5 Glitches for Double Dragon – NES

Double Dragon for the NES was one of the first games I played as a child. Back then, I was never able to somehow get past Mission 3. The two Abobo before the cavern area always used to destroy me. Even today, I do play a quick session of Double Dragon from time to time, but also found out about some glitches in the game. Here fives glitches you can try out! Doing some searching on the net, I’ve found out they were already known to a certain extent, but some are still obscure.

1. Climbing glitch , a well known Double Dragon quirk

Get to the end of the first section of Mission 1 and defeat the Linda there to make it easier. Then, get close to the two vertical bars on the right-hand wall. Pressing up will cause Billy or Jimmy to climb up and eventually go off screen. Pressing left or right will bring you back on the playfield. However, pressing down and cause you to fall out of bounds and lose a life as a result. This glitch has been referenced in Abobo’s Big Adventure, A freeware parody flash game released on January 12 2020.

2. Defeating Chin Taimei without actually fighting him in Mission 2

At the end of Mission 2, you will meet Chin Taimei as the boss of the level. However , if immediately climb down the ladder as soon as he appears, he will stay in place and wait for you to come back at the top. Going down further will eventually cause the boss object to be destroyed and you will hear the level clear jingle. You will then proceed to Mission 3 as normal. This glitch is known in the TASing community and can be used to proceed faster.

3. Get stuck in a loop in the second part of Mission 3

At the second part of Mission 3, jump on the first platform. Let yourself fall from it right at the ledge of the floor. If done right, you will be stuck, nudging against the floor because the game tries to push you down. The only thing to do is either wait for the timer to runs out (which will take a while) or resets the game. Thankfully, this glitch is hard to do by accident, so you will probably not encounter it often.

4. Knock Green Abobo through the wall

At the end of the cave section of Mission 3, you will fight 2 Green Abobo, one at a time. You need to lure him on the left side of the screen (so that you are at his right) and push him toward the ledge. Then, if you knock him out at a precise position, this will cause him to go through the wall and fall down out of bounds. You can do the same with the second Green Abobo. Theoretically, it is possible to do that against any enemy. However, this is the only specific section of the game in 2D plane where there is a wall on the left. This glitch is also known in the TASing community because it allows you to save alot of time.

5. Platform glitch at the second section of Mission 4

Three variants of the glitch involve the moving platform on the second part of Mission 4. When you get to the area that you will fight 2 Willy, throw one on the elevating platform. He will freeze on a place on it. If you perform a jump kick, he will try to react, but this will cause him to fall down the screen.

In the second variant, do the same thing but instead of jumping on the platform with the Willy, jump straight down. If he is still on the ground, but is off-screen because of the platform going up, the game will reset. Personally, for the third variant, you must do the same thing but then immediately jump on the platform as well. You then need to sit on him and wait a few seconds, causing you to be stuck in the air. If you defeat him while sitting on him, you will be immediately teleported to the where the platform is currently at.

I’ve found out about the third variant by accident during my childhood but not the other two.