Believe it or not, I bought an Atari ST just for that game. ~30 years later I own 2 PCBs of the game for 1/5th of the price the ST cost me. There is something about Data East that I can't explain; I miss them very much. They made unique games...
soso sisi Data East were fantastic. It's a shame so many great companies like them have vanished and yet companies that make phone crap are raking it in.
I loved the CPC version back in the day - I still enjoy a go on it - I agree that if it was not connected to the Bad Dudes arcade, it would have been a great title in it's own right.
I thought the fighting on top of moving trucks things was pretty neat back when I first saw it way back when. Otherwise, this game's claim to fame was that intro becoming one of the earlier internet memes.
Once again, the same case as with Athena happens! I always had only ever played the NES version of the game, thought it was bad but had potential, and never had checked the other versions so see if they were better. Except for the Arcade original, once again, apparently not! Though I really do love the "I'm bad" voice sample and all the variations that it has on each version. Arcades "I'm bad!!" is rad, NES' "I'MMBAD-" is charming in it's compressions, and Amstrad's "III'm bad!" was really unexpected and funny!
Unfortunately most Arcade ports to Western home computers were awful. Consoles were deffinety the way to go for Arcade ports back then. Well, unless you could afford a Japanese computer such as the FM Towns or X68000.
I used to play this a lot on the arcade, I was caught up with the whole "I'M BAD!" vibe going on. I didn't mind the C64 version, but it was never as good as the arcade and I could never understand why it didn't have a 2 player mode. Still, it looks better than some of the other versions, so there's that. Thank you for showing us the Amstrad original exclusive, Bruce Lee Vs Dragoninja 😉
On the Amiga you can jump diagonaly over the caltrops, it's the same way to jump on the truck in the 2nd level: you have to first jump and THEN push right You can also do the flying kick: diagonal up/back + press button :)
Another Saturday Morning another Battle Of The Ports Video, thanks!!!. Surprised there was never a MegaDrive port of this game!. Im always incredibly amazed at how smooth the scrolling is on the C64 games!!
I always wanted a Super Nintendo port of this game. It was one of my all-time favorites as a kid. I knew it would be close to the arcade, but they would somehow make it harder. And the graphics would only be slightly less than the arcade. Like SFII.
Yeah, this probably would have looked okay on the SNES but 100% guaranteed that it would run super slow like all of Irem's SNES games. They really were poor at SNES Programming.
The Amiga ports did indeed have more than their fair share of issues, but in the NTSC version, which I had in America, you could at least spin kick over obstacles, which made the game playable. The PAL version didn’t have this. I remember making it at least as far as the boss rush at the end when I was a kid. Playing it today, however, is a frustrating experience with the one-button controls. The joysticks I had growing up included two buttons, so I was always confused why Amiga games never used the second one.
The reason why most Amiga games never used two buttons was simply due to lazy and short sighted developers. They would say that most people had one button joysticks so why bother implementing two button controls. Not once did they think that is two buttons were the norm, people would upgrade their sticks for better playability.
Well of course its possible to jump diagonally but you need good timing.It's of course far from perfect but after 5 minutes its fine. Just go up and just after go right or left depending where you want to jump. and to catch the bonus go down with diagonal. Not the ideal way I recognize but when you get used to its a blast !
Funny thing, the opening music (Stage 2 BGM) reminds me a lot to the "Opposing Bloodlines" music of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, though Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja is actually an older game of course.
I think that the Amiga port was the best for that time, it looks good and playability isn't that bad if you are skilled with joystick. I had a lot of fun with Amiga port like with arcade.
Just a comment about the amiga version, I played it loads and I could pick up weapons without the space bar, I think it was down angle. Same with the diagonal jump, I remember it being up then right once in the air. Finally, my version had background music also, perhaps for 1mb amiga's only?
Scopie33 I don't know but I tried everything to do the diagonal jumps. they just didn't work. Also, the space bar was the only way to pick up items. Which version did you have? The once called Dragon Ninja like I played or the version called Bad Dudes? Maybe they changed the controls in the other version?
The Atari ST side of things are rather odd... 1 Mb ST owners had the lady Ninja enemies. The ST version of level 2 longer than the arcade and Amiga versions... in the ST version, the truck a 6 wagons long compared to 2 in Amiga and Arcade, just bizzare
I loved this game as a kid, even got to play it in the US when on holiday there (Virginia Water World I think it was, I do remember my brother and I standing out quite a bit in our fine British "Y-Fronts" style swimming gear as opposed to everyone else in Bermuda shorts... Lol!). Great game (and pants conversions, as it were), though I didn't know you could do a fire punch! Where did that come from?!?
Sounds like the ZX Spectrum version had a very troubled development, Bill Harbison thinks either the game was running late or Ocean brought the deadline forward. He feels there should of been a bigger playing area, more animation frames, he didn't like sharing art duties..
I remember that my local Round Table Pizza used to have this game. I played it many times while waiting for my pizzatatoes to cook. A quarter muncher if there ever was one. I remember being able to beat it, but it taking several dollars to do so. On the other hand, I could beat Heavy Barrel on one credit. I remember renting the NES version, but it didn't hold my attention as much as the arcade. It really is a shame that this wasn't ported to the PC Engine/MD/SFC, as I feel that they all had the ability to pull it off well with the right programmers.
Someinterweb guy Well said, on the PC Engine or Mega Drive this could have been pretty good. Not sure about the SFC though. I think the amount of enemy characters on screen at once would have needed to be cut back a lot for that system.
+Allie-RX hahaha, they sure do. The MSX ports could be a mixed bag. Many times they were pure ZX Spectrum ports. Other times something amazing then we have the rubbish in this video.
+Retro Core Hi.Thanks a lot for your videos:) I enjoy a lot but I prefer only text version because the voice distract me.Anyway would be nice to correct the error about the amiga version.We can jump diagonaly(up and just after going left or right) and we can pick up object(down+diagonal left or right) and the kick jump too and with one meg of ram more enemies and sounds.
Truth to be told, it took me like 10 game overs at level 3 to figure out how to jump diagonally, and many other people complained about that. If it wasn't by that, pretty good port IMO.
I played on the amiga version so many years ago and i finished the game many times. It' possible jumping pressing fire button and up at the same time, also i diagonals, it wasn't so difficult to do it.
Apple ][ emulation can be a bit of a mess when it comes to controller lag. I remember that game being not too bad back in the day on my //e enh. This may be one case where the emulation makes it worse.
@@RetroCore Next time I am at my storage unit I can dig out my old Apple//e and give this a try. I have been meaning to for a while for a few reasons anyhow.
Can't believe that none of these versions plays decently well. I played a lot the C64 which was not that bad but after so many years doesn't look so good.
Megadrive and PC Engine would have probably be good at doing this game though not a great game in my opinion, oh, and thanks for some retro goodness, prefer your videos to " Lets Compare" cause of the talkie bits and your opinions and descriptions. Well Done.
Craig Wilson Thank you, Craig. I do watch the Let's Compare videos too from time to time. That series seems to focus more on computer game ports than arcade game ports at times. You are right about this game though, it wasn't all that good but still managed to become a cult fav' :)
Yeah, i remember the arcade machine being pretty busy at the time, but not my cup of tea. God knows what i was playing back then, probably had my crusty old spectrum.
Ah, another game that is more popular because of the memes and not because of the gameplay or anything like that. I played only in the NES version and it didn't really impressed me.
Believe it or not, I bought an Atari ST just for that game. ~30 years later I own 2 PCBs of the game for 1/5th of the price the ST cost me.
There is something about Data East that I can't explain; I miss them very much. They made unique games...
soso sisi Data East were fantastic. It's a shame so many great companies like them have vanished and yet companies that make phone crap are raking it in.
It's pretty neat seeing all the different versions of this game , nice video
I loved the CPC version back in the day - I still enjoy a go on it - I agree that if it was not connected to the Bad Dudes arcade, it would have been a great title in it's own right.
Is the first boss supposed to be Karnov?
It is Karnov, the man the legend. Karnov has a lot of cameos in Dataeast games. You can even hear his theme music.
That's Date-East for ya!!
I thought the fighting on top of moving trucks things was pretty neat back when I first saw it way back when. Otherwise, this game's claim to fame was that intro becoming one of the earlier internet memes.
Once again, the same case as with Athena happens! I always had only ever played the NES version of the game, thought it was bad but had potential, and never had checked the other versions so see if they were better. Except for the Arcade original, once again, apparently not!
Though I really do love the "I'm bad" voice sample and all the variations that it has on each version. Arcades "I'm bad!!" is rad, NES' "I'MMBAD-" is charming in it's compressions, and Amstrad's "III'm bad!" was really unexpected and funny!
Unfortunately most Arcade ports to Western home computers were awful. Consoles were deffinety the way to go for Arcade ports back then. Well, unless you could afford a Japanese computer such as the FM Towns or X68000.
I used to play this a lot on the arcade, I was caught up with the whole "I'M BAD!" vibe going on.
I didn't mind the C64 version, but it was never as good as the arcade and I could never understand why it didn't have a 2 player mode. Still, it looks better than some of the other versions, so there's that.
Thank you for showing us the Amstrad original exclusive, Bruce Lee Vs Dragoninja 😉
On the Amiga you can jump diagonaly over the caltrops, it's the same way to jump on the truck in the 2nd level: you have to first jump and THEN push right
You can also do the flying kick: diagonal up/back + press button :)
I never could get the hang of one button joystick moves :(
Another Saturday Morning another Battle Of The Ports Video, thanks!!!. Surprised there was never a MegaDrive port of this game!. Im always incredibly amazed at how smooth the scrolling is on the C64 games!!
BlockABoots I guess Sega thought the game just wasn't good enough for a Mega dRive port. At least the MD got the follow up.
I always wanted a Super Nintendo port of this game. It was one of my all-time favorites as a kid. I knew it would be close to the arcade, but they would somehow make it harder. And the graphics would only be slightly less than the arcade. Like SFII.
Yeah, this probably would have looked okay on the SNES but 100% guaranteed that it would run super slow like all of Irem's SNES games. They really were poor at SNES Programming.
The Amiga ports did indeed have more than their fair share of issues, but in the NTSC version, which I had in America, you could at least spin kick over obstacles, which made the game playable. The PAL version didn’t have this. I remember making it at least as far as the boss rush at the end when I was a kid. Playing it today, however, is a frustrating experience with the one-button controls. The joysticks I had growing up included two buttons, so I was always confused why Amiga games never used the second one.
The reason why most Amiga games never used two buttons was simply due to lazy and short sighted developers. They would say that most people had one button joysticks so why bother implementing two button controls.
Not once did they think that is two buttons were the norm, people would upgrade their sticks for better playability.
That’s crazy. But based on their games, I believe it!
Ahh, another common sight at local pizza places/bowling alleys/arcades. The attract sound effects are permanently burned in my head.
RoryDropkick This was one of the more popular games to find in those sort of places from what I remember.
*ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH PORT?*
_Mostly all of them:_ Well, yes...
4 nice versions out of 9 do not mean mostly all of them.
😂
Yo loaded Dragon Ninja on 512k Amiga, you should loaded on 1MB Amiga, then you can have background music and more enemies.
I still have a lot of fun with the NES version, can even beat it too. Music is great.
Well of course its possible to jump diagonally but you need good timing.It's of course far from perfect but after 5 minutes its fine. Just go up and just after go right or left depending where you want to jump. and to catch the bonus go down with diagonal. Not the ideal way I recognize but when you get used to its a blast !
This makes me wonder how a Master System version would look.
Hmm, I would imagine quite similar to how Double Dragon looks on that system.
Funny thing, the opening music (Stage 2 BGM) reminds me a lot to the "Opposing Bloodlines" music of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, though Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja is actually an older game of course.
I've been laughed a lot with the ports ...thanks for the video ...
02:09 Peugeot 505 spotted.
She's Bad ! Now let's have a burger, dudes.
Ca ressemble plus à une BWV Alpina ou une BWV de la fin des années 80, mais chacun ses références..
I think that the Amiga port was the best for that time, it looks good and playability isn't that bad if you are skilled with joystick. I had a lot of fun with Amiga port like with arcade.
Just a comment about the amiga version, I played it loads and I could pick up weapons without the space bar, I think it was down angle. Same with the diagonal jump, I remember it being up then right once in the air. Finally, my version had background music also, perhaps for 1mb amiga's only?
Scopie33 I don't know but I tried everything to do the diagonal jumps. they just didn't work. Also, the space bar was the only way to pick up items. Which version did you have? The once called Dragon Ninja like I played or the version called Bad Dudes? Maybe they changed the controls in the other version?
Scopie33 my same experience
Retro Core certainly sounds different but I think mine was the Dragon Ninja version, I must give in another play and see.
The Atari ST side of things are rather odd...
1 Mb ST owners had the lady Ninja enemies.
The ST version of level 2 longer than the arcade and Amiga versions... in the ST version, the truck a 6 wagons long compared to 2 in Amiga and Arcade, just bizzare
Very bizzare. It's as if they wanted to give ST owners more bang for their buck, as they say.
Yakumo is assembler games website down temporarily or is gone forever ? Thanks .
***** I think it's just down. Recently we've been having issues with spam bots so I think ASSEmbler is now fixing the issue.
Cheers man .
I haven't been on the site for a while and got worried .lol
Fingers crossed it should be back up today. It went down yesterday.
Great !! . Thank you. Happy that that site is back .It's like your old slippers lol you always come back to it ...:)
Isnt first boss the Karnov guy?
Siegfried39ify Yep. Data East's own mascot in a way.
>Quicksilver
They did most of Data East's Apple ][ ports, which may explain why the DOS port feels similar to the Apple ][ version.
Makes sense.
I loved this game as a kid, even got to play it in the US when on holiday there (Virginia Water World I think it was, I do remember my brother and I standing out quite a bit in our fine British "Y-Fronts" style swimming gear as opposed to everyone else in Bermuda shorts... Lol!). Great game (and pants conversions, as it were), though I didn't know you could do a fire punch! Where did that come from?!?
andy7666 Oh man, yeah I remember Y front style swimming wear from the 80's :) The Fire Punch can be done by just holding down the punch button :)
I put an insane amount of hours in the Amstrad version
Sounds like the ZX Spectrum version had a very troubled development, Bill Harbison thinks either the game was running late or Ocean brought the deadline forward.
He feels there should of been a bigger playing area, more animation frames, he didn't like sharing art duties..
I remember that my local Round Table Pizza used to have this game. I played it many times while waiting for my pizzatatoes to cook. A quarter muncher if there ever was one. I remember being able to beat it, but it taking several dollars to do so. On the other hand, I could beat Heavy Barrel on one credit. I remember renting the NES version, but it didn't hold my attention as much as the arcade.
It really is a shame that this wasn't ported to the PC Engine/MD/SFC, as I feel that they all had the ability to pull it off well with the right programmers.
Someinterweb guy Well said, on the PC Engine or Mega Drive this could have been pretty
good. Not sure about the SFC though. I think the amount of enemy
characters on screen at once would have needed to be cut back a lot for
that system.
Good thing you can play the Arcade version in Data East Arcade Classics for the Wii.
+Allie-RX Oh wow! Those MSX and ZX Spectrum ports make Game Boy look like PS4.
+Allie-RX hahaha, they sure do. The MSX ports could be a mixed bag. Many times they were pure ZX Spectrum ports. Other times something amazing then we have the rubbish in this video.
+Retro Core
Hi.Thanks a lot for your videos:) I enjoy a lot but I prefer only text version because the voice distract me.Anyway would be nice to correct the error about the amiga version.We can jump diagonaly(up and just after going left or right) and we can pick up object(down+diagonal left or right) and the kick jump too and with one meg of ram more enemies and sounds.
Alex Heissler
Thanks for the information, Alex. I'm more of a console guy so there's quite a bit I don't know about the home computer ports at times.
Truth to be told, it took me like 10 game overs at level 3 to figure out how to jump diagonally, and many other people complained about that.
If it wasn't by that, pretty good port IMO.
Also , i'm the only one who always hears "Ugh...BAAARF!!!" instead of "I'M BAD" in the Dendy/ NES version?
This bring back old memories
And yes i'm getting old😂
Aren't we all 😉
@@RetroCore 😂
Me too.
This game will appear on Nintendo Switch
I played on the amiga version so many years ago and i finished the game many times. It' possible jumping pressing fire button and up at the same time, also i diagonals, it wasn't so difficult to do it.
I guess if I was used to computer game controls rather than Arcade / console controls it would have been easier to do.
That Bruce Lee picture took me off guard.
I'm sure there's more out there too.
ARE YOU BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO RESCUE THE PRESIDENT?
You know you're a bad dude if you can drop legions of ninja with a pair of old-school Converses on. Those things have no support whatsoever.
Apple ][ emulation can be a bit of a mess when it comes to controller lag. I remember that game being not too bad back in the day on my //e enh. This may be one case where the emulation makes it worse.
That is quite possible. Sadly it's next to impossible to check vs real hardware for me. I don't even think the Apple 2 got a Japanese release.
@@RetroCore Next time I am at my storage unit I can dig out my old Apple//e and give this a try. I have been meaning to for a while for a few reasons anyhow.
Imagine a remake of the Arcade
Now this was my shit here. I played the arcade version and nes version.
Still play this one often.
My question is this... in seeing the fat dude blowing fire, my only thought is "Is that... Karnov?!"
Deffinety some connection I think.
Can't believe that none of these versions plays decently well. I played a lot the C64 which was not that bad but after so many years doesn't look so good.
Lord Alfajor the C64 version is probably the best version or close to being best.
@@RetroCore the C64 version is like the spectrum version : junk ! The best 8 bits port is the CPC version of Dragon Ninja !
Hell yeah I'm Bad
como sempre um ótimo video!!! parabéns!!
I think a version of the MegaDrive had been the best arcade conversion.
davidvfx The Mega Drive did get the unofficial follow up which was Two Crude Dudes or Crude Busters in Japan.
I thought the Amiga port was great - pretty much arcade perfect if you had 1MB RAM and much better than the NES port. I'd like to see a 3D remake.
Hmm, a 3D remake could be interesting but I doubt it would turn out good. Some poor developer would most likely get the job.
Bows to the Might Amstrad Lee game, best game but not quite Dragon Ninja
And the worst is apple II in poor graphics and playability
Man, that's a lot of BAD ports! At least the Mega Drive/Genesis was graced with an excellent port of Crude Busters.
***** Yep, nothing but rubbish when it comes to Dragon Ninja ports :(
Megadrive and PC Engine would have probably be good at doing this game though not a great game in my opinion, oh, and thanks for some retro goodness, prefer your videos to " Lets Compare" cause of the talkie bits and your opinions and descriptions. Well Done.
Craig Wilson Thank you, Craig. I do watch the Let's Compare videos too from time to time. That series seems to focus more on computer game ports than arcade game ports at times. You are right about this game though, it wasn't all that good but still managed to become a cult fav' :)
Yeah, i remember the arcade machine being pretty busy at the time, but not my cup of tea. God knows what i was playing back then, probably had my crusty old spectrum.
Ah Deta Isuto ! :D
are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?
Este jogo merece uma atualização da verçao da versao, é um jogo muito legal e divertido
Don't you mess with me because I'm bad!!!!!
Bad dudes? Propapbly bad port :-)
Terrible on the amiga.
Cpc was ok as I finished it lately both amiga and cpc version.
Nice vid as always.
***** Can I ask, could you jump diagonally on the Amiga version?
Retro Core
Yes you can. up+left or right has a silly punch.
You have to press up and left or right (not diagonally) to jump.
Like this | -
*****
Oh man, that's stupid. No wonder I couldn't do it. Why did they think that would be a good control method?
Retro Core
Cause it is a lazy port :-D like e-swat, shinobi etc.
The only good thing is that music is good in all of them.
Yep. At least there's a good point.
I’M BAD!!!
Missing Zeebo version!
bummer. Didn't know it was on the ZeeBo.
@@RetroCore yes!released in July 27,2010.
Yeah duh it's obvious
ARCADE 100%
Que Recuerdos
Ah, another game that is more popular because of the memes and not because of the gameplay or anything like that.
I played only in the NES version and it didn't really impressed me.
Back in the day the Arcade game was okay but only okay at best.
I’M BAD!!!