Coin-Op Collection Presents: Double Dragon 3 The Rosetta Stone (RC1)

The next entry in the Technōs16 platform has arrived! Double Dragon 3 The Rosetta Stone is the last entry to the side-scrolling arcade beat 'em up trilogy created by Technōs Japan. It's my favorite entry to the series and Pramod is also a fan of the game...

Double Dragon 3 is the only title in the series not developed by Technōs, this was contracted to East Technology, a new comer to the coin-op market and has been scrutinized for it's difficulty, hit detection, departure from previous entries, and being the first game ever to incorporate micro-transactions in game. While all this is true, it didn't make it any less popular upon release in the summer of 1990!

East Technology brought novel gameplay mechanics in Double Dragon 3 and introduced new characters to the franchise including an additional Lee brother. Sonny's design is a palette swap of the Lee brothers, skinned in yellow. He is selectable on the player 3 side...


In 2023, the release of Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of The Dragons saw Sonny retconned as a distant cousin of the Lee brothers. 

The two regional revisions for Double Dragon 3 in the US and Japan vastly differ from one another. The North American version presented a significantly steeper difficulty curve, alienating players accustomed to the series. Additionally, it incorporated the first micro-transaction system allowing players to spend currency for in-game advantages from shops.

In contrast, the Japanese release offered a more traditional Double Dragon experience, with balanced mechanics and a focus on player skill, making it a more familiar entry point for fans. While it wasn't how I was introduced to the game, I find the Japanese version to be superior.

There are several additional playable characters besides the Lee brothers (pictured below). The Urquidez brothers (Roney and Sunny), the Chin brothers (Seime and Taime), and the Oyama brothers (Masao and Kunio).

To play as an additional character in the US variant, you must purchase them by selecting "extra guys" at the beginning of Mission 1 - USA (Urquidez), Mission 2 - China (Chin), and Mission 3 - Japan (Oyama) or in the middle of the final Mission (Egypt). In the Japanese variant, characters are selectable from a character select screen and when continuing.


 
The default dip setting for the Analogue Pocket is 2P, if you have an Analogue Dock, you can use an OTG USB hub to add additional USB port to support the 3P setting. Instead of covering development, I thought it'd be fun to give a little history on the game. You can find out more from Wikipedia or The Cutting Room Floor.

We'll see this core wrap up with a release of The Combatribes and compare it to Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone from a technical standpoint in the next Technōs release. I'm targeting The Combatribes to enter beta in late June to mid-July.

We'll see a couple of polls regarding updates to cores and a post about our upcoming Midway panel later this week. I strongly encourage all who support Coin-Op Collection to participate in these patron polls.

Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday weekend, I'll publish an updated WWF WrestleFest core to the OpenFPGA Distribution page tomorrow morning when I announce Double Dragon 3's beta release for Patron's only to the public.