Best Arcade Games Like Double Dragon

The best arcade games like Double Dragon are Streets of Rage 2, Final Fight and TMNT: Shredder's Revenge. Below are 8, each with the reason it is here — and, at the end, what filtering to arcade costs you.

Why Arcade Is a Good Answer for Double Dragon

Filtering to arcade means you want short runs and a score, not a campaign. It is the right filter when what you liked was the one-more-go feeling.

What you get: A complete experience in twenty minutes, and a skill you keep. Arcade design is measured in the moment after you lose.

What made Double Dragon worth playing in the first place is covered on the full list. This page is the arcade part of that answer, and only the arcade part.

8 Arcade Games Like Double Dragon

  1. 1. Streets of Rage 2

    The genre's high point, and by some distance.

  2. 2. Final Fight

    Capcom's answer, and the other template everyone copies.

  3. 3. TMNT: Shredder's Revenge

    The modern four-player brawler, and a joy.

  4. 4. Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons

    The recent entry, roguelite-flavoured and surprisingly good.

  5. 5. Fight'N Rage

    Branching routes and a genuinely deep combat system.

  6. 6. Golden Axe

    Fantasy brawling with a magic meter and creatures to ride.

  7. 7. Battletoads

    Same console, same era, considerably crueller.

  8. 8. Guardian Heroes

    Saturn brawling with lanes, endings and a huge cast.

What This Filter Leaves Out

Story and progression. Arcade games repeat on purpose, and if you want to be pulled somewhere they will not do it.

Specifically, these are strong answers for Double Dragon that are not arcade games, so they are not on this page:

The full list is on games like Double Dragon — 12 picks, no genre filter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best arcade game like Double Dragon?

Streets of Rage 2. The genre's high point, and by some distance.

Are all of these on the Nintendo Entertainment System?

No. Double Dragon released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, but a recommendation is only useful if you can play it, so the picks above span platforms and eras. What they share is the genre and the reason.

Why are arcade games so hard?

They were designed to end. A machine that let you play for an hour on one coin did not earn its floor space, so difficulty was the business model.

Do arcade games still get made?

Constantly, mostly by small teams. Several of the best beat-em-ups and run-and-guns of the last decade are new games built on forty-year-old design rules.

How are these chosen?

By hand. Each pick was written for the full Double Dragon list first, on what the game actually does, and this page is the part of that list that is arcade — never a genre tag lookup, which is how "best racing games like Super Mario 64" used to be a page on this site.

Other Angles on Double Dragon

More Arcade Games Recommendations

Or read the arcade guide for where to start in the genre generally.