Renegade (Cart Only)

Kunio-kun

1

T

9.0

1987-10-07

2018-07-03 13:12:01

Renegade is a side-scrolling beat-’em-up developed by Technos Japan and distributed by Taito for the arcades in 1986. The player controls a street brawler who must face four different gangs in order to rescue his girlfriend being held captive by a mob boss. The game was released in Japan as Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun (Japanese: 熱血硬派くにおくん, which loosely translates to ”Hot-Blooded Tough Guy Kunio”), with this version of the game revolving around a high-school delinquent named Kunio who must stand up against a series of rival gangs frequently targeting his classmate Hiroshi. In order to make the game more appealing for the west, Technos produced a graphically-altered version with a visual style inspired by the 1979 film The Warriors, changing the looks of some of the game’s characters and scenery. The first game in the Kunio-kun series, Renegade was ported to a variety of consoles and computer platforms.

Gameplay:

• Controls:

The player controls a fighter (named Mr. K in the NES version) who must fight a variety of street gangs on the way to save his girlfriend from the gangsters. The controls consists of an eight-way joystick and three actions buttons; left attack, jump and right attack. Unlike previous beat-’em-ups such as Kung-Fu Master, Shao-lin’s Road or My Hero, in which the player character’s movement was limited to only left or right, in Renegade the player can also move towards or away from the background by pressing up or down in a matter similar to Technos Japan’s 1985 wrestling game Mat Mania, although the battle system is still limited to only two directions. Pressing the attack button of the character’s current direction will cause him to throw punches, while the opposite attack button causes him to perform a rear kick instead. When certain enemies are stunned after a few punches or a single kick, the player character can approach him for a collar grab and kick him repeatedly with the front attack button or perform a shoulder throw with the opposite attack button. While jumping, the player can press either attack button for a jump kick towards that particular direction.

Pressing the joystick left or right twice quickly will cause the player to run, at which point pressing the front attack button will perform a running punch, jumping will automatically perform a flying kick, and the rear attack button will bring the player to a sudden halt and perform a back-kick. Pressing down over a fallen enemy will make the player sit on top of them, at which point pressing the front attack will cause the player to pummel them. All of the boss characters (with the exception of Sabu) can only be sat on or put on a collar grab if their health is low enough, otherwise they’ll push the player off.

The player has a limited amount of lives (which vary depending on the game’s DIP settings) and no continues to complete the game. The player loses a life if he runs out of health after sustaining too many enemy attacks, gets knocked off the subway platform or into the sea in the first two stages or fails to complete the stage under the time limit. Health is automatically recovered at the start of each stage. Stages 2 and 4 are the only stages to have checkpoints in the middle of them.

• Stages:

Unlike Technos’ subsequent game Double Dragon, the playing field is limited to a series of three-screen-wide areas and does not scroll continuously. The first three stages (a subway platform, a harbor and a street alley) each take place in a single area where the player must face against a gang of seven underlings with their boss watching from the background. The gang of the first two stages consists of two types of underlings: an armed thug who is easier to defeat, and an unarmed thug who can take more punishment and can grab the player character from behind.

When only three underlings remain (in any combination of the two) their boss will come in from the sidelines and join the fight. When the boss (Jack in the first stage, Joel in the second) is defeated, any remaining underling will retreat off the bottom of the screen, and the stage ends. Each boss character has their own health displayed underneath the player’s. The second stage follows this same formula, but begins with a series of enemies riding motorcycles trying to run the player down. Once a certain number of bikers have been defeated (which vary depending on the difficulty level), the normal enemies will begin to face the player. The third stage features an all female gang. Like the first two gangs, the female gang also consists of two type of underlings: a weaker chain-wielding blond-haired type and a more resistant mace-wielding redhead type. The female gang leader (Kim) is a large woman who can easily grab and slap the player around. She’s the only enemy in the game who cannot be put into a collar grab. The fourth and final stage consists of two areas and only has one type of underling, a bald knife-wielding hitman who can kill the player with a single stab. The first area is set in a parking lot where the player must fight against four of these hitmen. Once this first wave of enemies have been defeated, the player character automatically proceeds to enter a building at the far right of the stage. Inside, he faces three more knife-wielding underlings and the final boss, a handgun-wielding mobster (Sabu) who can kill the player with a single shot. Once the final boss is defeated, the main character exits the building and is greeted by his rescued girlfriend, who proceeds to give him a kiss. The game then begins the next loop with an increased difficulty.

Ports:

The Nintendo Entertainment System version, developed in-house by Technos and released in 1987 by Taito in North America, is a strong departure from the original arcade game; the first three stages each consist of a series of two-screens wide levels against a group of three enemies at a time, culminating in a one-on-one fight with the boss. The second stage also contains a side-scrolling motorcycle chase, in which the player tries to kick opponents off their motorcycles, prior to the boss fight. In the third stage, the player can choose from one of two paths after clearing the first level of enemies: one leads to a confrontation against the stage boss, while the other is a second level filled with small fry enemies. The fourth and final stage is a maze of numerous rooms, filled with enemies and previous bosses, inside a building which the player must proceed in order to reach the final boss. There are trap doors in this stage which warp the player back to a previous stage, forcing the player to begin all over.

The Master System version, developed by Natsume and published by Sega in 1993, is based largely on the NES port rather than the original arcade, but with enhanced graphics and several improvements like new death cutscenes and a revamped ending. This port was only released in Europe, Australia and Brazil.

Home computer versions were released for the Amiga, Apple II and IBM PC in North America and for the Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST and Commodore 64 in Europe. The American computer ports were developed by Software Creations and published by Taito, whereas the European computer ports were handled by Imagine Software and published by Ocean Software. They were typically limited to one fire button rather than three; the different moves are achieved by combining different joystick directions with a fire button press. The Amstrad CPC version mimicked the three-button control of the original by combining the joystick control with the cursor keys. The Spectrum and Amstrad versions use flip-screen rather than scrolling levels.

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

Taito Corporation

020588010048

2

United States

8-bit

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2026-04-03

2018-07-03 13:12:01