Double Dragon has been talked about a ton on the Retro Reboot review corner, and its influence on the industry, providing the blueprint for the success of the brawler genre. In its wake, some competitors would throw their hats into the ring. Enter Data East, a storied arcade engineering/development company, who would bring the world Bad Dudes (or Bad Dudes Vs Dragon Ninja), which hit arcades in 1988. Fans loved it, it was one of the more successful cabinets in the United States. 

...Then came the NES port, and days of darkness...

Bad Dudes had many ports, hitting the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, and the Commodore 64, to name a few. I'm gonna focus on the Nintendo Entertainment System version, which in no uncertain terms, plays like a game old enough to have its code written on papyrus. Okay, that might be a touch on the unfair side, but even Irem's Kung-Fu (which was distributed BY Data East and is four years older) has more nuance, there's a chance your home port of a game isn't very good. 

Some positives, the sprites are...alright. Bad Dudes looks fine enough, until the game starts moving and you have to ask yourself if your NES console is in the midst of a nervous breakdown. This is a pretty flickery game, but I'll give credit where it's due, Bad Dudes can maintain more enemies on the screen than Double Dragon's measly limit of three at a time.

Secondly, the story. You can't get any more 80's than the plot that involves colorful ninjas in broad daylight apprehending the president of the United States. The response of the leader of the free world being held for ransom by Dragon Ninja? A gruff Duke Nukem-esqe man of unspecified military rank, who opts not to arrange a highly trained task force to carry out this mission, but two twin brothers clad in A-shirts and sweat pants named BLADE and STRIKER.

Sounds like a tag team from 1994 opening up for a house show at Calvert City fairgrounds. This is packed with enough testosterone to put hair on your fingernails. No mission plan, no schematics, no scouting the enemy forces. Two guys who measure their stock in measurements of "BADNESS" can only be trusted with a delicate task. They don't even have to rely on the Pentagon.  

The gameplay gets pretty mindless, it's every brawler beat-em up you've ever played, but it did try some things. The plain is strictly 2D and you can attack directly overhead as the lines and lines of ninjas cover the screen like a chorus line that missed their que. The problem is, the controls feel delayed and sluggish, with incredibly spotty hit detection. Without any real cohesion between your attacks and how to battle defensively, it comes off so flat and unsatisfying.

Maybe if you're buzzed enough, you can get some amusement out of co-op with a buddy. the weapons feel like they barely work, the wave of enemies get repetitive, and Blade and/or Striker's general movement feels overly mechanical. The charged up "inner energy", which at full power launches a Kamehameha at all the enemies in front of you, makes some of the rougher portions a little easier, and it's again trying something ambitious with the medium. Even in its heavy efforts to tap into that cartoonish slice of the American stereotyping of "badassedgry", something like "fighting spirit" makes its way in.

You can do much better than Bad Dudes, but not gonna lie, this is one of those horrible games I like to pop in my system to just mess around in for about 20 minutes. There's vintage and retro, then there's just plain old OUTDATED.