Double Dragon easily ranks among my favorite video games ever, combining great action with a reasonable level of challenge and the opportunity to whip purple-haired bulldykes off the top of buildings. It was my first gaming experience where the prime derivative was simply beating the holy hell out of everyone in sight. Though the DD series first met success in the arcades, the only version I've ever been familiar with was for the Nintendo. While some purists hated the changes made in the transition, I didn't know better and had no idea that Billy Lee's brother was supposed to be a good guy. And to be honest, I was probably like nine-years-old at the time - I wouldn't have given a shit anyway.
Actually, I still don't - now that I've had a chance to play all sorts of versions of the game and the sequels, I still prefer the ol' NES cart to the rest. My favorite aspect was the great assortment of enemy characters you had to face. While they all shared similar moves, each had a distinct look and all of them were so god damned weird that I woke up this morning and realized that there was no choice but to pay tribute to 'em all in an article. With that, here's X-E's official Double Dragon Character Database. Not the only one of the net, but probably the only one with the term loose as a goose included in a boldprint yellow font.
The Plot: You are Billy Lee, a martial arts master with a really hot girlfriend. You grew up on the dangerous city streets, learning how to take care of yourself alongside your brother and only friend, Jimmy Lee. Problems arise as a group of bandits known as the Black Warriors start causing trouble in your neighborhood. Led by the mysterious Shadow Boss, this gang of thugs have all-but taken over the city, using ruthless aggression and a few easy-to-throw oil drums. Your superior skills and virtuous nature makes you a target of the Black Warriors, who do the unthinkable by kidnapping your hot girlfriend. Now full of despair and not having any sex, you're really pissed off and you're not gonna take it no more! It'll be a tough, long journey to rescue your woman, and while unbeknownst to you, there's only one way you can complete your mission: defeat the new leader of the Black Warriors - your very own brother, Jimmy Lee.
Come on, that's damn good stuff right there. I'd say they should've made a movie based on it, but they already did. So I'll alter it and say that they should make a movie based on this that doesn't star Scott Wolf. Now that you know the background story, let's meet every last darn character in the game, a list so complete I've even included extra entries if a character appears in parts of the game with a different skin color.
Billy Lee: Billy is only in his early-20s, but he's still somehow mastered the ancient art of Sousetsuken. I'm not sure what Sousetsuken is; I think it's the cooking method where you stuff chicken with rosemary. I imagine that Billy's girlfriend was on the receiving end of many fine dinners before those Black Warrior bastards kidnapped her ass. He's also pretty good at karate. Billy believes that one must always keep learning, and as you play the game, your experience points keep going up, enabling Billy to learn new moves. They're pretty cool moves, too - if you keep at it long enough, Billy will be able to continually drive his knee into an enemy's head before throwing the same enemy thirty feet behind him. That's an impressive move for a guy who's only 165 pounds.
Marian: Billy Lee's girlfriend. Like most of the characters in the game, Marian has a few specialized skills. Her most notable abilities are being easily kidnapped and knowing the fine line between dolling herself up nicely and smearing on the whoreclown lipstick. It's painfully obvious that Billy likes Marian only for her looks, because she's certainly not the sharpest knife in the drawer. During the opening sequence, you'll notice that she just stands there vapidly as a group of giant villainous thugs approach her carrying knives and stickball bats. What was she expecting them to do, try to convert her into a Jehovah's Witness? No wonder she got kidnapped. While Billy realizes that she's partly to blame, he knows he can't just let her rot in the Black Warriors' secret underground sexual torture chamber. When asked how she felt about being abducted and beat up, her reply was that her name 'kinda rhymes with barbarian, carrion, and proletarian.' Marian's really stupid.
Williams: Consider Williams the Mushroom Goombas of Double Dragon - there's millions of these guys, but they're real easy to kill. You'll fight Williams again and again while playing, and even though they're not powerful, they do pick up a few new tricks along the way. You might have to fend off a baseball bat-wielding Williams, or even a Williams who knows how to throw knives. Fortunately, if you knock them down two or three times, they'll fall to the floor and vanish. Kind of like how Yoda died, but nobody ever cried over Williams. Come to think of it, nobody really cried over Yoda either. Except my aunt, but she was a diabetic and her blood sugar was low. Williams' penchant for stonewashed jeans earned him the title of 'Most Fashionable Black Warrior.' Not exactly a high honor, considering that all his compatriots believe in 'going commando,' with only a light pair of sweatpants shielding the world's view from their assorted sweaty manhoods.
Wroper (White): Actually, I'm not sure if it's 'Wroper,' 'Lopar,' or 'Roper.' I picked 'Wroper' because these guys are way too mean to be related to Helen and Stanley. Wroper is probably the weakest enemy in the game, but he makes up for it by being one of the trickiest. These guys really enjoy throwing heavy objects at Billy Lee, so be careful. If you see them running at you, there's a good chance that others aren't far behind. Usually, one of the others will be carrying an oil drum or the world's biggest wood crate over their head. And they ain't doing it for the exercise. Wropers always run around shirtless, but at least they alternate the colors on their suspenders from aqua blue to forest green. I used to think the ones wearing green suspenders were more powerful, but now I think the aqua blue ones just seemed like less of a threat because they looked like the type of people who'd rather hit on Billy than beat him up. I tried to make Billy reciprocate the affections, but one of the other Wropers threw a rock at him before it could go anywhere. Oh well, he's taken anyway.
Wroper (Black): Pretty much the same as the white Wropers, only with a much closer resemblance to Levar Burton. These Wropers have an insanely strong jumpkick, so Billy should be thankful that they also have insanely bad aim. You can defeat them easily just by waiting for them to jumpkick at the thin air, at which point you can either kick them to death or smack them with a bat. Even though they're not particular tough, Wropers usually show up in strong numbers. Black Wropers never appear in the same scene as the white ones, proving that even the most cultural diverse inner city slums face racial angst. Billy, ever the equal rights activist, kicks both their asses all the same.
Chin Tamei: Finally, a serious threat. Chin isn't like the rest of these turkeys - he really knows how to fight. Even worse, it takes about 140,000 knockdowns to kill one of 'em off. There's zillions of them in the game, too. There's more Chins in Double Dragon than a Chinese phone...oh I just can't do it. Too easy. There's still a lot of them, though. Fighting Chin is a great way for Billy to rack up experience points - you'll often notice yourself breaking out with new moves in the midst of fighting him. In a way, Billy should be thanking Chin for letting him learn the 'backwards elbow.' But you know how Billy is, he wouldn't forgive these guys for gangbanging Marian so easily. Chin's shaggy hair covers his forehead, which is unfortunate, because I really wanted to make a joke about it if he had a big one. And now I'll never know.
Linda: The only female on the Black Warrior team tries to fit in by making herself look as much like a man as possible. Completing the aura by spitting a lot and growing balls, Linda is a force to be reckoned with. Aside from punching and kicking, she's very good at using a whip. She's even better at dropping the whip, so keep an eye out for lost weapons. The only thing more fun than killing Linda with several headbutts is whipping her to death. I'm not sure why it's more fun; I just always pictured Billy yelling 'yeah, how you like that, bitch?!' while whipping her in the face. Only I pictured Billy saying it with the worst stereotypical Chinese accent ever, so it'd be more along the lines of 'yah, vow voo wike vat, itch?!' As a special added bonus: whenever you made Billy kick Linda in the stomach, she'd make the same face one would if they somehow swallowed a pinecone and it was time for it to make it's grand exit out their ass. All in all, Linda was a lot of fun and I'm sorta regretful that I had to kill her so many times.
Abobo: My oh my. Abobo, Abobo, Abobo. Where do we start? Okay, so the Black Warriors had met their quotas in the 'ninjas' and 'ugly women' departments. The only thing missing from their team was someone with a huge head. At first, they tried playing things off as if Chin Tamei had a huge head, but really, it's not much bigger than anyone else's in the game. So one day, through some miracle of fate, who walks in but Abobo: evil warrior with - you guessed it - a tremendous head. It was a celebratory night in Black Warriors HQ, but this isn't anything Billy should be happy about. Abobo is one tough mofo. He's not particularly fast, but you don't need speed on your side when you're strong enough to hold your opponent in midair while slapping them until their jaw shatters. Abobo doesn't speak much, but either do tiger sharks and they still manage to kill people just fine. Your best bet? Try to sneak away when there's an open door, and if there isn't, see if there's any way for you to knock Abobo down a bottomless pit. This isn't the guy you want to practice your hand-to-hand combat against. Though he is probably the guy to see if you want to practice giving makeovers.
Green Abobo: The only thing worse than fighting Abobo is fighting his cousin, Green Abobo. But that's only because there aren't any hot pink Abobos yet. Green Abobo has the same moves as his more natural cousin, but he prefers to hide out in underground caves because, truth be told, the public at large just isn't ready to see a human being with green skin and a head the size of one of those rubber balls people with bad backs have to sit on. So, you could argue that this Abobo is the most dangerous of all, because he's got no sentimental attachment to the world and a whole lot of anger towards normal people like Billy who won't let him play their reindeer games. Green Abobo just wanted to be loved. Since he can't have that, he'll just have to be satisfied enough with ripping your spine out. He's 260 pounds of sour apple trouble.
Willy: Willy is the 'Big Boss' of the Black Warriors. Even though he's slightly smaller than Abobo and Lime Abobo, Willy is actually a whole lot tougher since he's the only guy in the whole city with a machine gun. What's worse - it's an enchanted magical machine gun that never runs out of bullets. Though capable of other attacks, Willy relies on the power of the bullet during battle. Billy will have to act quick if he wants to make it through this one with his lungs intact. In some of the other versions of the Double Dragon games, Willy is the leader of the bad guys. Proving that he's a smart marketer, Willy let Billy's brother lead in this version because it provides a much deeper story. Even though he's okay with the arrangement, he still harbors a little pent-up anger over not being King Bad anymore. So watch out - he takes out his frustrations by shooting you repeatedly.
Jimmy Lee: Oh, Jimmy. Where did you go wrong? How could two boys with the same upbringing end up so very different? Jimmy is almost a clone of his brother, utilizing the same moves at the same speed with the same energy level. The only real difference between the two is that Billy typically won't piss on a baby's head if the opportunity presents itself. It's Jimmy who was responsible for Marian's kidnapping, so if Billy ever wants to see her again, he'll have to murder his own brother. In all other versions of the game, Jimmy is on your side. I don't know why he went off track here; I guess he was jealous because Billy had a better tan.
And those are the characters of Nintendo's Double Dragon. The gameplay was frustrating at times, because there were certain spots where it was incredibly easy to die compared to the myriad other spots where it was damn near impossible to lose. So you'd have to keep going through parts of the game that you couldn't possibly lose in just to get to the same part where you always seemed to die at. Though that's just nitpicking - overall, it was a terrific game that kept the challenge level up there without being too much for a casual player to handle. The continuous adding of new moves helped to keep things fresh, and aside from that, each stage was very unique and different from the previous. Sometimes you'd be fighting atop half-constructed buildings, other times you'd be running for your life from falling stalagmites and fluorescent Abobos. It had fun music, and was a pretty lengthy game considering the era it came out during. Now, you might be wondering what the payoff was for going through all this. Games usually aren't considered 'great' unless they provide a good ending. Double Dragon's ending went the obvious route, but at least you could go to sleep knowing that Billy can get laid again...
Marian's sound asleep in Jimmy Lee's secret chamber. Wow, nice decor. Video game bad guys aren't usually thoughtful enough to provide a seating area for that many people. They don't usually have pet cats, either. Maybe Jimmy Lee wasn't all that bad. Kinda sucks that we killed him before figuring out things a little further. Oh well, life goes on. Actually, Marian looks like she's playing Game Boy more than sleeping, which only proves my point further: how many kidnappers do you know that'd hand out Game Boys to their captive victims so they don't get bored? Jimmy Lee was a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in rosemary leftover from Billy's Sousetsuken chicken.
See the heart? That means it's a happy ending. The Nintendo-ized version of the ending is similar to the arcade edition, except for one small change...
In the arcade version of the ending, you can see Marian's panties when they kiss. Aren't they hot? I think it's a thong. I hope it's a thong. I like thongs. All in all though, the Double Dragon series hasn't been particularly kind to Marian. She's always being stolen and kidnapped and kissed and thrown around and other naughty things that make her feel cheap and used. In the arcade version of Double Dragon II, look what happens right from the start...
"Oh jeez. Here we go again. Another damn punch in the stomach."
Poor Marian, you wish it was that simple. Willy doesn't carry around that thing just because he wants to look like Rambo. I'll spare you the graphic visuals that follow the above picture, but suffice to say, Billy's gonna need a new girlfriend for Double Dragon III.
In the arcade version of the ending, you can see Marian's panties when they kiss. Aren't they hot? I think it's a thong. I hope it's a thong. I like thongs. All in all though, the Double Dragon series hasn't been particularly kind to Marian. She's always being stolen and kidnapped and kissed and thrown around and other naughty things that make her feel cheap and used. In the arcade version of Double Dragon II, look what happens right from the start...