Yes, I remember the good ol’ days of arcades in the 80’s, when I could easily blow my allowance within the matter of an evening on a number of games. Among these was Data East’s Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja, a humorous and action-packed romp where two “bad” dudes have to rescue “President Ronnie” from an armada of dangerous ninjas and other foes.
The game hasn’t gotten much love on the home front, save for a decent NES port and a pretty good arcade representation in the Wii Data East Arcade Classics compilation. But that changes this week, as Flying Tiger Entertainment’s Johnny Turbo line-up will release Bad Dudes first for Nintendo Switch, and later for other consoles.
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The good news here is that this is a fine representation of the arcade game. You and a fellow “bad dude” can team up to take on various stages of enemies, cleaning house on ninjas and picking up power-ups like nunchucks and a knife (from fallen red ninjas) as you clean house and eventually get to a boss battle against a much-tougher foe, like a fire-breathing Karnov or a cybernetic punk with a penchant for drop kicks.
The game plays remarkably, and supports various control types, so if you want to play with two JoyCons in portable mode, that’s totally an option here. Your best way to go, though, is with the Pro Controller, as that really lets you feel the extent of what your “dude” is capable of.
Not Bad, Not Bad
While the game plays very nicely, it comes up short in terms of extras. The graphics options are okay, but most of them just end up leaving the monitor appearing sort of squished. If you go with default mode, however, it’s arcade perfect, right down to the CRT lines from the monitor. The sound is real crisp, too, with all sorts of goofy sound effects (“I’m bad!!”) and fun, retro-based music.
But I feel like Flying Tiger missed an opportunity to hand out extras. There’s no option to play with DIP switches like the old arcade game, nor switch between the U.S. and Japanese versions, which offer up unique endings. It also would’ve been nice to have some form of online support or, at the very least, some new color options for our “dude pants”, as it were.
But keep in mind that this is just Flying Tiger’s second release in terms of retro games, and so far, it’s hitting the ground running pretty nicely. While Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja isn’t a quintessential release for the Switch, it’s a fun throwback title that reminds you of most of the goofy fun of the arcade original. And it shows that future Data East titles, like Heavy Barrel and, fingers crossed, Midnight Resistance, are in good hands.
Besides, for ten bucks, you get a game that’s great for one or two dudes, and it’s a romp while it lasts. Now, if that’s not worth a digital burger, we’re not sure what is.
WWG’s Score: 3.5/5
Disclaimer: A review code was provided by the publisher.
