April Edition Live Magazine - April 2014 Issue. | Page 20

RPG/Action-RPG - ‘The Legend of Zelda’
(1986, Nintendo)

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Retro Games that Spawned Gaming Genres

Beat-em-up/Brawler - ‘Double Dragon’
(1987, Technos Japan)
Another game that spawned an
entire sub-genre of games, Double Dragon was one of the first
popular arcade beat-em-ups (also
known as brawlers). In it, players
were cast as Billy and Jimmy Lee,
two brothers who must rescue the
woman they love (yes, they both
love the same woman) from a criminal organisation.
Double Dragon is not considered to
be the first beat-em-up, but I would
like to make the argument that it is.
Yes, there were a handful of games
that used hand-to-hand combat,
but it was Double Dragon that set
the standard for beat-em-ups with
its varied level design, smart A.I.,
end of level bosses, co-operative
multiplayer and tight combat.
The Lee brothers are martial artists, who battle various members
of the Black Warriors gang as they
venture further and further into the
gang’s territory. The players are
able to call upon a variety of martial arts moves in their repertoire

to defeat the enemies as well as
make use of various weapons that
can be found throughout the levels,
either on the ground or by disarming gang members.
Double Dragon was a tough game,
and was one of the first games labeled a “quarter muncher” (an arcade game that is so hard, it’s as
though it is devouring your money)
by its fans and critics alike. Despite
its difficulty, it was an extremely addictive game that saw it ported and
released across a huge variety of
consoles including the NES, Sega
Master System, IBM-PC, Nintendo
Game Boy, Atari 2600 and 7800,
iPhone, and Xbox 360. It has also
been announced as coming to the
Nintendo Wii U through the virtual
console network soon.
Double Dragon has spawned a
number of sequels, a Hollywood
movie (which was awful), and an
animated TV series (which also
had its own game) and still remains
popular today. It popularised the

beat-em-up genre which despite
varying degrees of popularity, has
always seen a number of releases.
A popular evolution of 2D beatem-up games is the hack-n-slash
sub-genre. While they have been
around almost as long as beat-emups, they have maintained their
popularity since the arcade era,
and have a number of notable recent franchises.
The Beat-Em-Up Legacy: The
Golden Axe series (1989-2008),
the Streets of Rage (Bare Knuckle)
series (1991-1994), the Final Fight
series (1989-1995), Castle Crashers (2008), God Hand (2006), Zeno
Clash (2009) and Scott Pilgrim Vs
the Worl: The Game (2010).
The Hack-N-Slash Legacy: The
Devil May Cry games (2001-current), the new Ninja Gaiden games
(2004-current), as well as the God
of War games (2005-current).

Created by Shigeru Miyamoto
(Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros),
The Legend of Zelda aimed to recreate the sense of wonder and adventure Miyamoto felt as a child.
Growing up in a mountainous region of Japan, Miyamoto frequently
explored caves and forests in his
youth. As people began to grow
up with games, they wanted more
depth and story from them. The
Legend of Zelda is widely regarded as the one of the earliest roleplaying-games (RPG), though in
actuality it is more of an action-rpg,
given its focus on real-time combat
and arcade-style execution.

The Legend of Zelda tells the story
of Link who has to collect the pieces
of the Trifoce of Wisdom in order to
save Princess Zelda from Ganon,
the game’s antagonist. Gameplay
has a heavy focus on arcade-style
combat and exploration. There
isn’t a strong sense of direction in
The Legend of Zelda, but there are
NPCs (non-player-characters) hidden through