Double Dragon (Japan) 

Title: Double Dragon (Japan)
Name: ddragon
Averall status: good
Year: 1987
Category: Fighter / 2.5D
Manufacturer: Technos
Available since MAME™ version: 0.033b03
Player(s): Two players simultaneously
BIOS: Not needed

Emulation: good
Color: good
Sound: good
Graphic: good

Save state: available

Palette size: 384 colors
Type: raster
Screen rotation: 0 degrees
Screen size: 256x240 pixels
Refresh rate: 57.4449Hz

Behind a clear front glass, the dedicated cabinet has a decorative cardboard frame surrounding the monitor that includes instructions for game play. The cardboard frame is usually 2 sided. There is the TAITO design on one side and the Double Dragon design on the other. The marquee and control panel art features a drawing of a dragon and pictures of Billy and Jimmy Lee. The control panel includes their names. Most cabinets used blue buttons for player 1 and red buttons for player 2, but a middle release cabinet used yellow buttons for both players and used thicker bezel glass with white plastic protectors along its outer edges. The side art features the name TAITO at the top with a Y-shaped pattern of lines in red, white, gray, and black. The first cabinets of Double Dragon had a different color combination for the side art. The black part of the side art was orange and the gray part was yellow. The cabinet features a lockable pullout drawer at the bottom that contains the power supply and game-boards.
Game ID : TA-0021
Main CPU : HD6309, HD63701
Sound CPU : HD6309
Sound Chips : YM2151, (2x) MSM5205
Screen orientation : Horizontal
Video resolution : 240 x 224 pixels
Screen refresh : 57.44 Hz
Palette colors : 384
Players : 2
Control : 8-way joystick
Buttons : 3

MAME needs 23 dumps to start the ROM "ddragon":

• "21j-6"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: adpcm
  Offset: 0
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 34755de3
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 57c06d6ce9497901072fa50a92b6ed0d2d4d6528

• "21j-7"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: adpcm
  Offset: 10000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 904de6f8
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 3623e5ea05fd7c455992b7ed87e605b87c3850aa

• "21j-5"
  

  Size: 32Kb (32 768 bytes)
  Region: gfx1
  Offset: 0
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 7a8b8db4
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 8368182234f9d4d763d4714fd7567a9e31b7ebeb

• "21j-a"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: gfx2
  Offset: 0
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 574face3
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 481fe574cb79d0159a65ff7486cbc945d50538c5

• "21j-b"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: gfx2
  Offset: 10000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 40507a76
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 74581a4b6f48100bddf20f319903af2fe36f39fa

• "21j-c"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: gfx2
  Offset: 20000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: bb0bc76f
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 37b2225e0593335f636c1e5fded9b21fdeab2f5a

• "21j-d"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: gfx2
  Offset: 30000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: cb4f231b
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 9f2270f9ceedfe51c5e9a9bbb00d6f43dbc4a3ea

• "21j-e"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: gfx2
  Offset: 40000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: a0a0c261
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 25c534d82bd237386d447d72feee8d9541a5ded4

• "21j-f"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: gfx2
  Offset: 50000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 6ba152f6
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: a301ff809be0e1471f4ff8305b30c2fa4aa57fae

• "21j-g"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: gfx2
  Offset: 60000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 3220a0b6
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 24a16ea509e9aff82b9ddd14935d61bb71acff84

• "21j-h"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: gfx2
  Offset: 70000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 65c7517d
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: f177ba9c1c7cc75ff04d5591b9865ee364788f94

• "21j-8"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: gfx3
  Offset: 0
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 7c435887
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: ecb76f2148fa9773426f05aac208eb3ac02747db

• "21j-9"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: gfx3
  Offset: 10000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: c6640aed
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: f156c337f48dfe4f7e9caee9a72c7ea3d53e3098

• "21j-i"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: gfx3
  Offset: 20000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 5effb0a0
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 1f21acb15dad824e831ed9a42b3fde096bb31141

• "21j-j"
  

  Size: 64Kb (65 536 bytes)
  Region: gfx3
  Offset: 30000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 5fb42e7c
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 7953316712c56c6f8ca6bba127319e24b618b646

• "21j-1-5.26"
  

  Size: 32Kb (32 768 bytes)
  Region: main
  Offset: 8000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 42045dfd
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 0983705ea3bb87c4c239692f400e02f15c243479

• "21j-2-3.25"
  

  Size: 32Kb (32 768 bytes)
  Region: main
  Offset: 10000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 5779705e
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 4b8f22225d10f5414253ce0383bbebd6f720f3af

• "21j-3.24"
  

  Size: 32Kb (32 768 bytes)
  Region: main
  Offset: 18000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 3bdea613
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: d9038c80646a6ce3ea61da222873237b0383680e

• "21j-4-1.23"
  

  Size: 32Kb (32 768 bytes)
  Region: main
  Offset: 20000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 728f87b9
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: d7442be24d41bb9fc021587ef44ae5b830e4503d

• "21j-k-0"
  

  Size: 256 bytes
  Region: proms
  Offset: 0
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: fdb130a9
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 4c4f214229b9fab2b5d69c745ec5428787b89e1f

• "21j-l-0"
  

  Size: 512 bytes
  Region: proms
  Offset: 100
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 46339529
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: 64f4c42a826d67b7cbaa8a23a45ebc4eb6248891

• "21j-0-1"
  

  Size: 32Kb (32 768 bytes)
  Region: sound
  Offset: 8000
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: 9efa95bb
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: da997d9cc7b9e7b2c70a4b6d30db693086a6f7d8

• "63701.bin"
  

  Size: 16Kb (16 384 bytes)
  Region: sub
  Offset: 0
  Merge:
  CRC checksum: f5232d03
  MD5 checksum:
  SHA1 checksum: e2a194e38633592fd6587690b3cb2669d93985c7

0.37b5 [?]
0.33b3 [Carlos A. Lozano, Rob Rosenbrock, Phil Stroffolino, Ernesto Corvi]
NOTE:
- Barrels (eg. at the end of level 1) can be kicked by pressing the kick button (duh) when you are near. However, the barrels doesn't get kicked if you hold the button down, and you become invulnerable as long as you don't release the button.? - ddragon060gre >I just checked with my PCB (original) and ddragon060gre do happen there. Augusto / Stefan Lindberg
- The snare and bass drums in the music disappear when the little hand appears on the screen to tell you to move along. The drums don't come back after this happens. - ddragonb36b12gre >It do happen on the PCB also so it's not a MAME bug. Here is a rather long gameplay audiorecording from the PCB. Stefan Lindberg
Bugs:
- Clone ddragnw1: When finishing the game its reset and so go to check rom screen again and freezes! ddragnw10105u4red Ashura-X
WIP:
- 0.127u2: Sonikos added clone Double Dragon (bootleg).
- 0.126u4: Fabio Priuli added diplocations to Double Dragon.
- 0.125u4: Added clone Double Dragon (bootleg with 3xM6809, set 2).
- 0.124u1: Added clone Double Dragon (bootleg with 3xM6809). This is a well known italian bootleg of Double Dragon it can be identified by the following gameplay trait. The Boss of level 4 is coloured like level 1 and 5 instead of green, and is invulnerable to rocks attack. In terms of code the game code has been heavily modified, banking writes appear to have been removed, and the graphic roms are all scrambled. The game also runs on 3x M6809 rather than the original CPUs. I'm not 100% convinced the program roms are good dumps, apprently ROM3 fails on the original board (could just be due to the rom hacking, as the game runs fine) but there is a jump to the 0x2000 region in the code, although this could be additional protection / rom scrambling. Also the sound roms seem too small. If you have this PCB please verify.
- 0.122u7: Replaced HD6309 CPU3 with M6809 (6Mhz). Changed HD6309 CPU2 clock speed to 12MHz, HD63701 CPU3 to 6Mhz, 2x MSM5205 to 375000 Hz and visible area to 256x240.
- 0.119u3: David Haywood added clone Double Dragon (bootleg with M6803).
- 0.112: Corrado Tomaselli added clone Double Dragon (US Set 2).
- 0.105u4: Stefan Lindberg added clone Double Dragon (World Set 2). Fixed rom names in all other sets.
- 8th January 2006: Bryan McPhail - Double Dragon has a crash which sometimes occurs at the very end of the game (right before the final animation sequence). It occurs because of a jump look up table: BAD3: LDY #$BADD; BAD7: JSR [A,Y]. At the point of the crash A is 0x3e which causes a jump to 0x3401 (background tile ram) which obviously doesn't contain proper code and causes a crash. The jump table has 32 entries, and only the last contains an invalid jump vector. A is set to 0x3e as a result of code at 0x625f - it reads from the shared spriteram (0x2049 in main cpu memory space), copies the value to 0x523 (main ram) where it is later fetched and shifted to make 0x3e. So.. it's not clear where the error is - the 0x1f value is actually written to shared RAM by the main CPU - perhaps the MCU should modify it before the main CPU reads it back? Perhaps 0x1f should never be written at all? If you want to trace this further please submit a proper fix! In the meantime I have patched the error by making sure the invalid jump is never taken - this fixes the crash (see ddragon_spriteram_r).
- 0.77: Bryan McPhail added clone Double Dragon (World). Changed HD63701 MCU clock speed to 1193181 Hz, VSync to 57.444855 Hz and sound to mono.
- 3rd November 2003: Bryan McPhail fixed the video and interrupt timing in the Double Dragon driver and added the World version of Double Dragon.
- 2nd September 2000: Nicola Salmoria fixed a 6309 bug which affected Fast Lane and Double Dragon.
- 0.37b5: Added Double Dragon (Japan) and clone (US) with missing cpu2 MCU rom ($c000) and proms ($0, 100 - unknown). Removed Double Dragon (bootleg?). Replaced the 2x ADPCM sound with 2x MSM5205 (384000 Hz).
- 12th July 2000: Nicola Salmoria fixed the ADPCM sound frequency in Double Dragon and did some general cleanup in the driver.
- 10th July 2000: Nicola Salmoria fixed MCU emulation to Double Dragon.
- 0.36b9: Replaced M6809 CPU with M6309. Changed YM2151 clock speed to 3579545 Hz.
- 0.35b6: Replaced M6809 CPU1 with M6309 and M6803 CPU2 with HD63701.
- 0.33b6: Nicola Salmoria changed Double Dragon to use dynamic palette.
- 0.33b3: Added Double Dragon (bootleg? 1987) and clone (bootleg). Due to the lack of the ROM image for the HD63701 microcontroller, the original version doesn't work. Use the bootleg, which use a 6809 instead of the HD63701.
LEVELS: 4
Movie: Double Dragon
Genre: Karate, Fantasy
Year: USA 1994
Director: James Yukich
Studio: ?
Cast: Mark Dacascos, Scott Wolf, Julia Nickson, Alyssa Milano, Robert Patrick, Kristina Wagner
Recommended Games (Street Fighter):
Knuckle Joe
My Hero
Renegade
Trojan
Trojan (PlayChoice-10)
Avengers
Double Dragon
Double Dragon II
Double Dragon 3
Double Dragon (PlayChoice-10)
Double Dragon (Neo-Geo)
Ginga NinkyouDen
Kyros
Shinobi
Shinobi (Mega-Tech)
The Revenge of Shinobi (Mega-Tech)
Shinobi III (Mega Play)
Bad Dudes vs. Dragonninja
Shadow Warriors
Vigilante
Crime Fighters
DownTown
Final Fight
Gang Wars
Last Battle (Mega-Tech)
Ninja Gaiden (PlayChoice-10)
Ninja Gaiden Episode II (PlayChoice-10)
Ninja Gaiden Episode III (PlayChoice-10)
Shadow Dancer
Tough Turf
The Combatribes
Crude Buster
Growl
Mug Smashers
64th. Street
Brute Force
Captain Commando
D. D. Crew
Karate Blazers
Riot City
Vendetta
Big Fight
Guardians of the Hood
Silent Dragon
Undercover Cops
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs
Knuckle Bash
Knuckle Bash 2
Ninja Baseball Batman
The Punisher
Streets of Rage II (Mega Play)
Violent Storm
Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon
Final Fight 2
Osman
Spikeout
Spikeout Final Edition
Vamp 1/2
Thunder Heroes
Romset: 1105 kb / 23 files / 522 zip

Released in August 1987.
Licensed to Taito for manufacture and distribution (Prom Stickers : 21J) in America and Europe (July 1987).
Double Dragon may not have been the world's first scrolling beat-em-up (that accolade belongs to Technos Japan's own "Renegade", released in 1986) but it is the world's first CO-OPERATIVE fighting game and as such defined its era. The varied, multi-colored sprites and hugely detailed backdrops - married to instinctive, one or two-player game-play - was something that had never really been seen in the fighting game before and Double Dragon quickly became a legend in its own right. The game would be the inspiration for an entire genre and classics such as Capcom's "Final Fight" owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Technos legend. The game was such a huge hit, that when the home versions finally came out, the rear side of the package advertised, 'You'll never have to stand in line to play Double Dragon again!'.
Double Dragon's hugely innovative game-play and superb graphics proved to be too ambitious for the host Technos hardware and the game was plagued with the now notorious 'slowdown', that occurred whenever a large number of fighters appeared on-screen.
The game's director, Yoshihisa Kishimoto, reportedly conceived his initial idea for Double Dragon around the date of July 20th in 1986, the 13th anniversary of Bruce Lee's death.
Director Yoshihisa Kishimoto got the idea of picking up an enemy's weapon from his previous game, "Renegade" ("Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun" in Japan). During the first stage of Renegade, he noticed that the armed enemy characters were not holding their weapons when they were on the ground.
On the first stage of the game, a billboard for "Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun" (the Japanese version of "Renegade") can be seen atop a building prior to the first boss battle.
The car at Billy and Jimmy's garage resembles the interceptor from the laserdisc game "Road Blaster", which was one of director Yoshihisa Kishimoto's previous games at Data East before he left the company to work for Technos.
The 3 kanji characters on the game's official logo are (in order) : 'Sou' (Twin) 'Setsu' (Cut or Intercept) and 'Ryuu' (Dragon, also pronounced 'Tatsu'). Thus, the title can loosely be translated as the 'Twin Intercepting Dragons'.
The fictional martial arts practiced by the Lee brothers is called Sousetsuken or 'Twin Interception Fist', which is described as a combination of Shaolin Temple Kung Fu, Karate and Tai Chi Chuan. The name is derived from Bruce Lee's own martial arts style Jeet Kune Do, or Sekkendou in Japan, which is known as the 'Way of the Intercepting Fist'.
The character names are derived from the 1973 Bruce Lee film, 'Enter the Dragon'.
Double Dragon contained a number of bugs, most of which were never fixed despite several revisions of the ROM. The best known is a bug in the way enemies attack the player. Sportingly, enemies will not attack the player from behind, but will instead walk up to them and try to move past so they can attack from the front. Thus, by standing with your back to an enemy, it was possible to wait for them to get close and then elbow them in the face, without fear of being attacked. Another common bug was the 'infinite bouncing' bug. Due to the fixed way in which objects in the game would bounce off walls, trees etc, it was possible to drop an item between two tree stumps on the forest level, and it would bounce back and forth forever. In the first version of the game, this could happen to player characters who fell off either stump, the only way to continue the game being to allow the timer to run down. Another less serious bug was the ability to throw weapons from one level to the next. Usually, weapons were discarded at the end of a level. On some levels however, the transition to the next level was achieved simply by scrolling the screen one whole screen to the right, or down a cliff. By standing at the extreme right of the level and jumping just as it ended, the players character would drop their weapon in mid air, throwing it far enough to be picked up again once the screen had scrolled on.
Jason Wilson holds the official record for this game with 171,210 points on July 24, 1999.
Apollon Music released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (Original Sound of Double Dragon - KHY-1026) in cassette format on 21/02/1988. Also released the soundtrack album in CD format (Original Sound of Double Dragon - BY12-5028) on 21/02/1988.
Scitron released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (Legend of Game Music 2 ~Platinum Box~ - SCDC-00473~82) on 18/01/2006
A Double Dragon unit appears in the abysmal 1994 movie 'Double Dragon'.
A Double Dragon unit can be seen in Drake and Josh episode 'Movie Job', but the marquee reads 'Dragon'.
Tiger Electronics released a board-game based on this video game (same name) in 1989 : The winner is the first player to successfully fight his or her way around the game board to Jimmy's Hideout to rescue Marian. You will pass through the slum section, the industrial section, the forest section and the hideout section on the rocky road to victory.
Comic Book : Six-issue limited series published by Marvel Comics in 1991. (cover dated from July to December). Written by Dwayne McDuffie for the first four issues and by Tom Brevoort and Mike Kanterovich for the final two. In this comic, Billy and Jimmy Lee were the twin inheritors of the 'Dragon Force', a mystical force that granted the Lee brothers their powers, as they fought against the occult crime lord Nightfall. Marian is reimagined as a policewoman (a depiction later featured in the cartoon series) and Stan Lee appears as Billy and Jimmy's long-lost father.
Cartoon : TV series produced by DIC Entertainment and Bohbot Entertainment, which lasted two 13-episodes seasons in 1993 and 1994. In the series, Billy and Jimmy are twin brothers who were separated at birth, with Billy being raised by his father's sensei, the Oldest Dragon, while Jimmy was raised by the evil Shadow Master to become his successor, the Shadow Boss. After the second episode, Jimmy realizes the evils of his way and joins his brother, becoming the Double Dragons. Inspired the 1994 home console fighting game "Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls".
Live-Action Movie : Released in 1994 by Imperial Entertainment. Starred Scott Wolf as Billy, Mark Dacascos as Jimmy, Alysa Milano as Marian and Robert Patrick as original villain Koga Shuko. Directed by James Yukich, with a screenplay written by Paul Dini (of Batman: The Animated Series) and Neal Shusterman. In the movie, Billy and Jimmy are young twin brothers who possess one half of a magical medallion, with the other half possessed by crime lord Shuko. It inspired the 1995 Neo-Geo game "Double Dragon".

1. Double Dragon (1987)
2. Double Dragon II - The Revenge (1988)
3. Double Dragon 3 - The Rosetta Stone (1991)
4. Super Double Dragon (1992, US/EU Nintendo Super NES) / Return of Double Dragon (1992, JP Nintendo Super Famicom)
5. Battletoads & Double Dragon - The Ultimate Team (1993, Nintendo Super NES)
6. Double Dragon V - The Shadow Falls (1994, Nintendo Super NES)
7. Double Dragon (1995)

n/a

Director & Producer : Yoshihisa Kishimoto (Yoshi Kishi)
Programmers : Hiroshi Satoh, Tomoyasu Koga, Naritaka Nishimura, Hideshi Kaneda
Animation : Koji Ogata
Character designer : Koji Kai
BGM : Kazunaka Yamane
SFX : Kenichi Mori
Art staff : Kumiko Mukai, Mizuho Yama, Akemi Tasaki, Misae Nakayama, Masao Shiroto
Director & Game designer : Shinichi Saitou

* Consoles :
Nintendo Famicom (1988)
Sega Master System (1988)
Atari 2600 (1989)
Atari 7800
Nintendo Game Boy (1989)
Sega Mega Drive (1992)
Atari Lynx (1993)
Nintendo Game Boy Advance (2003, "Double Dragon Advance")
Microsoft XBOX 360 (2007, "Xbox Live Arcade")
* Computers :
Commodore C64 (1988)
Commodore Amiga (1988)
PC [MS-DOS, 5.25''] (1988)
Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1989)
Amstrad CPC (1989) [Virgin Mastertronic - 128 Ko Disk version]
Amstrad CPC (1989) [Animagic - Spanish Version]
Atari ST (1989)
Commodore Amiga (1990, "Amiga Champions")
Commodore C64 (1990, "100% Dynamite")
Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1990, "100% Dynamite")
Amstrad CPC (1991) [Melbourne House]
* Others :
LCD handheld game (1989) released by Tiger Electronics : You have 3 lives to save Marian in 4 missions of increasing difficulty.

n/a

* The original Japanese version by Technos has a different storyline than the one used by Taito in the International version. The Japanese storyline is more developed and does not use the Spike and Hammer aliases.

n/a

[Buttons]

: Punch ()
: Kick ()
: Jump

[Common Commands]

Headbutt
Jump Kick
Elbow
(Move of Death)
Reverse Jump Kick
Grab near opponent front /
- Knee ()
- Throw (/)
Full Nelson near opponent back
Pickup Weapon near
- Use Weapon
Kick container near
Deflect Weapon
Full Nelson Kick
in Full Nelson
Full Nelson Break
in Full Nelson
Punch Combo
Kick Combo

MAMESCORE records : 02/11/2008 01:08
akuma62_______________________345.360
jinkot________________________279.380
equipe.droids_________________148.610
lacoobella____________________116.230
majygool______________________112.070
shurikn_______________________102.330
rising_thunder_________________99.300
mike_myers_____________________99.020
gnu____________________________94.410
didyeah________________________92.200
thegamer_______________________91.940
fly_saya_______________________91.220
starfab________________________84.540
sgt._augagneur_________________71.350
furohon________________________68.940
thord__________________________47.550
olivier________________________23.200
hulkiii________________________21.250
foxmulder______________________21.000
zarouk_________________________20.480
oufouf_________________________14.750
nicky634_______________________11.200
jgabmurer_______________________9.000
! MAMESCORE INSTRUCTIONS !
--------------------------
Le leeching étant possible, il est autorisé uniquement si le joueur termine le jeu. Voir le Règlement Général.....Leeching is allowed in this game only if the player finish the game entirely.... See Main Rules