Battletoads is a video game media franchise by Rare that began with the original beat 'em up game Battletoads in 1991. Starring three anthropomorphic toads named after skin conditions, Rash, Zitz, and Pimple, the series was created to rival the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. The series as a whole has been quite popular and at its apex spawned an animated television pilot. The initial Battletoads game for the NES was renowned for its difficulty, but was well received and spawned sequels for various platforms including a crossover with the Double Dragon series. In each of the games, the objective is to defeat the toads' nemesis the Dark Queen and her army of space mutants. Most titles in the series do not feature all three toads as playable characters, with one or two members of the team being captured by the Dark Queen. The exceptions to this were Battletoads & Double Dragon and the Battletoads arcade game.

Double Dragon (ダブルドラゴン, Daburu Doragon?) is a 1987 beat 'em up developed by Technōs Japan and distributed in North America and Europe by Taito Corporation. The game is a spiritual and technological successor to Technos' earlier beat 'em up, Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun (released outside of Japan by Taito as Renegade), but introduced several additions such as two-player cooperative gameplay and the ability to arm oneself with an enemy's weapon after disarming them. Double Dragon is considered to be one of the first successful examples of the genre, resulting in the creation of two arcade sequels and several spinoffs, as well as inspiring other companies in creating their own beat 'em ups. Home versions of the game were released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Master System, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari ST, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Game Boy, Genesis/Mega Drive and Atari Lynx, among other platforms during the series's height of popularity. A remake titled Double Dragon Advance was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2003. The NES version was re-released for the Wii's Virtual Console in North America on April 28, 2008 at a cost of 500 Wii Points. Nintendo also released the Game Boy version on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in 2011. Another remake was released for the iOS mobile devices in 2011, which features brand new gameplay, sprites and animations, and music. A new Double Dragon title, Double Dragon Neon, was released in 2012 for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, and in 2014 for Steam and is considered a reboot of the series.

Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone (ダブルドラゴン3 ザ・ロゼッタストーン, Daburu Doragon 3: Za Rozetta Sutōn?) is a side-scrolling beat 'em up produced by Technōs Japan that was originally released as a coin-operated arcade game in 1990. It is the second sequel to Double Dragon for the arcades, following Double Dragon II: The Revenge. A Nintendo Entertainment System game loosely based on the arcade version was released, along with conversions for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Game Boy, and various computer platforms.

Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls is a 1994 American-produced sequel to Technōs Japan's Double Dragon series. Unlike the previously produced Double Dragon games, Technōs had little or no credited involvement in the development of the game outside of licensing the series' name to publisher Tradewest (the publisher of the first NES version of Double Dragon and the Super NES title Super Double Dragon). Instead, the game was developed by Leland Interactive Media, a subsidiary of Tradewest. Unlike the previous games, which were side-scrolling fighting action games or beat-em-ups, Shadow Falls is a head-to-head fighting game based on the animated Double Dragon TV series in the style of Capcom's 1991 arcade-hit Street Fighter II. Technōs would later produce its own fighting game based on the Double Dragon movie the following year simply titled Double Dragon for the Neo Geo. Shadow Falls was originally released for the Super NES and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, and later released for the Atari Jaguar by Telegames (publisher of the Atari Lynx version of the first Double Dragon) in 1995.