Long recognized as the granddaddy of the scrolling beat-em-up genre, Double Dragon was a huge hit in the arcades, and so it was inevitable that a home version would come to the NES. Overall, this is a decent game, but it changed a lot in the journey to the living room.

Most notably, there is no two-player co-op mode, which kind of takes away from the whole "double" aspect of playing with a buddy the arcade version had. The NES version also substatially changes around the level layouts, and adds in some very annoying bits where your character is subjected to seemingly random attacks by falling rocks.

This version is also quite a bit tougher than the arcade, since you start out with only a couple of moves, and must earn more by defeating enemies. When you lose a life, you get sent back quite far, and there are no continues available. All this adds up to making the game very frustrating in parts.

Perhaps to make up for this, there is a "versus" mode thrown in, which is a very simplistic one-on-one fighting game. It's a nice gesture, but it comes off as too little, too late to save the NES version of Double Dragon from the realm of the average.