done. I mean th they do have I I feel like in any other game all we get is just a pallet swap, so

what I'm saying. I'm saying it's just a problem with NES games in general, but like we're we're not really I'm not really feeling like I'm on some epic world tour.

I I think that the levels are too short to feel like anything like that. You get like

I agree.

You get these rooms that just fill up with enemies until you beat enough that the game decides, all right, you had enough. Walk through the door. Then you get some side scrolling uh the very short sh side scrolling area. that ends up being another just another room that enemies come out of doors because you get to the end of the hallway basically. Um and then throw in a couple weird uh again platforming sections.

Yeah, I I think part like part of the the issue for me was just that the these rooms, like it it is just the you don't feel like you're progressing through these stages. You can get to the end of the stage doesn't matter. It's just like kill ten people and then you can move on. And the the fighting doesn't change enough. Like, you know what I mean? Like eventually you get like new enemies, but like they're

But then you fight a boss and those are different.

Yeah, yeah, they're fine.

Bigger guys.

I I think it's weird that uh like back to back weeks uh like an enemy is a woman in a desert with a dress that turns into a fire uh serpent. Um

You think that'll be all the games going forward? That's like what do you think the odds are?

I I think it's all of'em now, yeah.

It was a big moment in the culture.

Fire serpent women.

Yeah, yeah. They were thirsting for them. But uh before we get to the the end of the game though, um I just I just wanted to touch on too that like it didn't It didn't have to be maybe as hard as it was, because the Japanese version of Double Dragon 3, like, basically put everything in the player's favor. Uh every every character has ten extra points of health.

Yeah, I I think w we keep going back to the whole rental situation and

Mm.

I I can't I I mean I know it's just sort of playing on repeat, but it I feel like it has to be that. There's no reason th there's no way that they think like, oh, Americans are just better at video games. It's not that.

And Egypt being uh the finale, uh, when you get there looking for the Rosetta Stone, I mean the sacred stones, uh, which you have uh all of them now, so uh you're you you're uncovering the the tomb and eventually fighting a bunch of first mummies and then uh the mummy reveals itself to be Uh the final boss, which is, as Sean mentioned, uh this fire serpent woman who uh it's Cleopatra.

Darth Marion?

You're right, yeah, exactly. It's revealed that Prince Neura Princess Noirum was actually Marion or Marion under a spell as Cleopatra. First off, pick a final boss. There can't be four. And and then also It's only revealed to you after the fight that that was Marion under a spell. So it's like, I'm sorry, you guys, but like I wouldn't know that that was Marion. I wouldn't have this like, oh shit, dilemma of like and now I gotta fight

How would you You had to fight your girlfriend.

Well, I just think that that's an interesting um Like that that's a more interesting fight screen in general, right? Like some kind of text dialogue. Even if she is under a spell, it's an interesting like dilemma to have of like Oh maybe you know, maybe the answer here is like some, you know, video game bullshit where it's like actually I'm supposed to let her beat me up and that's how you win.

Ooh, that's I think that doesn't happen until like that that that's like five or six years down the line.

That's some woke shit, right?

That's that's a Millier salad shit.

Yeah.

That's fine.

But there's you know, there's um do you think there's like a there's like a moral morality system only in the last battle. There's multiple endings. Whether you whether you you fight your girlfriend or you somehow some other method of like waking her up, some secret method, and then there's a there's an alternate ending. There's the good ending and the bad ending.

This is all starting to sound like Resident Evil Nine now, so I think we're on to something.

Well I think the weight of what they were going for though could have could have been because in the The first game, if you uh get to the end, you have to fight if you're um Billy, you have to fight Jimmy as like Shadow Jimmy or whatever. But if you're doing the two player mode, you have to fight

It's like it's like playing through a game and then like the ending screen is like the story section of the manual telling you for the first time what was happening in the game.

Right, right. Like you Google it after the fact of like, who was that in the movie? And it was like, What? That was his girlfriend?

See, I think the the cleaner way to do it is to just stick with my idea and just reveal that the girlfriend's been working for the bad guys the whole time and just is a bad guy.

Like we three yeah, like we said, the only way that this entire series makes any sense is is if that's the case.

Well the series really stopped making sense, uh, at Double Dragon 3 because the arcade version uh is a completely different game, developed by a completely different team. Uh it wasn't Technos Japan, it was East Technology. They outsourced it. I'm not sure why, but the arcade version came out first in 1990. And as I mentioned, it is Double Dragon 3, the Rosetta Stone. and it pioneered a feature that gaming would spend, even to this day, uh arguing about, and that is that the

Oh my god.

In additional quarters to purchase power ups, weapons, extra moves, and new playable characters.

These were Honestly I cannot believe no other arcade game thought about that before this.

outlive a game by just constantly putting in quarters and picking up right where you die. It o it doesn't like say like you can continue but you have to start all the way over. It tells you like you can continue right from here. Just give us another quarter. This is saying like in the middle of the game, like when you get to the shop, instead of using like points you acquired by defeating enemies, why just give us a quarter and we'll make you stronger?

Wow.

So it wasn't horse armor.

It wasn't horse armor that started well, horse armor I guess started the whole part of like, yeah, we could do this in the arcades, but now we can do it at home too. Like we can do it right in their house.

Well I guess it would be i if in the arcade you could pay a quarter to change your hair color.

It was so poorly received that when the Japanese arcade game uh was released six months later, uh, they removed the entire shop system and just gave everybody all those things. Like you could pick any character you want right from the beginning. All moves were available. Uh that is just like Such a funny thing because then they do the same thing with the uh I don't know, it's not a port, it's a totally different game. The the Sacred Stones version where like

Yeah.

The other problem for just Double Dragon as a franchise by this point is that uh Capcom is uh has released Final Fight, uh a beat-em-up series. Only the first one's out by this time, but Final Fight improves on what Double Dragon's doing tremendously to the point where when you look at Double Dragon three coming out in uh the same year or no, the year after Final Fight

I haven't really played Final Fight. Um I feel like I've played fighting games that have Final Fight characters in them, but uh it that's a blind spot for me.

Yeah, same. I've never played'em.

I know that Final Fight was supposed to be like part of the Street Fighter line. So I don't know if like Street Fighter characters are in Final Fight or vice versa. But uh when you when I was looking it up like the history and development of it, it was just going to be like a spin off of Street Fighter called Street Fighter eighty nine.

No. I don't want to have to change Chun Lee's stats.

Yeah, her her stats.

Sean is notoriously anti

Ha ha.

Ha ha.

Sean is notoriously anti-JRPG.

You don't want a a fighting game to be a JRP.

Yeah, I think a fighting game should be a puzzle game.

Which uh Street Fighter six has a has a fighting game JRPG in it. Just just as heads up.

The closest we got to a fighting game RPG was with Final Fantasy six, Final Fantasy Three, where uh you actually had um the name's escaping me now, but the one playable character who you had to put in like the directional inputs in order to actually pull off the

Oh yeah.

Is he the one that sufflexes the train?

Yes, he's the one who suplexes the train. Who else could do that?

Um I wanted I want to backpedal a little bit to the arcade game because I started watching a video of it and I I just noticed I don't know if this is the the end screen or the start screen. There's a there's a uh like badge from the Department of Justice. Oh, that's an arethus and that is...

A lot of arcades game arcade games. Really?

Yeah, okay. So I didn't play a lot of arcade games. The winners don't use drugs. Yeah. From the director of the FBI, quote.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

huge in the late nineties. Uh sorry, late eighties through I think the nineties. I I remember it was uh like even if you go to Barcade in the uh like w in the in New York, uh the the big arcade is also a bar. Um Half of those half of those machines have that that splash screen on them.

Wow. Yeah, never saw it before. Well thank you, William S. Sessions, Director of FBI.

And moving on to the you know, the rest of Double Dragon, uh I'm pretty sure we won't see them again on the NES. There's there's definitely not a four. Four came out in twenty seventeen, so that's definitely not gonna be on the NES. Uh Super Double Dragon, the next the next natural place to take any uh game that was on the NES and make it super. Uh that'll come out in nineteen ninety two, so next year, so not too far off.

Good for them.

And good for us that um y you know, the series really ends on a high note for us on the podcast.

I've been Maybe.

Maybe that's what we're gonna find out on the Essential Games list.

झाल!

Yeah, um... I think that this game like this sounds really harsh and and hear me out, but I think it's worse than boring. And I don't mean it's like it's like it's the the the worst game we've ever played. I just think it's like if it were boring, I wouldn't be as frustrated or pissed off while I'm playing it the whole time. I would just be bored. But instead I'm like I'm I'm like

Sean.

Yeah, I I'm not I wouldn't say I was bored by the game, but definitely frustrating, which gets in the way of any kind of enjoyment. I mean it's still like it still feels a lot like the games that we like.

I think uh just going back to Double Dragon Two, i it will show exactly what three regressed on and doesn't make me worried that I'm gonna remove two from the list any time soon. Knowing that like games like Final Fight and Streets of Rage are out or, you know, will continue to eat Double Dragon's lunch though, it is just weird that. Double Dragon 3 seemed to be like maybe it was just too comfortable. Like, uh, well, we know what players like and we'll give them more of that. And it's like

Just keep it there. Just keep it there.

Thank you. Yeah. Uh so no, it's not essential. Um I forgot to say that part. And uh you know it is essential.

The Essential Games list.

Uh but then we just play the song again and we're stuck in a loop.

Yeah, perfect.

Every um no listening every Friday because we've got more episodes coming. Like Flying Warriors. Uh thought that would be a schmup. It's not. What do you think Flying Warriors is?

I I think it's a beat em up.

Okay. Sean?

I think it's a uh shop management game.

Ooh, let's go. Let's go. It's a it's a PC simulator game. You build your own PCs and you're you're the flying warriors. That's like your shop name.

Yeah, right.

Uh and then, you know, also on um The Patreon, patreon.com slash nostalgia Uh we're just doing a lot of cool things. I think it's worth uh you know, just knowing that if if you're at all interested, check out uh the Patreon website, even if you don't wanna sign up for it because there are some free posts that will show you the kind of stuff we're doing.