Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A playthrough of Acclaim's 1991 beat 'em up for the NES, Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones.
Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones doesn't strive to be a faithful NES adaptation of its arcade counterpart. As was the case for the NES versions of Double Dragon (youtu.be/3AyMj9-J1WM) and Double Dragon II (youtu.be/fmwcfBBLPbc), The Sacred Stones bears a superficial resemblance to the coin-op, but under the hood, so much has been changed that it feels like a different game altogether.
The arcade game, Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone, is notorious for a multitude of reasons. It runs terribly, it's ugly, the controls suck, it's ruthlessly difficult and not at all fair, and it was the first game to feature microtransactions. If you wanted access to all of the moves, all of the characters, or a weapon, you had to spend a quarter for each of these "power ups" at the in-game shop.
After creating two major hits and turning Double Dragon into a fan favorite franchise, Technos farmed out DD3's production to a no-name studio (East Technology) and packed it full of exploitative pay-to-win mechanics. Unsurprisingly, that approach didn't sit well with people, and the game took the series' reputation down in flames. It also marked the beginnings of Technos' swift decline: the hits stopped coming, their relevance waned, the cash flow dried up, and the company went bust in 1996.
So the arcade game was trash, and the Genesis port was equally lousy, but the NES game was a different story. Technos developed this version in-house, and boy does it show! The Sacred Stones looks and plays like a legitimate Double Dragon game. The graphics and sound are nicely improved over DD2's, the fighting mechanics have been spruced up, and the action feels more fluid than it did in the arcade game. The NES version doesn't feel like it was compromised to fit the hardware, either. It supports 2P co-op play, it includes all of the playable characters from the arcade version, it can handle more than one enemy type on-screen at a time, and it doesn't slow to a crawl when the screen gets busy.
It's significantly harder than the first two NES games and the controls take some getting used to (the timing of your inputs has to be nigh perfect to pull off certain moves), but once you get a feel for the rhythm of the action and how to best use your characters, the initial sense of frustration fades.
I liked The Sacred Stones quite a bit. It didn't grab me the way DD2 did, but it's a solid NES brawler that does right by the Double Dragon name. Technos would've been better off ditching the arcade version and turning DD3 into an NES exclusive.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
A playthrough of Acclaim's 1991 beat 'em up for the NES, Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones.
Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones doesn't strive to be a faithful NES adaptation of its arcade counterpart. As was the case for the NES versions of Double Dragon (youtu.be/3AyMj9-J1WM) and Double Dragon II (youtu.be/fmwcfBBLPbc), The Sacred Stones bears a superficial resemblance to the coin-op, but under the hood, so much has been changed that it feels like a different game altogether.
The arcade game, Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone, is notorious for a multitude of reasons. It runs terribly, it's ugly, the controls suck, it's ruthlessly difficult and not at all fair, and it was the first game to feature microtransactions. If you wanted access to all of the moves, all of the characters, or a weapon, you had to spend a quarter for each of these "power ups" at the in-game shop.
After creating two major hits and turning Double Dragon into a fan favorite franchise, Technos farmed out DD3's production to a no-name studio (East Technology) and packed it full of exploitative pay-to-win mechanics. Unsurprisingly, that approach didn't sit well with people, and the game took the series' reputation down in flames. It also marked the beginnings of Technos' swift decline: the hits stopped coming, their relevance waned, the cash flow dried up, and the company went bust in 1996.
So the arcade game was trash, and the Genesis port was equally lousy, but the NES game was a different story. Technos developed this version in-house, and boy does it show! The Sacred Stones looks and plays like a legitimate Double Dragon game. The graphics and sound are nicely improved over DD2's, the fighting mechanics have been spruced up, and the action feels more fluid than it did in the arcade game. The NES version doesn't feel like it was compromised to fit the hardware, either. It supports 2P co-op play, it includes all of the playable characters from the arcade version, it can handle more than one enemy type on-screen at a time, and it doesn't slow to a crawl when the screen gets busy.
It's significantly harder than the first two NES games and the controls take some getting used to (the timing of your inputs has to be nigh perfect to pull off certain moves), but once you get a feel for the rhythm of the action and how to best use your characters, the initial sense of frustration fades.
I liked The Sacred Stones quite a bit. It didn't grab me the way DD2 did, but it's a solid NES brawler that does right by the Double Dragon name. Technos would've been better off ditching the arcade version and turning DD3 into an NES exclusive.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
![Shining Force III (Saturn) Playthrough [2 of 3]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lxAoyO-gOoI/mqdefault.jpg "Shining Force III (Saturn) Playthrough [2 of 3]
A playthrough of Segas 1998 strategy-RPG for the Sega Saturn, Shining Force III.
This is the second part of a three-part playthrough, showing chapters four and five.
0:00 Chapter 4, Revolt in the Republic of Aspinia
3:52:45 Chapter 5, Tower Ruins of Lookover
Links to the other parts:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/XnPdZvZJIrg
Part 3: https://youtu.be/QXOo3_eBfxw
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!")
