Well well well...As i see it there is more retro rviews to come and Renegade is here to stay.
But then you all know me and what i am like....I would not ket a game like Renegade get away with that and to be honest i am glad that i did not as once i got over it Renegade is alot of fun.
Renegade is a westernized conversion (including changes to all of the sprites and backgrounds) of the Japanese arcade game Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun. Which roughly translates to "Hot-Blooded Tough Guy Kunio", released earlier the same year by Technos. It is an immediate technological predecessor to Double Dragon.
Renegade first introduced several trademarks of the beat 'em up genre, including 4-directional control, punch-jump-kick play action, and enemies which can sustain multiple hits (Which i can tell you is a very big change and very evil in a big fight). It is considered to be one of the most influential titles of the video game industry.
In Renegade you play the part of the hero called Mr. K....His quest as in most beat 'em ups is to save his girlfriend. Unlike in Technos other games the screen plays out alot differantly. The playing field is limited to one two-screen-wide area. These areas range from:
Subway platform.
Harbor.
Alley.
Parking lot.
Hideout of a gang.
These areas do not scroll continuously. The way they work is of the four stages in the game, the first and third each begin with the player fighting a group made up of two different types of small fry of enemies. The first do not have many hit points but a stronger attack. The others have more hit points a weaker attacke but can hold the player from behind so that the player is open to attack.
Once all but three of the enemys are left the boss of the stage shows up and once he is beat anyone left runs off as you have won that fight. But as you may be able to tell that is not the end of it. Some stages have you fighing bikers first and other have you fighting one guy who has a knife and can kill you with one hit.
Then after you have finaly beaten the game and got the girl the game pulls another trick out of the bag and begins it all again but making it alot harder.
Renegade came out in 1986 on the Arcade, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, NES, Sega Master System, Virtual Console, ZX Spectrum. it is a fun game but it is also very very hard. I dare you not to atleast give this game a go...Or will you run for the hills like many have done before?