Hamster To Unleash Renegade On The Mean Streets Of Switch

I basically live for shmups and beatemups

Remember when Hamster announced R-Type was coming to Switch. Good times

Oh...and Renegade is a day one. I loved the C64 version.

I played the crap out of Renegade on the NES... and it sucked so bad.

I had Renegade and it's sequel Target Renegade on the old Speccy. Day one!

@NinChocolate @OorWullie - I haven’t had a Switch very long, and I’m looking to get my first beat em up. Trying to decide between Mutation Nation and Sengoku III. Any suggestions? It’s one of my favorite genres, but I haven’t played either game. I’ll end up with most of the beat em ups eventually, just looking for one good one right now to get started.

@bimmy-lee Sengoku 3. You'll thank me later.
Mutation Nation is okay, and still worth a purchase too, but it's not even close to being as good as Sengoku 3.

@ThanosReXXX - Thanks! I was kind of leaning that direction just because it seems to have quite a following. I wasn’t sure about the character switching mechanic, but it’s probably the best part of the game.

Edit - Enjoying all the football?

@bimmy-lee Yep like @ThanosReXXX says, Sengoku 3 all the way. It's possibly the greatest beat'em up ever made. It's so so smooth to play, it looks fantastic and with the numerous moves and combo system gives it has far more depth than your regular beat'em up I love it and was actually 2nd in the world on the Caravan leaderboard.Last time I looked though I'd been knocked down to 3rd

@bimmy-lee I'll be honest and say I'm not a huge Sengoku 3 fan. It looks nice and has cool moves but the stages are way to long and boring and they have a small number of enemies that repeats far too often. Obviously that's just my opinion. Overall I feel like Neo Geo beat em ups are weaker than most.

All good announcements! I have the Famicom version of Argus. I'm looking forward to playing the arcade version.

@GrailUK Yes! Where is R-type and its arcade sequels??

@OorWullie - Wow, quite an accomplishment. Nice work. Really appreciate the suggestion.

@youkoaoshi - Thank you for the feedback. What would you say is your favorite beat em up on the eShop?

@GrailUK
I remember waiting for Renegade to load on the C64, then it would crash, then I'd rewind the tape and start waiting again. Sometimes I'd do that 3 or 4 times, my patience was much greater then.

I still enjoyed the game though, so I might pick it up for nostalgias sake.

@bimmy-lee Haha, yes I am, actually. Funny that you call it football, while the rest of the US has somehow fooled the world into thinking that American rugby should be called Football, when there is hardly ever a foot on the ball there.

I came to appreciate it for its European name as well, and also the much better logic in calling it such, but for world events, it's still called soccer...

But to get back on topic: you should keep an eye on Sengoku 2 as well; the fans are always fighting over which of the two is better.

The first Sengoku did show promise, but never really came into its own, but the second and third installments of the series are both great games, and the discussion of which Sengoku is the best, is always between those two.

If I had to make a top 5 of side scrolling beat em ups on Neo Geo, then it would probably be:

1. Sengoku 3
2. Sengoku 2
3. Robo Army
4. Mutation Nation
5. Burning Fight

@bimmy-lee Retro wise its Double Dragon despite its flaws. Modern I'd say Wulver Blade. Tough but fun.

@youkoaoshi Weaker than most? Depends on what you compare them to. They were certainly FAR superior to most SNES or Genesis outings, except for a few individual gems that these systems certainly also had.

But in general, I'd say that only the arcade itself offered better side scrolling beat em ups than the Neo Geo. Obviously, I'm only comparing systems of the same era, and not adding any other systems to the mix, seeing as that would be an unfair comparison...

@OorWullie Me too. Awesome games. Unfortunately little me didn't check Crash magazine before asking for Renegade 3 for Christmas.

@ThanosReXXX - I know enough to call it football here on NL! I’ve seen some blowback to people calling it soccer here. That’s what it is to me really though, makes perfect sense. In Merican football, when a foot touches a ball, it’s the result of some degree of failure on the offense with the exception of kicking off after a score. Glad you’re enjoying the matches (maybe another bonus point for not calling them “games”?). In time, I think I’ll end up with all five of the games you’ve listed. I love walking right and punching pixels!

@youkoaoshi - Ah, DD is a stone cold classic. If the flaws are the slow down, that doesn’t bother me a bit. I will definitely pick it up at some point. I can play it at my local arcade, and I’d like to try something new. I’m definitely interested in Wulverblade as well. Thanks again for your input.

Come one, we all know that the X Spectrum had the best home version. Master system with a close second place.

Anyway, I have successfully/legitimately sneaked a Bob Wakelin onto Nintendo Life. RIP good sir, my job here is done.

@ThanosReXXX Console wise I'd take Final Fight 3, Turtles in Time and Streets of Rage 1 and 2 but I'm sure those were the gems you were thinking of. Knights of the Round, King of Dragons, and original Final Fight are my go to arcade examples.

I like the Neo Geo ones but I feel most of them have such shallow combo system such as Robo Army and Mutation Nation. Still fun of course!

@Shiryu Well done sir. I'm sure if the terminology existed back in the day, his artwork was so hype!

@bimmy-lee my top favorite beatemups on Switch are Sengoku 2 and Mutation Nation, and overall they are up there with the best beatemups

@NinChocolate - Thank you kindly. Think I’ve settled to start with Sengoku II or III. Probably III as I don’t mind going backwards on retro titles, actually kind of like doing it that way. I love the art work that I’ve seen in Mutation Nation. Some of the baddie sprites are super cool.

@bimmy-lee So, that's actually only three instances when ball touches foot in the entire game: kick-off, penalty, and foul...

And you could definitely do worse than picking up all those games. Even though most Neo Geo fans won't have them in the same order as me, the top 5 consist pretty much always of these same 5 titles. There are only three other side scrolling beat em ups, one of which is Legend of Success Joe, but that's Japan-only, and it isn't even worth mentioning (although you should just look it up on YouTube for comedic value), and the others are Sengoku and Ninja Combat.

@youkoaoshi Good choices, all of them, especially the Streets of Rage games on the Genesis. Never got to play any of them for longer than a few hours in total, because my family was all about Nintendo, and only one friend that I only occasionally visited, had a Genesis.

But there are even a quite few more on the SNES, that I could mention, such as often overlooked gem Iron Combat, The Ninja Warriors, Legend, Rival Turf, and personally, I'm always kind of partial to super hero games, as long as they're fun to play, so in the case of beat em ups on the SNES, we had the Death and Return of Superman, the two Spiderman games (Maximum Carnage and Separation Anxiety), X-Men: Children of the Atom, Batman Returns (superior to the Genesis version), and besides that, I even liked the Predator beat em ups.

But regardless of that, it was clear, even back then, that the SNES and Genesis versions of those games, even though the gameplay was more than fine, were quite inferior to the arcade versions.

Guess I just like the big, colorful sprites that only the Neo Geo could offer back then...

Great news. I'm starting to dig through beat'em ups history and love these releases, although some of them look really dated for a number of reasons.

I hope Renegade can be played in Japanese too, as almost every Hamster release.

About Sengoku 3 I see you guys are enthusiastic, but I didn't buy it because several friends told me it was the best beat'em up... on Neo Geo. They considered it very far from the likes of Final Fight and Streets of Rage. And I know it's a common opinion. But now you make me want to give it a try...

@ThanosReXXX - The funniest thing about American football is that it’s actually a penalty to attempt to advance the ball with the use of feet. It’s not common to see, and can only happen in a loose ball scenario; but it occasionally happens. Otherwise it’s kickoff, punt, field goal, extra point after a touchdown, and the rare free kick after a safety. So weird that it ever became known as football. I’ll check out Success Joe. The name alone made me laugh.

@Moroboshi876 - I leave Streets of Rage 2 out of the equation when assessing beat em ups as I think it’s the finest I’ve ever played, and by a wide margin. I have a lot more experience with the NES port of Renegade than the arcade version, but I think you might find this title to be in the dated category. It’s a fine game, and I’m glad it’s coming to the eShop, but it falls a ways down my list of good beat em ups. Just my opinion. Give it a try if it looks interesting.

@Shiryu I‘m very sorry, but the best version was of course on the Amstrad CPC. Oh, such a great conversion... I should play it again...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc8GDlw2nys

@bimmy-lee Well, it does look interesting, maybe not for a day one purchase. I bought DD although people didn't recommend it for the same reason, actually I'm OK with dated games for the sake of learning about video games history first hand, but there are some things I can't deal with, like Atari 2600 graphics. I'm sorry.

What would you say about Sengoku 3? Is it really that bested by FF and SOR?

@ThanosReXXX I hear you. Neo geo games look great! I did like Death and Return of Superman myself. I never cared much for the Jaleco beat em series. They felt like hollow Final Fight rips, even the supposed best 3rd game. I grew up Nintendo but did pick up a Genesis in my late teens so I caught up fast! Ninja Warriors on SNES is a fun one too.

Hopefully, Renegade 3 will be left in the dust bin of history.

Rarely I'd say this about an arcade game but...I'd rather have the ZX81 port instead! It just played so much better, the sequel too but not the 3rd game which was total crap.

@Moroboshi876 - DD was a revelation when it hit arcades (at least here in the US), and it’s a very important title not just within the beat em up genre, but in the entire scope of gaming as a whole. It’s definitely the reason I got into the beat em up genre. I haven’t played Sengoku III yet, I’ll probably buy it tonight, so I can’t comment on how it stacks up to the SoR or FF series; but SoR 2 is my all time favorite beat em up, and probably in both my top five favorite games and top five most played. Renegade is also an important game historically, but I personally don’t put it near the likes of the other series we’ve mentioned. The beat em up genre pretty much birthed the one on one fighter, and the DD port on NES helped secure Nintendo’s dominance in the US, which rebounded a crashed home console market here. I realize their history in the US is probably irrelevant to people in other countries, but that’s my experience anyways, and these are important games in an influential genre no matter how you view them.

@Moroboshi876 Which game were you saying had 2600 graphics? Not Double Dragon arcade I assume. There is a 2600 version though!

I want the two WWF games that were released by Technos in the arcades!

So what’s the differences between Renegade and River City Ransom?

Erm! This is 2018 isn’t it? Loved renegade and would still love to play it but come on, bring it upto date, I’m all fo retro style games ie side scrolling shoot em ups, beat em ups, platformers etc... but please use the switches 2d capabilities, just look at the dragons trap, quality old style gameplay but with beautiful graphics.

@bimmy-lee Sengoku 3 is excellent as far as the arcade games go. My pick for modern indie beat em up is Die for Valhalla.

@Shiryu Hate to argue with you, but the Amstrad versionnwas even better tan the Speccy version (and I say that as an owner of both computers at the time:

http://www.deadgoodcomics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Renegade-in-game-Amstrad.gif

@bimmy-lee Just as a precaution: don't blame me if your eyesight is forever damaged by the garish skin colors and surroundings of the game...

@youkoaoshi Yeah, it is. I always loved throwing cars on people...
I have all of those games I listed installed on my SNES Mini, as well as a couple of others. It is possibly my favorite genre from the 8 and 16 bit era. Also got Captain Commando, the three Final Fights and even Stone Protectors on there. (blame my younger cousin: he used to watch the animation series of the same name whenever I came over to play on the NES or SNES, and I actually came to appreciate the game)

Iron Commando is one to try, though, if you haven't yet. It is a Japanese game, but most of the text that matters, such as menus and in-game, is in English.

@Painkiller_Mike wrestlefest was absolutely amazing. Never came out on anything. Such a crime

@ThanosReXXX think captain commando is probably the weakest of the capcom beat em ups on the SNES. Prefer even magic sword to that one although not even sure that counts as a beat em up. The arcades had so many classics that were never ported

The ZX Spectrum version is actually better than the original arcade game imho

@Mr_Pepperami I tend to agree, but as stated before, I'm kind of a retro side scrolling beat em up addict, so anything that is above average in entertainment value, will do just fine for me...

@ThanosReXXX yeah same here. My brother has a mame cabinet with all the classics on there. Had that Konami xmen, Simpson’s arcade, the punisher, ninja baseball batman(amazing game), alien vs predator(capcom) etc etc. I actually play more old games than new ones these days.

@ThanosReXXX - It looks so incredibly bad! The cig burning in the ash tray in the locker room fight was hilarious.

@Bombdotorg999 - I’m going to download it in about an hour when my kids go to sleep. Can’t wait. It looks beautiful. Thanks!

@Mr_Pepperami - A friend of mine had the Wrestlefest cabinet while we were in college. I must have had a thousand beers standing in from of that machine. Such a great game.

@bimmy-lee honestly I absolutely loved that game. It had all the finishing moves and everything. Was such a great coin muncher. If I ever won the lottery I’d have to track that baby down😂

@bimmy-lee agreed and let’s hope Sega gives us the streets of Rage trilogy once they start rolling out the Switch Sega Ages Classics!! Streets of Rage 2 really is the best imo if not then definitely in the top 5 beat em ups of all time!

Keep em coming Hamster!!! I know you’ve got way more in the pipeline!! Argus has me interested as not that familiar and a Jaleco game to boot which I didn’t know Hamster got hold of any of their games!! Cool 😎

@bimmy-lee streets of Red is very good, loads of references to 80s horror, Wulvarblade is also great if you like the sound of a modern golden axe but with Celtic warriors.

@Mr_Pepperami - It was so incredibly pleasing to DDT my friends with Jake Roberts. I can’t remember if we ever pulled off a Doomsday Device with LOD, but we always tried.

@joey302 - It’s just kind of perfect. For me at least. I don’t think I’ve ever gone more than a few months without a play through. I traded a Bionic Commando cart to one of my friends for it way back when. BC was a good game, but that was the steal of the century in my book.

@santaglause - I forgot about that one. Definitely want to give it a try. I waited long enough to get a Switch, I started with a backlog! Once I clear Odyssey or Kingdom Battle, I’ll put down another chunk of change on the eShop and grab Sonic Mania and a handful of beat em ups. Thank you!

Just want to say that I really appreciate everyone chiming in with recommendations. I had multiple interactions at work today that made me want to move to another planet, and this conversation helped keep me sane and restored my faith in humanity.

Not sure if I wanna get this. I bought the NES version back on Wii VC some years back, got bored with it pretty quickly.

@bimmy-lee You're more than welcome, man. I know that feeling all too well. Luckily, I'm my own boss now, so no more of that "having to work or try to get along with people that you really don't like all week long" nonsense...

Hope your eyesight is still relatively okay after looking at the candy cane/sun-burnt skin of Succes Joe...

I think if the game ever lands on Western shores by means of Hamster, I'm just gonna buy it anyway, to shock other people with and have some fun...

Where is Raiden?

@Moroboshi876 @bimmy-lee Sengoku 3 is a fantastic beat-em-up in my opinion as well. It's one of my all-time favorites. The criticism mentioned earlier, that stages can seem a bit long and enemy repetition, is fair criticism, but those are not issues to me. I think the production values and gameplay overwhelm any potential shortcomings. I would just like to share a couple of things based on my own experience that might be helpful. First, whenever I haven't played Sengoku 3 for a while, it takes me a bit of time to get back into the rhythm of the game. Usually, after one sloppy play through, it comes back to me and I remember why I like it so much. When I first played it, I wasn't sure what I thought of it until after playing it a second time. When I go back to it, it always seems harder than I remembered. That leads to the second point. I find the game to be slightly more defensive oriented than typical Capcom and Konami beat-em-ups. What I mean is that the enemies can sometimes be trickier than usual, so it helps to know their attacks, and manipulate them to your advantage rather than just going at them head on. With that said, I'm with the others who consider it one of the best of the genre. If you guys get it, I hope you find similar enjoyment with it.

@ThanosReXXX - Man, I only had three things to do at the office today, and the same person screwed up two of those things, made two of my clients incredibly angry, messed with my money in the process, and copped a major attitude about it. Ah well. At least I learned about Success Joe and his neon pink skin. The blood on poor Joe’s face kept disappearing every few frames, then reappearing. I really felt bad for him. It’s like he was suffering the same injuries repeatedly. I think I would bite at the typical Hamster price too, just for the novelty. I watch a lot of horror movies, which have about a 25% success rate with me, so I’m accustomed to finding something to like in all the bad.

@sdelfin - Incredibly thoughtful insight, thank you. It’s downloading as I’m jamming dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Can’t get to it fast enough. I already know I’m going to like it.

I much prefer River City Ransom, but this is a great original beat-em-up

@ThanosReXXX I want my Konami cartoon arcades. Tmnt, Bucky OHare, Cows of Moo Mesa, Simpsons. Where are they?

Sengoku 3 is great. Beautiful game. Got my backside handed to me and had to spam credits, which is great. Lots of room for improvement. Not sure why I had it in my mind that I could switch characters on the fly. I’ll be playing it for years. Thanks to all for the suggestions.

@ThanosReXXX Have you played Night Slashers by Konami? Cool horror themed arcade beat em up.

@bimmy-lee Glad you like it! Maybe I should give it more time.....Sengoku 1 and 2 have the character switching btw.

@youkoaoshi No, thats not what I meant. I'm sorry if the writing didn't help, I'm not a native English speaker as I'm sure people already noticed.

What I meant was I'm interested in retro games, no matter if they're dated, but I draw the line in Atari 2600. Of course I can see Renegade's graphics are nowhere near as primitive as Atari 2600's.

lol those sounds.

flop flop ughhhhh

@AlphaElite Target: Renegade and Renegade 3 are not proper Kunio game, they were just offshoot sequels develop by Ocean to cash in on the first game's popularity. So no worries about Hamster bringing that one along. Lovely music, bad game.

@Moroboshi876 Your English is great. I just misread. Either way I understand. It can be tough going as far back as Atari even if you grew up with it like me. The graphical leap from the era before 8 bit systems and then the 8bit systems was immense.

@youkoaoshi Well, it helps that I'm writing, not speaking. But thanks.

I didn't grow up with an Atari 2600 myself, I started with a MSX computer, but I own one, and... well. I understand the respect we all owe to it and the people who made it, but playing its games today, all dots and lines that we have to imagine as sports players, tanks or jumping characters... is certainly tough.

@youkoaoshi - Ah, thanks, I thought this series was known for the character switching mechanic. I have a similar opinion to ThanosReXXX when it comes to beat em ups; just about anything above average will do for me, and I love big sprites. You’re right in that the enemy variety is a bit lacking, and it’s kind of strange the way they’re introduced. They’re no joke though, and they’re out to fight as opposed to only trying to flank you. Nice little combo system for the genre too, which presents a risk/reward dynamic between keeping the combo meter going while not getting sliced up in the process. I’ll probably grab DD next. Great talking with you.

@bimmy-lee Man, that's sounds like one heck of a day. Good thing you made it through. And yes, besides the garish colors, the game has some odd quirks. Don't know why, because it's not like the Neo Geo couldn't handle that. Oh, well...

@MysteryCupofJoe Wouldn't mind some of that either. Perhaps someone is going to step up and make arcade ports as well.
Or... we just wait until the final, un-blockable version of the Switch homebrew channel, so we can simply install MAME on it, and play these games anyway...

@youkoaoshi Yes I have. I also have a remake of it, that runs on the BoR Engine, which is compatible with just about any device and PC. If you don't know it, then perhaps you should take a look at it. Might be just as interesting to you, as it is to me.

And where there's the BoR Engine for side scrolling beat em ups, there's M.U.G.E.N. for one on one fighters, also a great homebrew project. You can find plenty of videos on YouTube of both engines, running all kinds of fighting games, with an incredible total number of characters, in the case of M.U.G.E.N., making it pretty much the ultimate 2D fighter engine.

funny how technos copied every moves from the double dragon series.
wich is not such a bad thing though.

man when i was 15 i spended houndreds of dutch guilders in that machine after school.

@PALversusNTSC Well, both were Technos Japan, actually. Double Dragon is considered a spiritual successor to Renegade. The latter was originally a Kunio-kun series game, and Double Dragon II on Game Boy was actually a port of another Kunio-kun game, which is why characters in that game are designed as characters in Nintendo World Cup, which in turn was another Kunio-kun game.

So they're all related. Family related, even. No copies here.