Double Dragon

Technos's Double Dragon is one of the foundational beat-em-ups, the game that helped define cooperative side-scrolling brawling when it arrived in arcades. The CrossBinge entry tracks brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee across sequels, the Battletoads crossover, compilation collections, and the 2023 revival Gaiden, plus the 1994 live-action film.

The distinctive contribution is structural. Double Dragon popularized two players walking right and punching their way through waves of street thugs, a template countless games copied for the next decade. The combat is simple by modern standards, but the co-op rhythm still works, and later entries like Neon and Gaiden lean knowingly into that retro identity.

It crosses games and film, though the 1994 movie is a curiosity at best and the games are the real reason the name endures.

The Double Dragon franchise spans 5 games, 1 films in the CrossBinge catalog.