Double Dribble (NES)

Double Dribble
Also known as: Exciting Basket (JP) Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami Platforms: NES, Famicom Disk System Released in JP: July 24, 1987 (FDS) Released in US: September 1987 Released in EU: December 13, 1989 This game has unused sounds. This game has regional differences.

Double Dribble is an early basketball game for the NES, infamous for the bad quality of its voice sample at the title screen. Fans have interpreted the sound as "Dubble Dibble," "Bubble Bibble" or "Vubble Dwibble".

Voice Samples

For some bizarre reason (which we'll be getting into later), Double Dribble's aforementioned voice samples are actually corrupted. Much of the announcer's speech become unclear, and the Free Throw sample becomes "Too Slow"!

Description	In-game	Actual samples
"Double Dribble"
"Jump Ball"
"Free Throw"
"Dunk Shot" (Unused)

The cause of this actually isn't on the software, but the hardware state of affairs: the 2A03 outputs DPCM samples by reading the bits in each byte from right to left, effectively reversing the bit order. For example, 00111111 (3F) is read as 11111100 (FC). This causes properly formatted samples to be output incorrectly, since most developers assumed each byte would be read from left to right. Amusingly, this would not be discovered for 32 years, and only by sheer accident. Several pieces of current NES software (music makers/players, emulators, etc) have since implemented a "Bit-Reversal" function in one way or another.

It's actually worth noting that this doesn't just affect Double Dribble: a surprisingly wide variety of NES games suffer from this exact issue. Nintendo's own games like Super Mario Bros. 2, 3, and The Legend of Zelda have samples specifically formatted for the console, suggesting that knowledge regarding the hardware bug was widespread among first-party developers.

Regional Differences

Title Screen

The FDS title is Exciting Basket and the NES title is Double Dribble. In the European version, the copyright information is different and the Konami logo is Yellow and Red instead of Orange and Red.

Japan	US	Europe

Intro

The intro was given a bit of the US of A. Palm trees (that are apparently as tall as skyscrapers) were added to the background (which as a whole was redrawn), the stadium was redrawn, the generic balloons are now all the same color, and the Konami logo balloons and blimp now carry the American flag.

FDS	NES

Music

While Konami had previously brought over their own Famicom Disk System games (such as Castlevania, Rush'n Attack and Stinger) to the NES for international audiences, Double Dribble (a.k.a. Exciting Basket) would mark the first time they would port a game that utilized the extra audio hardware in the FDS. Due to the NES lacking said hardware, for the NES port Konami would have to alter the music and sound effects that utilized the extra FDS audio (similar to what they would later do for Castlevania II and Gyruss).

Track names taken from the album KONAMI FAMICOM CHRONICLE Vol.1: Disk System Compilation (EMCA-0018) where available.

	Exciting Basket (FDS)	Double Dribble (NES)
Press Start BGM
Select Screen BGM
Half Time BGM
Game Set BGM

While most of the (admittedly-short) soundtrack was reworked to use the NES hardware, Konami for whatever reason chose to remove the main song that plays during gameplay in the FDS version.

Exciting Basket (FDS) - Main BGM

In place of that, Konami added a rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" to the intro of the NES version.

Double Dribble (NES) - Intro BGM