Bad Dudes is remembered for one line. A Secret Service agent tells the two heroes that “President Ronnie has been kidnapped by the ninjas”, then asks: “Are you a bad enough dude to rescue Ronnie?” When Wireframe looked back at Data East in 2019, it called the game “a legend more for its out-of-game antics than the in-game action”, famous for its name and its “all-too-subtle use of ‘President Ronnie’”. The game behind the line was a solid two-player brawler of 1988. Its heroes fought across trucks, sewers and a speeding train, and the reward at the end was a burger with the President.
Fast facts
- Developer and publisher: Data East, arcade, 1988.
- Titles: DragonNinja in Japan; Bad Dudes Vs. DragonNinja in North America; Dragon Ninja on British home computers.
- Players: two at once.
- Stages: seven, from the city streets to an underground factory.
- First boss: Karnov, the fire-breather from Data East’s own Karnov.
- Home versions: Ocean’s Imagine label (Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST); Data East (IBM PC, Apple II, Commodore 64 in America; NES, 1989).
In the arcade
DragonNinja appeared in Japan in the spring of 1988 and reached British arcades that summer. Computer and Video Games’ arcade reporter Clare Edgeley recommended it as much for the gameplay as for the graphics, and warned that “it takes two players and a hell of a lot of 10 pences to defeat each deadly foe”. The Games Machine thought the second player gave a familiar formula “much needed boost” by allowing for teamwork.
The two heroes, named Blade and Striker, punch, kick and jump, and can hold back a punch to release a charged blow. Most stages have two walkways, an upper and a lower, and the fighters jump between them. Defeated ninjas drop knives, chains and other weapons, and energy and time pick-ups. The route runs from the city streets to the tops of speeding lorries, then through a sewer, a forest, a freight train and a cave to the factory where the President is held.
Each stage ends with a boss. The first is Karnov, the bald, fire-breathing strongman of Data East’s arcade game Karnov, whom Your Sinclair called “a wobbly bellied geezer”. The last stage sends the earlier bosses back in a line, before a final fight with the DragonNinja on a helicopter in flight. Retro Gamer described that ending: the President steps out of the landed helicopter, and instead of a kiss for the rescuers there is a promise of burgers.
Home versions
In Britain, Ocean converted the game under its Imagine label as Dragon Ninja, and the versions came out around the turn of 1989. Zzap!64 gave the Commodore 64 version 87 per cent. Its programmers, among them Steve Wahid, with music by Jonathan Dunn, had captured whatever it was that made the arcade game appealing, one reviewer wrote, and the scrolling truck section stood out; the only real gripes were the missing two-player mode and the lack of sound during play. Your Sinclair‘s Peter Shaw walked through all seven Spectrum levels and thought it would be one of the best ninja games of the season, though the Spectrum lost touches such as the ninjas’ changing faces.
CRASH disagreed, giving the Spectrum version 46 per cent. The small sprites, about half the size of Double Dragon’s, made room for the two floors, and the 128K machine loaded every level at once. But the two-player option had gone, and so had the difficulty: crouching and punching beat practically any enemy, and one reviewer reached the seventh level on his second go. Mark Jones, an Ocean artist, later recalled that he “helped out with Dragon Ninja, which didn’t look very good and got bad reviews”. Commodore 64 owners took to it: in May 1989 Zzap!’s readers voted it into the top ten of their Commodore 64 chart.
In America, Data East published the computer versions itself as Bad Dudes. Computer Gaming World reviewed it in May 1989 with Double Dragon and Renegade, and found the IBM PC version the best of the three for graphics and action, while the Apple II version “suffered greatly” from the machine’s limited graphics. The NES version followed in 1989, published by Data East, and was in Nintendo Power‘s readers’ top 30 by that summer; the console version dropped the President’s first name.
Sources
- Computer and Video Games issue 81, July 1988, Arcade Action: Clare Edgeley on Dragon Ninja.
- The Games Machine issue 10, September 1988: Dragon Ninja arcade review (Data East; the second player and teamwork).
- Your Sinclair issue 37, January 1989, pp. 14–15: Peter Shaw’s review of the Spectrum Dragon Ninja (seven levels; Karnov; the trucks, the train and the caverns; Iron, Akaikage and the final warehouse).
- CRASH issue 62, March 1989, p. 16: Spectrum Dragon Ninja (Imagine; small sprites and two floors; one load on 128K; no two-player mode; overall 46 per cent).
- Zzap!64 issue 47, March 1989: Commodore 64 Dragon Ninja (Imagine, £9.95 cassette, £14.95 disk; Steve Wahid and Jonathan Dunn; overall 87 per cent). Zzap! issue 49, May 1989: readers’ Commodore 64 chart.
- Amstrad Action issue 42, March 1989: Amstrad CPC review of Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja (Imagine, £9.95 cassette, £14.95 disk).
- Atari ST User vol. 4 no. 2, April 1989: Atari ST Dragon Ninja in mail-order price lists.
- Computer Gaming World issue 59, May 1989, p. 26: David M. Wilson on Double Dragon, Renegade and Bad Dudes (Data East’s IBM PC and Apple II versions; red ninjas dropping items).
- Nintendo Power issue 7, July–August 1989, and issue 10, January–February 1990: Bad Dudes (NES) in the Top 30.
- Chris Wilkins and Roger M. Kean, The History of Ocean Software (2013), p. 115: Mark Jones on Dragon Ninja.
- Retro Gamer issue 25, 2006, p. 108: the ending (the helicopter fight, “President Ronnie”, the burgers).
- Wireframe issue 5, January 2019, p. 52: Data East’s ten most memorable games (“President Ronnie”; “a bad enough dude”).
- Wikipedia, “Bad Dudes Vs. DragonNinja” (accessed October 2026) (web, secondary): the arcade intro text, the heroes’ names, the seven stages, the charged punch, release dates, and the NES version’s removal of the President’s name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Dudes_Vs._DragonNinja