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Game: Double Dragon
Song: Title Screen
Composer: Kazunaka Yamane
Above: Title Screen from Double Dragon
In the mid 80s, there was no beat 'em up more popular than Double Dragon. It was a no frills, walk right and punch everyone in the face affair that somehow captivated millions of gamers, both in the arcade and in the eventual NES and Sega Genesis ports. The gameplay may not hold up to today's standards, but the music, especially the title screen, will be amazing forever.
The embedded track comes from the NES version, and just so happens to be the first game song I remember listening to and thinking, "Man, I love game music." All of these game music articles, all my imported CDs, all my gigs of personally ripped VGM can be traced back to this one song. Sure, there were other impressive tracks (like say the Zelda title screen) around before Double Dragon appeared, but something about this specific song pulled me in for life.
Most of the in-game songs are fairly strong, though Mission 4 tops 'em all by picking up the tempo and just going all out nuts with the NES' limited audio channels. If this ain't face punchin' music, I don't know what is.
Sadly, I bet thousands of people think of this garbage cartoon instead of the actual games. I was a bit too old to even give it a chance, but I'd like to think that everyone hates it as unconditionally as I do. The show led to Double Dragon V, a fighting game that more or less finished off the franchise, forever entombing the series in the limitless wastes of '90s animation.
But hey, that old NES music was pretty good!
Game music of the day: Metroid II
Ending theme by Ryoji Yoshitomi
Game music of the day: Mirror's Edge
Still Alive by Lisa Miskovsky
Game music of the day: Billy Hatcher
World Select by Mariko Nanba
