DOUBLE DRAGON AND KUNIO-KUN: RETRO BRAWLER BUNDLE
Give it the elbow?
Like having the code word for a secret The Weeknd gig, there’s a level of smugness that comes with knowing the ‘right’ videogames. This collection of 18 games from the Japanese ’80s Kunio-kun and Double Dragon series will have those in the know twitching with excitement.
These aren’t arcade conversions but remasters of the made-for-console NES editions, and play differently to their coinop counterparts – like remixes of classic moments with added platforming stages and bosses. Patient zero is Renegade, the arena brawler that set the template for many of the games in this collection and beyond. Your street urchin on a mission to rescue his girl from a gang can fend off enemies from all directions… well, all two of them.
Most of the games have a two-button control system, and though some only ever released in Japan1 (such as Kunio-kun No Nekketsu Soccer League) are addictive in their simplicity, others (like Go-Go! Nekketsu Hockey Club Slip-and-Slide Madness) fail to live up to their excitable titles. You’re here for the curiosities of the 11 games never to see a gamepad in the West but you’ll stay for those that did: the Double Dragon trilogy, Renegade and the moreish Super Dodge Ball.
A caveat: these games, even in their Quality Up editions, 2 look their age. Let’s remember most of them use less RAM than a Twitter meme. Fun in short spurts, patchy in quality, this is a club not everyone will want to get into, even if they have the password. Ian Dean