Once on one unremarkable day late at night I decided to reduce the way from work to the house through the dark and inhospitable lane of the most gloomy and cruel street of the city. This path led me to the next scene: a tall, steep and pumped -up, nameless guy (most likely his name is Billy or Jimmy) fights with a group of scumbags dressed in school uniforms. They wave with sticks, batons, chains, knives and even legs, but the nameless steep skill is skillfully dodging their attacks and maneuvering between opponents manages to put on the shoulder blades of everyone who decided to go against him. He is a reckless hero, a master of street battle and an uncontrollable predator who went on the warpath. But what’s the case with him when I have a Renegade game from the 1986 Kunio-Kun series! There, exactly the same hero fights with exactly the same opponents on similar streets in the hope of getting a certain reward (kiss of his beloved girl captured by the main villain/avenge the comrade who was beaten by the bandits). And this game will not harm you and does not stick a knife into the back like these guys in school uniform. And this is the most important. For this very reason, I turned one hundred and eighty degrees and, without turning around, decided to stay at the night shift at work, and in the morning to try to go through Renegade. This project of Taito became a classic in Japan, but was not recognized in the West (until in 1989 the third part of the River City Ransom series with the open world and the RPG component). In many aspects of the game features of the Renegade, the founder of the genre “Beating them all” and primarily influenced the Double Dragon and Final Fight series (the first developer and publisher also related to it). Let’s see with you how disbelief is this game actually.
I am VS Renegade
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Start a conversation with how different American and Japanese version original game slot machines (about ported versions I will talk a little later). I’ll start with the name. In the original, this is Nekketsu Kōha kunio-kun (you can translate something like this “reckless cool guy Cunio”), but in the western version the whole mountain of the text was reduced to one word Renegade (into Russian translated as “renegat” or “traitor”). What is there categorically incomprehensible to me there, but the publishers from Taito, who were responsible for the release of the game to the market for the market of North America and Europe, gave the game to the game (in Europe it may have been published by Ocean, but I am not 100%sure). Plot There is only one in the Japanese version, and in the western completely different. In the “reckless cool guy of Cunio”, the main character of Kunio is a titled student of secondary school who decided to take revenge on the local punks for being beaten by his best friend. And, it should be noted that there are few school hooligans alone to the guy and in the end he will take to fight with the local Yakuza. The guy overdid it a little like the Avenger, but he was able to become a hero for the city. In the Western version, the main character MR. K (the name is indicated only in the game on Nes and Sega Genesis) goes to fight with local gangs exclusively because of the girl. She was abducted by the guys from Yakuza and of course you need to rescue the poor thing from trouble. Most of all these versions differ in terms of graphics. Sprouts of enemies, bosses and even backs are completely redrawn. If Cunio fights mainly with hooligans from high school, children from Bosodzoko (literally “aggressive racing clan”), the head of Sukaban and her henchmen-maids (there are all the girls of the bandits), as well as with Yakuza, then Mr. K fights with enemies terribly similar to gangs from the 1979 The Warriors movie. In the western version, instead of schoolchildren of steeps in Hawaiian shirts, the gang of nales sharply turned into a group of fans of the KISS music team, gangster girls lost most of their clothes, and Yakuza changed her skin color. Everything is turned upside down. I always loved such a zealous rethinking of the game, which leads to its complete or almost complete modification. So they don’t do it now.
The hero is not afraid to fight with opponents traveling on motorcycles in the arena. Actually a reckless guy.
Game features: Renegade for its time is too cool the project. This applies not only to an unusual idea (before that, all the fights and the bit of Em Apa were dedicated to battles according to the rules and martial arts, but already not for street showdowns), but also a completely non -standard combat system. The player has complete freedom of movement by location. You can walk not only from left to right, but also from top to bottom, diagonally, and indeed, as soon as the soul wants. This is called 4-sided movement (relative three de). Also, the first appeared captures, jumps in the jump and a different degree of endurance of opponents. Also in the game there is an opportunity to beat bed opponents. This did not become a frequently used element in the genre, but was noticed several times in several interesting projects (like Battletoads). About management should be noted that it is very strange. It’s easy to get confused here, how and what is being done. There is a button responsible for the jump, the attack button with a hand on the enemy, standing to the left of us and a button of attack with his hand on the enemy, which is worth the right of us. If the main goal for the player became the enemy, what is worth, suppose, on the left, then by clicking on the attack with his right hand the hero will hit in this direction with his foot, continuing to face the enemy standing on the left (this should help to fight off the villains surrounded by the hero from all sides). Unfortunately, the process of how the game understands who has become a priority purpose for us not too understandable, I would even say a random. By pressing the direction button twice (left or right), the main character will begin to run to the chosen side. Having managed to press the attack button before meeting with the enemy (it’s better not to get confused here) you can hit it with your elbow and knock it down. Pressing the button down over the enemy’s body spread on the floor, the hero will sit on him, take the scruff of the scruff and, by pressing the attack buttons, will begin to beat him until he knocks on the knockout or until another bandit hit him.
Levels in the game do not VegasWild-casino need to go from the left side of the card to the right. The game arena is limited to one or two screens in width and does not constantly scroll through. Almost always at the very beginning of the level, the hero is surrounded by opponents while in the background stands and is waiting for the end of the battle their boss. In one part of the card a dead end, and in the other a hole in which you can throw enemies. All opponents are divided into two types: the first with a small number of lives, but with weapons in their hands, and the second with a large margin of lives, but without weapons. At the second location, before the main battle, you need to fight with motorcyclists on bikes, and on the fourth armed knives with bandits, which can be killed with one blow. The bosses are always fast, strong and untouchable bastards with a large reserve of health. The latter will shoot a pistol player. After salvation/revenge, the game begins from the very beginning (the majority of the fighting and the bits of the APs until 1986 are cyclical). The game is very, very complicated. If all health is taken away, then only an additional life will save (which can be obtained by earned about 50,000 points), but you need to know that, by going to the next level, health will not recover, and when death you have to start from the very beginning. Passage, if adopted and learn the movement and weaknesses of opponents, can take from ten to thirty minutes, taking into account the fact that there are only five levels in the game. But frequent deaths will add a couple of three hours by this time, if not less. Cool, but damn cruel to the player game. Unjust, painful, but tolerant.
Poster of the Japanese version of the game on arcade machines. The main character (stands on the right) and all the bosses gathered in one place and, apparently, are waiting for the beginning of the battle. There seems to be no problem here, but the pink background is somewhat confused.
This is low resolution poster of the American version of the game on arcade machines. Fight on the background of the wall and design of the movie style Warriors. Appearance converges with filling.
The initial screen of the game on ZX Spectrum. I like this Joker with a Iroquois peeping from the lower right angle. He hypnotizes and lures.
This is the game cover on Amstrad CPC. Beautiful picture perfectly conveying the atmosphere and style of the western version of the game.
The initial screen of the game on Amstrad CPC. Rented well the original cover.
American cover for Sega Genesis version. Fine. By this art, it is easy to determine the genre of the game.
American cover for the game on NES. More like a cover for the comic book of the Archie series.
Different versions of the game: Of course, the ports for different systems mean. Most of them are not very different from the original (PlayStation 2, Amiga and Atari ST) or differ, but in the bad side (Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC). Graphics, music and gameplay are everywhere worse than in the arcade version. Against the background of all these ports, NES and Sega Genesis are best in which the battles have completely changed and added completely new locations (including the fight on motorcycles and inside the train in the subway). That nes, that Sega Genesis are almost an exact copy of each other and differ only in details. Choose yourself what you like more, but I recommend playing exactly in the game on Genesis, because it, in my opinion, looks a little better in comparison with NES and plays a little better. Not much, but still better. By the way, they also changed the drawing, which is now more like Double Dragon (by that time it has already been published and has become popular).
Graphics: Just great. I believe that for my time everything is done in good faith and with a love of business. Sometimes FPS sags due to the abundance of characters on the screen, but this slowdown even helps. Enemies look unusual and everyone personifies his gang and cultural (or uncultured, so to speak) features. In addition, everything looks stylish and fashionable, as if the game came off the pages of some cool manga of that time like Sakigake. Otokojuku. Sound and music: It is normal, in some places groovy, but in general it is very inconspicuous. The most memorable in the game is the phrases of the hero and bosses in the Japanese version. Sound cool and even clear (for that year). However, taking into account how often you have to recall levels, these phrases will quickly turn into annoying cacophony.
The final assessment
1-terrible (something at the superman level 64)
2 – bad (big problems, most likely in mechanics and gameplay)
3 – average (balances on the verge. Cons help pluses and vice versa)
4-Okay (graphics, music or something still does not let the game take off to heaven)
5 – Divine
TO.ABOUT.: You can’t find a more significant game for the genre. This is almost the same as Street Fighter 2 for the Faiting genre or Metal Slug for the Jesan of the Jester AM Ap, but only unlike them Renegade is not perfect. There are many all kinds of problems that the developers could not fix (or corrected only in sequels). This game is incredibly complicated, not everything is in order with management, in combat mechanics, not everything works properly, and the music does not have fun. On the other side, Renegade brings some kind of, but still fun, gives the desired charge of adrenaline, it is a pleasure and the aesthetic component is just at a height. I recommend the game primarily to connoisseurs of the genre, fans of the Double Dragon series and people who are interested in where the glory of the Kunio-Kun series began.
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