Genesis8 - Double Dragon on Amstrad CPC, did you play the Mastertronic or the Melbourne version ?

[NewsBot]

Double Dragon on Amstrad CPC, did you play the Mastertronic or the Melbourne version ?
11 June 2017, 10:34 pm

Double Dragon on Amstrad CPC, did you play the Mastertronic or the Melbourne version ?

Source: Genesis8 Amstrad Page

[Shaun M. Neary]

Ah yes! This old chestnut that keeps popping up.

From what I remember, the posters surfaced for this game as early as 88 in C+VG, and I think every other format had seen it first, but AA never got their hands on a review copy. First time I saw it surface was part of the 100% dynamite compilation, which was released on tape only (not to be confused with the French disk compilation, Dynamite, which was like a bastardised version of The In Crowd), and it was the Melbourne House version.

I think the Mastertronic version appeared finally around the same time (late 89) as Richard Aplin, who was taking on a ridiculous schedule at the time, was working on DD1 and Shinobi at the same time, and was able to finish DD1 once Shinobi was out of the way. Fairly certain that Aplin's DD games were 128k and disk only as well, leaving a lot of 464 owners not even knowing it existed and the Melbourne House version was all they knew. Certainly was all I knew at the time of release, I wasn't aware of Aplin's DD until I got a 6128 in late 95! 

[VincentGR]

Maybe it was xmas 89 and I was between buying of DDragon or Shinobi.
I chose DDragon and was the good disk version.
What a fantastic game, I still have it and it is in my top 5 list of all time (and all cpc games...)
I did manage to destroy the box though and stick it on my school's notepad 


Then I saw Shinobi but this is another story that haunted me for years.

[dlfrsilver]

Ah yes! This old chestnut that keeps popping up.

From what I remember, the posters surfaced for this game as early as 88 in C+VG, and I think every other format had seen it first, but AA never got their hands on a review copy. First time I saw it surface was part of the 100% dynamite compilation, which was released on tape only (not to be confused with the French disk compilation, Dynamite, which was like a bastardised version of The In Crowd), and it was the Melbourne House version.

I think the Mastertronic version appeared finally around the same time (late 89) as Richard Aplin, who was taking on a ridiculous schedule at the time, was working on DD1 and Shinobi at the same time, and was able to finish DD1 once Shinobi was out of the way. Fairly certain that Aplin's DD games were 128k and disk only as well, leaving a lot of 464 owners not even knowing it existed and the Melbourne House version was all they knew. Certainly was all I knew at the time of release, I wasn't aware of Aplin's DD until I got a 6128 in late 95! 

In fact, Richard asked to Virgin bosses the authorization to make a 128k version (the 64k version was just hideous, a speccy crap port).


They said yes. So Rich then picked the 16 bits assets, converted them for the CPC and then coded DD1. This version is of course great and prefered


Same happens with Double Dragon II. The same 64k version team did a second crap version, and Richard did the DD2 128k version directly ported from the Amiga.


This version is so so good to play huge sprites, lots of fun

[Shaun M. Neary]

In fact, Richard asked to Virgin bosses the authorization to make a 128k version (the 64k version was just hideous, a speccy crap port).


They said yes. So Rich then picked the 16 bits assets, converted them for the CPC and then coded DD1. This version is of course great and prefered


Same happens with Double Dragon II. The same 64k version team did a second crap version, and Richard did the DD2 128k version directly ported from the Amiga.


This version is so so good to play huge sprites, lots of fun

I don't think there's been one single bad game where Richard Aplin was involved in. He just knew how to milk the best out of the CPC, and he did it every time. He was one of the very few who actually put the effort into understanding the machine whereas everyone else lost their patience with it because it wasn't "as easy to work with" as the C64 or Speccy.

[pmeier]

There were two versions of DD? That's strange. Some games never got a CPC conversion, but this one twice??

And 128KB only? Why didn't they write it on the box? Even more strange...

[VincentGR]

There were two versions of DD? That's strange. Some games never got a CPC conversion, but this one twice??

And 128KB only? Why didn't they write it on the box? Even more strange...

Yeap, like paperboy.

[Shaun M. Neary]

There were two versions of DD? That's strange. Some games never got a CPC conversion, but this one twice??

And 128KB only? Why didn't they write it on the box? Even more strange...

We've another thread on multiple conversions somewhere.

DD technically did write it. It either had Amstrad Disk or Amstrad Cassette on the box. The cassette version was the Drosoft/Melbourne House one, the disk version was the Mastertronic one.

However if you'd bought the disk version with a 464...