Nottingham producer Last Action Hero has just released China Town Ghosts, a conceptual follow up to his 2020 album Cop Movie.

In this latest instalment, Wagner is pulled back into a world of corruption and violence by the Dragon Dynasty from whom he must save his daughter Sarah. Blending double-dragon beat-em-up scores with some Hong Kong cop movie flair, Last Action Hero will satisfy any synthwave enthusiast looking to take a trip down the murky streets of Chinatown.

Favorite tracks: Beijing Bar Fight, The Glow

Last Action Hero ‘China Town Ghosts’ is out now via Bandcamp

Well, I’ve got five more classic video game enemies to showcase in today’s article. I’ve got more goons. More thugs. More troublesome cronies. Let’s get to it!

ROLLER

Sonic The Hedgehog, 1991

Roller is another one who’s just a dyed-in-the-wool total asshole. I’m not sure why his name is Roller and not something more sinister; he does roll, but “Roller” in my mind implies some sort of smoothness of motion. Roller’s presence in Sonic the Hedgehog is about as smooth as suffering a debilitating stroke or suddenly finding the corpse of a jogger on a greenway.

You first run into this unconscionable ball-breaker in the Spring Yard Zone, an environment that is a chore in and of itself. Roller comes zooming out of left field at bullet-speed, just as you being to relax and think… and only meticulous memorization of his favorite spots, coupled with lightning reflexes, will save you. So in my case, the little blue hedgehog is proper fucked.

Perhaps the eeriest thing about Roller is how, when in motion, he almost sort of looks like Sonic. Maybe it’s some form of foreshadowing since Sonic does eventually fight a robot version of himself (I forget if it’s in 1 or 2, go easy on me, I’m sleep deprived), or maybe it’s just a little nuance meant to psych you out. Well, I’m easy to psych out. I do it to myself daily. I’m lucky if I can even take a leak without panicking.

PHANTO

Mario 2/Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic, 1987

Everyone knows about this one, but here it is anyway. This nightmarish, ephemeral motherfucker absolutely HATES people messing with his keys. Actually, any keys. To whom the key belongs is no concern. Just don’t touch it. Don’t even fucking look at it. Phanto’s had it. He will eat your little pink guts out, Mario. He will swallow Toad whole and trip balls on his viscera. Even the Princess isn’t exempt; float all you want, bitch, he’ll find you.

I actually no-joke enjoy the challenge Phanto adds to the game. There ought to be at least a couple non-boss baddies in any game that make your gut clench and your pulse quicken. Phanto delivers. He scares the shit out of me. I will actually utter a thin cry of alarm when I seem him start to move. I’m hardly conscious of it. I’m far more conscious of Phanto. He looks like he knows how scary he is, and he gets off on it. Phanto’s worse the more you consider him as a thinking creature. Let’s stop. Eugh.

LIKE-LIKE

Legend of Zelda, 1987

Like-Likes not only have one of the stupidest names I’ve ever heard for a monster in a video game, but they also serve an incredibly specific purpose that doubles their absurdity factor. Neither their name nor their diet of large shields, however, make Like-Likes any less of a concern when you run into them. A Like-Like is essentially a super low-gauge Fleshlight given motive intelligence and an appetite.

I fucking hated saying that as much as you probably hated hearing it, folks… but I’ll never lie to you, even if it means force-feeding you absolutely godless ideas like this.

I won’t even post pics of what this thing looks like in later, more graphics-rich installments of the Zelda franchise. Words like “peristalsis” come to mind. It’s like a Lovecraftian Pokemon. Not as awesome as it may sound. Not by far.

Aside from the utter grossness of it, the Like-Like’s a day-ruiner because it will take your large shield away. The large shield is an essential item later in the game that costs a decent chunk of change to buy or replace, not to mention you’ll need to trek all the way out of the dungeon you’re in and back to a shop just to get another shield. They’re not so much lethal as they are a huge pain in the ass if you’re not careful.

THE SPACE INVADERS

Battletoads, 1991

The developers of Battletoads sat down and decided they were going to make a game of legendary difficulty. They did an absolutely fantastic job of it, that’s inarguable. Battletoads beats the living shit out of me without fail, even with cheats and two players and extensive foreknowledge of what awaits me.

What they didn’t need to do: dig up a 1978 arcade game and employ its tiny pixelated aliens to humiliate and insult me in my darkest hour.

These dicks just glide up and pluck the blocks from your life bar as if it were nothing. Then they fly away with it. It’s just gone. No injury, no battle. You can catch them, but they are often a bit too graceful. Not to mention they often show up while other things are going on. Your attention is divided and your life runs through your fingers like water.

I don’t know if it’s unfair or not, but it sure is demoralizing when some little beep-boop Atari motherfuckers snatch the vitality from your veins with the same workmanlike calmness as someone installing a refrigerator in your home.

LET’S TALK ABOUT ABOBO AND THE FUCKING HAIR

Double Dragon and Double Dragon 2, 1987-88

Let’s lighten things up a bit to close this out. We don’t need to get into the details of Abobo; we all know who he is. He’s even a meme. Hell, what isn’t a meme at this point? Anyway, when we first see the brute in Double Dragon, he’s got a head smooth as a cue-ball. This had me thinking, “okay, this guy’s balding, or he’s got something going on, but he’s making this work for him. I can relate.”

Then in the second game, he’s going for the Danny Trejo look. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but Bobe, buddy… it’s a little bold. You look like a roadie for Santana got hooked on HGH.

Eh, who am I to tell you how to live, Abobo? At least you’re not gre….

Oh god damn it Abobo.

Thanks for tuning in again, folks. One more at the end of the month. Stay Retro!

Hey, look, we found it!

I put this off until I was ready to be mad about video games on our website again. I suppose now’s a good enough time; I have a minor but very painful sinus infection, it’s making it hard to get good sleep, and the HV/AC ducts in my part of the house are completely out to lunch, leaving me congested, sleep-deprived, in pain, and boiling alive in what equates to a sauna full of antique electronics and D&D books.

Fuck it, let’s slap around Double Dragon 3. While we’re at it, let’s call up its cousin, Battletoads & Double Dragon: the Ultimate Team.

The first two Double Dragon installments, aside from the fact that the arcade versions are virtually alike minus window dressing, kick righteous ass. One of the true milestones in beat-em-up history, the original DD set the pace for a blossoming game-type that became one of video gaming’s staple arrangements – walk, beat the dribbling shit out of anyone who stops you walking, keep walking ,rinse, repeat. On a very much related note, I also have a soft spot in my heart for the ‘Toads, having poured hours and tears into the NES, Genesis, and arcade offerings bearing their name. It’s hard to imagine the Double Dragon franchise shitting the bed, and no one really wants to hate Battletoads. Right?

Double Dragon shit the bed the second it pulled the comforter up towards its neck, and while I don’t hate Battletoads, I do plan on trying, just for their part in this.

Double Dragon III/3: the Rosetta Stone (the Sacred Stones)

East Technology, 1990 (every version but the NES one) Technos Japan, 1991 (The NES one)

“Omae wa mou shindeiru.”
                                                                                       I couldn’t help my self. Look at him.

There are two distinct, separate third installments of Double Dragon III. The arcade game got released first, and it’s actually not dogshit-terrible, which is hilarious to me, considering how Technos didn’t actually make it.They contracted a smaller crew called East Technology to develop the third installment of one of their flagship franchises; the end result is weird as hell and fairly difficult but only slightly inferior to the first two games overall. This version of the game got ported to all the usual suspects in the early home computer lineup, as well as the Sega Genesis. This is how I encountered it. If you’re like me and the first thing you do after turning on the power is screw around in the options menu, you’ll notice something interesting about the Genesis port: You can swap around “starting men” and be some other characters from the “Extra Guys” aspect of the game. I particularly like to be the karate dudes with the 1950s duck-ass hairdos.

Always a lot going on. A lot to take in, and a lot                 to dish out, if you can manage it.

The story begins in the USA, after a quick audiovisual/text intro that tells you Billy and Jimmy are just home from training. They meet a really gross-looking but altruistic soothsayer named Hiruko. She feels like she just found the lock for a key she’s been carrying arpund, and tells them some sketchy shit about finding three Rosetta Stones and then heading to Egypt to fight “the strongest possible foe.” She keeps the same impassive grin on her face as she drops one last nugget – no one’s tried this and lived.

“Just run of the mill stuff, you know. Nothing worth I don’t know, opening you eyes the whole way or not smiling or something.”

So I guess we could call the Lee brothers either adrenaline junkies or oblivion-seeking masochists, because they don’t even wanna settle in and maybe nap off the jetlag before marching out into the streets to resume The Perpetual Fistfight With Destiny and find those fuckin’ stones.

The big positive for me was that I could play as more than one type of dude. I could be a fat Mandarin dude or a big human wall in a tank top. The big con is (and I can’t speak for the arcade one, only the Genesis one) how merciless and goddamned unforgiving the enemy hitboxes and AI are. Right out of the game, you get dogpiled and they run a train on you.

In that regard, and also for having a slightly lazier version of the same plot, the NES version is faithful to its forebear. This one was actually made by Technos, and it comes off as a much more difficult and annoying take on the prior NES installments. I have revisited it more than once, just to see if I was wrong about it being an exercise in futility for those who don’t obsessively play hard games out of a desire to “defeat” them. I’m not bad at video games overall, and there have been times in the NES DD3 that I’ve been unable to even leave the dojo (the first screen of the game) alive.

An iconic scene from the NES version. It’s the Joke Dojo, where you can straight up                                             die seconds into the game. I know it well.

What disappoints me about both is the prohibitive difficulty presented by heaps of enemies who operate with an aggressive swarm mentality. Not to mention, the further you go in the arcade game, the goofier it gets. Ah hell, I’ll spill it: you fight a mummy at the end.

Way to phone it in, East Technology.

Battletoads & Double Dragon: the Ultimate Team

Rare, 1993

Looks promising, right?

The NES version of Battletoads is a pretty stiff tincture to swallow, right? It can be done, but it’s an undertaking, and you’d better have your shit together. You’d better have your shit so well together that it looks like Ikea shit. The Genesis version is just a smoother, sharper take on the original (yes, the console games existed first, in a rare reversal of process) and I appreciate them leaving the meat of it unchanged. The arcade game is a visual masterpiece and, at least for me, way more approachable for a casual hour or two of play.

B&DD may seem on the surface to be a noble, even sublime endeavor; it combines two very hot franchises from that snapshot of gaming history, and on paper they go together like Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings and crying softly about the abundance of human cruelty in the world (or is that only me).

Well guess what:

Yeop.

I will say the strong points out loud, in a kind tone. First off, the music is solid, right on the level with what Rare had done with other Battletoads shit. Some of it (including the first level theme) is pretty easy-listening for a beat em up. It’s also clear that developing the arcade game gave Rare’s team a taste for visual finery; there’s a ton of detail and some of it (example: character and enemy bios) is intricate. It’s just a shit-show in terms of difficulty and the curve thereof, and it’s just these things mashed together. These two martial artists and these three TMNT pastiches. I won’t even say this one’s as hard as the NES Battletoads, but the enemy cheap-shot and box-in count is always tremendously high. The introductory little space suit people have a move set just about as good as yours, plus they don’t need to constantly guess a safe distance to punch you in the head from.

Okay RetroFiends, I’m done bitching. I’m going to go irrigate my poor sinuses, drink something hot, and settle in with some pseudoephedrine and a good book. I’m not going to drop number ratings on either of these games, both because I hate them like I do and because I know many others love them. I guess I’m not as salty about either one as I suggested up at the top of the article talking shit. I’m just tired, sick, and tired of being sick.

Stay Retro, and stay out of trouble. We’ll meet up again soon.

As loyal readers may remember from previous articles (namely the Console Graveyard series and the Hudson Soft article), I have a wistful side to my nostalgia and sometimes seek to honor the entities from VG history that have come and gone. Many left only faint ripples in the fabric of our hobby, but some were veritable giants; it can seem surprising that they are gone and not simply sleeping, dreaming of wonders to show us in the future.

The original idea-farm that brought us River City Ransom and Double Dragon… you’d think they were still running strong, right? You’d think, “anyone who made games like that back then has surely found a foothold in modern gaming.” Sadly, you’d be wrong… but like Hudson and other brands that met similar fates, the worlds they crafted are still alive and vibrant.

Not unlike so many of its contemporaries in Japan at the dawn of the 1980s, Technos began out of a humble one-room apartment in 1981. Founded by N. Tomiyama and two other staff members of the already-established Data East, Technos released their first title in 1982, titled Minky Monkey, but also weathered a lawsuit from Data East claiming they had taken data from one of the company’s games in order to produce bootlegs. I was unable to find out details of how this case was settled, but it’s evident that the two companies made up and shook hands, because Data East published two Technos arcade games – the early hits Tag Team Wrestling and Karate Champ. In the beginning, Technos primarily used other companies for publishing and distribution; they simply lacked the capital to make this happen on their own until later.

They made plenty of stuff for a primarily domestic market in the 1980s. This charming booger monster is from Bogey Manor (1985), a sort of puzzle-action platformer where you smash orbs in a haunted house, apparently to un-haunt it. Here’s a YouTube video.

Technos’s next notable release came in 1986, and while it is perhaps less of a household name than Double Dragon, most of us with a passion for retro gaming will know it well. The original title is Nekketsu Koha Kunio-Kun, but it was released for arcades and the NES in the West as Renegade. Now, let’s talk about that name. Keep an eye out for the words “Nekketsu” (which translates closely enough as “hot-blooded”) and “Kunio” (a name). You’ll hear them later, because Kunio is a recurring character – but us Yanks and Europeans will know him by a Westernized name. Renegade was a recognized hit for the console market, and paved the way for the jewel in Technos’s crown…

A comparison between the domestic Japanese (top) and Western (bottom) versions of Renegade for arcades.

Double Dragon was released thirty years ago, in 1987 (’88 in North America) and became the go-to standard example of the beat ’em up format for long afterward. It spawned a trilogy as an arcade title and a long franchise dynasty as a console game. Double Dragon also helped solidify Technos’s foothold in the West due to its rampant popularity; as the eighties gave way to the nineties, there was even a live action film and a cartoon series based on the franchise.

It wasn’t long after the release of Double Dragon that Technos formed an American branch in California. American Technos Inc. served primarily as part of something the main company had lacked earlier on: a means of publishing and distribution for its games in the West. At first, the firm partnered with Tradewest for many titles, but eventually operated more independently… until it closed down along with the main entity in the late 90s.

Some rather bizarre art for the 7800 port of Double Dragon… The Lee brothers are represented as sullen, thick-skulled man-apes, seemingly indifferent to the suffering and indignation of Marian in the background. Hell, that may not even be Marian, and those may not even be Billy and Jimmy. Maybe this is just what awaits you in the Italian shock-cinema flavor of Technos’s arcade classic. I shudder to think.

Meanwhile, Kunio-kun made the leap over the Pacific as well… and adopted a Western name, Alex. Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari, which US players will know as River City Ransom and Europeans will know as Street Gangs, made a lesser impact than Double Dragon but still did very well as a console title. Other chroniclers of retro VG throw around the term “cult classic,” but I don’t see it that way; River City Ransom was fairly common in most NES libraries (despite its initial lukewarm reception in the West) and was far from unknown. It remains perhaps my favorite title from Technos, standing out in my mind for its then-novel combination of ball-busting beat em up mayhem and loose RPG elements. River City Ransom certainly aged well, building in popularity over time and seeing re-releases in astounding frequency. In fact, systems as recent as the GBA have released updated versions, and the original is available on the Wii and 3DS.

What most of us think of when we remember RCR, and rightly so.

Sequels and continuations of Kunio-kun’s exploits continued to do well back home in Japan, and Technos made modest impacts with SNES sequels to their popular franchises in the early 90s, but the unfortunate truth is that by 1996 Technos was closing its doors. Like Hudson Soft, this was not a sudden plummet or a shameful collapse; it was a quiet and somewhat dignified end for a company that had enjoyed success worth being proud of but had also seen the writing on the wall.

After its closure, Technos’s intellectual properties were acquired by a holding company called Million, who held onto these lauded names until 2015. It was this company that produced/licensed the Game Boy Advance titles bearing the names of classic Technos properties like Double Dragon and River City Ransom and the re-releases of originals for Wii’s Virtual Console. In 2015, Million sold the whole bundle to Arc System Works, who retain them to this day.

Nothing brutal, no scissor-and-stitch work. Just a gentle addition to the space beneath the brand-name. Respectful enough, I suppose.

While not everyone who has put hand to joystick will know Technos by name, gamers with a passion for the history of the art form will tell you: Technos is worth remembering, not only for the fantastic work they put out, but as an example of how stars rose and fell in that golden cutthroat era of the 1980s-1990s, when the soil was fertile and the blood was hot.

Stay tough, Kunio-kun.

From the ground-breaking inception of sampling to the world-renowned French Touch movement, it surely is no secret by now that the French are among the chief innovators and forbearers in the world of electronic music. As the home to Synthwave’s earliest and most successful artists, it sure looks like French have yet to lose their touch in their craft. Amongst the scene’s most notable yet unfairly overlooked figures in the movement’s early years, credit is owed to Nordine and Pascal, the two halves of the ass-kicking synth duo known as Double Dragon, who’ve been around and about since the start of the millennia, delivering punchy remixes, killer movie scores and deadlier tracks since day one. To celebrate the reissue of the duo’s long-awaited self-titled debut record by MusicFearSatan, we recently caught up with the group to do little recap the bands’ history.

How did you guys first meet and how did Double Dragon start out?

It must’ve been around the beginning of the year 2000. We were two DJs who were passionate about electronic music and we were each doing our own thing. We met through mutual friends and we immediately hit it off and started mixing together along with other friends. Those were great days! We would all show each other our favourite tracks and we would mix them together.

I also fondly remember our trips to Montpellier to buy records at the famous ‘Pinguins Rec’ record store. It was a different time… the Internet wasn’t widespread yet, going there was like driving to Disneyland for us! We quickly started setting up some shows in nearby bars and clubs in our region, mixing stuff here and there.

Being the music aficionados that we were, we eventually considered going doing our own thing, out of curiosity, to prove to ourselves that we were able to do it and also because the music we were after wasn’t yet out there. As fans of Giorgio Moroder, Vangelis and the like, we were pretty bummed to find so few releases using the Synths from that period. Making our own music was a way of bringing back all of these 80s’ sounds that we loved so much. This was back in the year 2000, way before the big boom that made way for “Synthwave” scene when Drive came out.

Double Dragon thus came before the whole “Synthwave” aesthetic came along. Do you identify with the term nonetheless? And have you noticed any changes in your audience since you started?

Yes, totally! We use a lot of Synths with 80’s Sounds in our music, so apparently we’re Synthwave. Our audience also changed a bit since then. One proof is that a lot of people that’ve known us since our start were still telling us a few years back “Hey guys! There’s a guy called Kavinsky who’s doing the same stuff as you!”, whereas now people more often say “You guys sound quite a bit like Kavinsky”. We still take it as a compliment though, we’re fans of his work.

The French Scene seems to occupy a central role in the whole “Retro-futuristic electronic music” movement. How do you account for France’s affinity for these references, given that most of the 80s’ pop-culture referenced comes from the US?

First off, you need to remember that a lot of the “American” musical references aren’t actually American. The iconic Blade Runner Score was done by Vangelis, who is Greek. The Soundtracks to The Neverending Story, Scarface, Flashdance and many other movies were done by Giorgio Moroder, who’s from Italy. Let’s also not forget Tangerine Dream, who made a lot of Soundtracks to American films with their bewitching synths (Sorcerer, Thief – which inspired Drive -, Street Hawk, Legend, Fright Night…). Secondly, it’s safe to say that France has always played a central role in electronic music. François de Roubaix, Jean Michel Jarre, Laurent Garnier, Daft punk, Manu le malin, Vitalic, M83, The Hacker, Justice, Kavinsky and Gesaffelstein are all there to prove it!

But to answer the question more directly, we think that a lot of current musicians were simply raised in the eighties, a time when the US already dominated worldwide entertainment (except maybe in China and Russia! [Laughs]). Like us, they were also cradled by 80s movies and 80s radio hits. We just try to recapture this childhood magic by recreating it. The same goes with TV shows and movie directors.

During an earlier interview of mine, David Grellier from College stated that to him, the 80s represent a time where our prospects of the future were idealized and much more optimistic than today. Would it be fair to apply this viewpoint to your approach to the retro-aesthetic?

The future was indeed brighter in the eighties, except in the Terminator series! [Laugh] When we’re making music we’re not consciously aiming for a retro aesthetic. We just instinctively chose the synths and rhythms that we like. There’s no definite intent to sound ‘Retro’ or ‘Retro-futuristic’. Speaking of which, our album cover doesn’t really go for this “Synthwave” aesthetic. That was actually a conscious decision on our part, we wanted to stay away from the Synthwave visual aesthetic. Perhaps we’ve overdosed a little on it…

What is your perspective on 80s’ kitsch?

It’s okay in small doses. A lil’ Godfrey Ho ninja flick or an Italian “Post nuke” flick from time to time is cool but it’s not our favourite thing. By the way, we do not label Rocky IV nor Commando as “kitsch”! [Laugh]

Music-wise, however, we’re a little more indulgent. We’ll play ‘Push it to the Limit’ and ‘When the Rain begins to fall’ on repeat anytime!

How would you describe your collaborative process with Double Dragon and how do you manage to make it an expression of both of your creative voices?

It’s hard to qualify our collaborative process, but what we can say is that we work in several ways. We sometimes start working on songs on our own and finish them together, other times we do things the other way round and work on a track together and let one of us finish it alone. We sometimes write a track together from start to finish but it’s a little rarer. If we’re writing and we feel like the track needs some electric guitar in it, we send the track (finished or unfinished) directly to our guitarist so that he can lay some riffs on it. As to our songs with vocals, we generally decide on that once the track is done. If we’re missing something or if the song is simply ‘spacious’ enough to feature vocals, we’ll send it to one of vocalists to see if the song vibes with them. We’re really lucky to have been on the same page since the start regarding the creative direction of Double Dragon

What’s next for you guys? Any new releases or Scores on the way?

We’ve got three tracks that are going to be featured on the Soundtrack to Junk Love, written by Pierre de Suzzoni. We’re also about to start working on the Soundtrack to the new film by François Gaillard (with whom we’ve worked with several times before), which will be appearing in 2018. We’re really looking forward to it! We might also shoot for a new record by the end of 2018 on Musicfearsatan… we’ll have to wait & see.

Now for some serious business: what are your favourite martial arts movies? Are you more Jackie Chan or Brucie Lee?

Nordine: Way of the Dragon and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Bruce Lee all the way!

Pascal: The Blade by Tsui Hark, Game of Death (just for the fight scenes, of course) and Tom-Yum-Goong with the incredible Tony Jaa.

Even though Jackie Chan’s filmography is incredible, I’m going to have to go with Bruce Lee as well.

Closing off: name one of your favourite albums, movies and books.

Nordine: Terminator 2, M83 – Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghost, and Gainsbourg by Gilles Verlant.

Pascal: Apocalypto, Chvrches – The Bones of What you Believe and Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind.

A huge thank you to the band and to Rémy at MusicFearSatan for setting up the interview.

Be sure to catch up with Double Dragon on their social media pages.

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/DoubleDragon.electro/

Bandcamp

https://double-dragon.bandcamp.com/