The Cost to Beat the Boss: Bad Dudes
We keep inserting coins until we clock this arcade classic
Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja makes it personal before you even begin. You insert your .50c coin and hit ‘Start’. But before you can begin button-mashing, an 80s bad-ass appears on screen. He has bad news. And he wants to know one thing.
Make no mistake, the game is addressing you, the player, not the character. While it’s phrased as a question it’s really a taunt. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President? Are you a bad enough dude to clock this game? Are you — yes, you — a bad dude?
When DataEast’s classic side-scrolling beat ‘em up was released in 1988 being bad was the best thing you could be. And at arcades and Fish n’ Chip shops around the country, Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja was the baddest game going.
I vividly remember it appearing on the scene. People were always playing it and watching it being played, entranced by its kick-ass graphics and soundtrack of pure 80s action-movie goodness. If I’d somehow acquired a coin or two I’d play it too. But back then I was not a bad enough dude to rescue President Ronnie. I rarely made it to the game’s signature second level, the infamous moving truck.
But now, 37 years later, it’s time to do what the younger me could never do. Or, more accurately, never afford to do.
It was time to clock Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja. It was time to prove that yes, I am a bad enough dude to rescue the President. Who’s bad? Me. I’m bad!
My first .50c goes in and I’m off punching and karate-kicking my way through the mean streets of 1980s New York. The Dragon Ninja clan are both relentless and numerous in their attacks. If you’re not a bad dude it’s easy to get overwhelmed by their numbers. They are well-trained but have little stamina. One hit dispatches most of these fools.
Control over your fighting moves is limited as one button is both punch and kick. The move you execute is based on enemy proximity. If you hold down the attack button you’ll charge a super punch, but it’s rarely useful and annoyingly discharges itself automatically whenever I try to use it against a boss. You can also tornado kick by pressing both buttons at the time. This is very effective.
One area of innovation was the game’s use of elevation. Most levels have ground and raised platforms and you can jump freely between the two as you make your way towards the boss. Indeed it’s a crucial tactic to escape ninja swarms and defeat bosses.
The first boss breathes fire at you so the easiest way to defeat him is to kick him in the head from range.
Level 2 is the level. The reason crowds gathered. The reason people pumped their cold hard cash into the machine. The reason BDvDN was hailed as an instant classic at the time and is still regarded as one of the baddest — in the 1980s sense of the word— games of its era.
The action takes place on the roof of a moving truck. You jump from trailer to trailer until you reach the cab of this extremely big rig. If you get knocked off you take damage, but do have a chance to jump back up.
The sense of speed is palpable as Dragon Ninjas swarm, either hanging onto the side of the moving truck, waiting for you to get closer before jumping up to attack or appearing from both sides of the screen from out of their ass
Even after all these decades, BDvDN’s signature level remains visually impressive and a thrill to play.
The main boss is a total jerk-off. Perhaps inspired by Marvel’s Wolverine, he’s a little short-ass with claws who is adept at avoiding jabs and kicks. To get the KO I just stood on the truck’s bonnet and spammed him with punches every time he leapt towards me. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done.
Getting to the truck is relatively achievable, Data East obviously wanted as many players as possible to be wowed by it. But from here the difficulty ramped up, mainly just by increasing the number of Dragon Ninjas it threw at me.
Level 3 is a bog-standard sewer level, guarded by a green ninja who clones himself.
Horrifically the next level, the jungle, introduces suicide ninjas. These Dragon Ninja extremists set themselves on fire and then charge at you screaming as they burn to death. I’m not gonna lie, the first time I saw a burning ninja running at me it was both a shocking moment and fricken’ awesome in that outrageous 1980s action flick way. There is not much funnier in gaming than karate kicking a burning ninja in the face.
The boss is a brute who looks a bit like Tekken’s cyborg Jack. His main attack is a scissor slap which drains almost all your life so I kept my distance and worked the tornado kick to KO him.
Next, the game repeated its Level 2 trick of putting me on a moving vehicle, this time a train. It’s not as memorable as the Truck level and, let’s get real, there’s no way the game can top the jungle’s burning ninjas.
The boss is a bastard as well. He’s effective at close range and at long. If I got close he smacked me in the face with a scimitar and if I kept my distance he hurled a long-ass trident at me. Like I said, he’s a bastard and he claimed many of my coins.
Next, is the caves. This is fairly standard. I battled through, dodged falling stalagmites and then faced Stickman, a boss who poked his stick at me. I kicked him in the face till he went down.
Finally, I arrived at the final level; Dragon Ninja’s HQ. Here you battle through until you reach a lift and then you re-KO all the bosses you previously KO’d.
After handing out another can of whoop-ass it was finally time. Time to find out if I really was a bad dude. It was time to face the leader of Dragon Ninja. The feared Dragon Ninja himself; Dragon Ninja.
Yes, the leader of the Dragon Ninja clan is named Dragon Ninja.
Turns out Dragon Ninja is a Dragon Coward. He stayed up on his helicopter, biffing fire bombs and refusing to come down and face me like a Dragon Man, leaving his hounds to do the dirty work. Every time I jumped onto da chopper I’d promptly get smacked in the face by ol’ Dragon Nads before I could get a hit in.
After pumping in coin after coin after coin I finally landed the KO and defeated Dragon Nads. Sadly, I can only describe this final battle as an underwhelming conclusion after almost 20 minutes of fast and furious, button-mashing gaming. I couldn’t identify any strategy, tactical spammage or cheap shot that would lead to a skilful victory over him. Instead, sadly, it all came down to a battle of attrition between the game and my wallet.
Still, I’d done it. I’d defeated Dragon Ninja and the Dragon Ninjas of Dragon Ninja. I’d rescued the President. I’d proved I was a Bad Dude. But still… I felt empty.
Not the President though. He was stoked to be rescued. He was flipping jubilant.
The Total Cost to Beat the Boss
All up I inserted 21 .50c coins in my journey to kick the ass of Dragon Ninja making the total cost $10.50 to win the game. A veritable fortune in 1988. For instance, my copy of Midnight Rogue, an entry in Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s ubiquitous Fighting Fantasy adventure-game book series cost a mere $6.99 at the time.
But that’s the past. What about the now? According to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s Inflation Adjustment Calculator, I have determined that the actual cost to beat the boss in 2025 would be a whopping $26.21.
That is a lot of moolah. With that kind of money, you could buy two 1.25l bottles of Aotearoa’s finest high-strength cider, Scrumpy or find a game on sale and buy that and one bottle of Aotearoa’s finest high-strength cider, Scrumpy.
Final Thoughts
At the start of the game, you are asked the wrong question. It shouldn’t be, ‘Are you a bad enough dude?’. It should be, ‘Are you a rich enough dude?’. Because that, unfortunately, is what it takes to beat this game. Lots and lots of money. Yes, that is the whole basis of arcade games, but even still, skill should still play its part.
The game is a fair challenge up to its brilliant and iconic second level. But from level three on the game switches gears to prioritise earnings over its players. That aspect of the game is bad, but in every other regard, Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja remains one of the baddest games around. And I say that with full ‘80s respect.