Retro game revisit – Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja

One of my all time favorite arcade games is the 1988 Data East classic Bad Dudes Vs Dragon Ninja.  How can you not love a game that manages to get dude in the title, because trust me they are a very rare breed. In Japan Bad Dudes Vs Dragon Ninja was just called Dragon Ninja but for me that just makes the game lose the rarity of its name, because lets be honest there are 365 gazillion (yes that’s a specific count, honest) games with dragon in the title.

Bad Dudes was a side scrolling 2d beat em up with surprisingly addictive game play, it actually has more in common with shoot em up style game play than the pseudo 3d beat em up games like Double Dragon and Final Fight and really benefits from it.  Most enemies are dispatched in one hit and it’s more reliant on timing and precision to get the hits in at the right time, rather than a case of simply mashing the buttons.  The Bosses also presented some challenge with timing being very important and the key to success, along with working out their patterns of attack.

The game utilized two levels of play, high and low, to give you chance to escape from situations quickly and it also added to the two player game where each player could choose and a level instead of fighting over the same baddies.The basic weapons of choice in the game were your fists and feet depending on what position you were in and where the enemy was standing.  In addition to the punches and kicks you could throw as a Bad Dude there were also weapons that could be picked up along the way giving you an advantage usually in reach.  The weapons varied from knives to nunchakus, and let’s face it which bad dude doesn’t know how to use a pair of nunchakus.

The plot was suitably eighties grandiose in style with the President of the United States, President Ronnie being kidnapped by the Dragon Ninja.  Now it’s your job as a Bad Dude to save the day and recover him.   Cue some stylish and now considered retro intro graphics but at the time they were great.  The actual game looked good for the time too, with some good character sprites and some interesting and varied locations if a little bit plain in color use and texture.

Thanks to the goodness of MAME or many of the possible home computer or console conversions you might have been able to try Bad Dudes Vs Dragon Ninja out.  If you haven’t and you like your retro games then you should definitely check this one out.