Update - Thu 6th Feb, 2020 00:45 GMT: Exactly a week later, Arc System Works has made the western release of the Double Dragon & Kunio-kun Retro Brawler Bundle official. It will arrive on the Switch in North America on 20th February.
Here's the rundown via the official game site:
DOUBLE DRAGON & Kunio-kun Retro Brawler Bundle, consists of 18 titles including 7 DOUBLE DRAGON and Kunio-kun vintage games from the 80’s and 90’s, and all 11 Kunio-kun classic titles from the Family Computer Disk System that have been localized into English for the first time ever. Game genres vary from side-scrolling action, beat-’em-up, sports, and action RPG. Online play mode is available for all titles, and a total of 55 in-game missions are waiting for you to obtain nicknames and avatars to show off to your friends! Can you complete all the games?
And here is the full list of games, including 11 Famicom titles which have been localised in English for the first time ever:
Double Dragon Series
- Double Dragon (1987)
- Double Dragon II: The Revenge (1988)
- Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones (1990)
Kunio-kun Series
- Renegade (1986)
- Super Dodge Ball (1988)
- River City Ransom (1989)
- Crash’n the Boys Street Challenge (1992)
Kunio-kun Series (Published only in Japan, first time localized in NA)
- Nekketsu Renegade Kunio-kun
- Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club
- Downtown Nekketsu Story
- Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club – Soccer Story
- Downtown Nekketsu March Super-Awesome Field Day!
- Downtown Special Kunio-kun’s Historical Period Drama!
- Go-Go! Nekketsu Hockey Club Slip-and-Slide Madness
- Surprise! Nekketsu New Records! The Distant Gold Medal
- Nekketsu Fighting Legend
- Kunio-kun’s Nekketsu Soccer League
- Nekketsu! Street Basketball All-Out Dunk Heroes
Original Story - Thu 30th Jan, 2020 07:30 GMT: It was only last week we were saying how underrepresented the Kunio-kun series was, and now this week it's been discovered the Kunio-kun: The World Classics Collection will seemingly be localised.
According to a tweet by Gematsu, this information comes from the PSN info database Gamstat, which lists the same collection as the "Double Dragon & Kunio-kun Retro Brawler Bundle" and includes the above image. The original version of this collection was made available for the Switch, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in Japan, so a release on Nintendo's system locally appears to be highly likely.
Below is a look at the original game, which includes a mixture of Kunio-kun and Double Dragon experiences, ranging from sports to more traditional beat 'em up action.
Is this the collection you've been waiting for? Let us know.
[source tinycartridge.com]
Comments 60
If it includes all those games shown in the picture then it should be a pretty cool collection.
It was called Nintendo World Cup here, but I really loved that one. My brother and I had bought River City Ransom after making money at a garage sale, so that game always has a place in my heart. I never got a chance to try the hockey game, so this collection looks interesting.
Correction - as pointed out below, the game in this collection is not Nintendo World Cup, but possibly the sequel. Regardless, World Cup was great and I'd be interested in this collection.
AAAAAAAAHHHHHH! This upcoming direct will be the best direct. I've been wanting this one a lot for a while now.
That’s cool. I highly recommend it to fans of Kunio-kun. I won’t double dip though.
I got the Asia release last year and it's really good. However, a few games are tough to play. I would definitely pick up this version if it's true.
I hope this is tied to a Direct or something. It would be great to hear from Nintendo now that the holiday season is over and we are firmly into 2020.
Hooray waves a wee flag
@cptspaulding you’re right! I played the heck out of world cup with a friend, we were talking about that game last month even...
The eyes popping out when tackling was so much fun for me as a kid
If that game will be on the collection, it’s an instabuy for me. Most of the other games are already on NSonline, but not that one
Looks like a very good collection of games. Double Dragon, both arcade and NES versions
That's a whole lotta Bimmy, a whole lotta Jimmy and a whole lotta barf!
Oh, bugger. I specifically waited for a restock of the Asian version as I wanted the English packaging. I only wanted this for the Double Dragon trilogy on cartridge, though I found myself playing one of the River City games in the collection last weekend.
The Japanese/Asian version included English support from day one for those interested. Bear in mind though that only seven (or so) games are presented in English, while the rest are presented with their original Japanese ROMs only (with the titles of the games transliterated in the software menu).
The GUI of the package also looks very similar to the NES/SNES mini, which makes me wonder why we haven't seen more retro collections like this on Switch.
According to the above graphic, it looks like they may have localised the Japanese exclusive ROMs, which may very well be the first time that most of these games will leave Japan, which we don't see happen often enough due to the age of the games and the lack of appeal for most audiences nowadays. It would also explain why the Japanese version hadn't been released in the West when the software already had English support from day dot.
If the ROMs have in fact been localised, I will double-dip only if there is a physical release.
This is unexpected but welcome news! I'm pretty surprised that they would actually go through the effort of translating all the Japan-only games, but I'm not complaining!
As a fan of the series I'm happy more people gets to own this collection, but as an early buyer I'd hate that this version included more games than the Japanese one.
But anyway, I hope there's a new collection with the SNES and Game Boy games.
I don't know it the previously non translated games will come translated this time, it would certainly be a lot of effort for such a niche release, but I'm pretty sure it will be digital only.
@alexybubble what upcoming direct??
@Rodan2000 We all know it will happen. It just hasn't been announced yet.
@alexybubble fingers crossed. I thought I’d missed the announcement!
In for a potential Switch physical and Steam digital.
@Moroboshi876 : Yes! I would LOVE a collection with the Game Boy Double Dragon games. I was bummed that the latter games were never released in the 3DS eShop.
I loved Double Dragon as a kid. I remember spending over £5 at 10p a go on the arcade (I'm very old) and coming out physically sweating at the end of it.
I’ll All over double dragon on cart. Yes please
@Silly_G Well, not only that, because there are other Nekketsu sports games on Game Boy with some differences from NES ones. And on the SNES we have 5 games, 2 of them -including the famous Kunio-tachi no Banka- beat'em ups -of which there aren't so many in the entire Kunio-kun franchise actually-, a baseball game, Dodgeball's sequel and a puzzle game (Kunio no Oden). That would make a nice collection with a dozen games at least.
But I don't really expect that to see the light, because the collections usually take mainly Famicom games into account.
I’d been thinking about buying Renegade off the shop so I’ll get this instead.
Unless it is physical I am passing.I would like to have it though. It would be a shame
@DockEllisD Ah, I've just realised one thing though: That picture has most of the game images repeated three times, so there's nowhere near as many games in the pic as it first seemed.
Day one for me!
I don't think there's anything for me here. I would, however, be interested in some of the Super Famicom games, namely Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-tachi no Banka.
I need to know if they localized all the missing titles... if they did this is a must buy.
@DockEllisD so only 4 of the 14 have english? i have the collection but it is still sealed
@DockEllisD thanks for the info, im keeping this one sealed and wait for the western release, thanks !!
The makers of River City Girls should be proud. There game did what River City Underground couldn't: made Kunio-kun relevant in the west!
Make sure to be Physical otherwise I will pass on this.
"Online play mode is available for all titles.."
That's all I needed to know. Sold!
Hopefully the Japanese version gets a patch with the English in the famicom games
The localisation of the 11 Japanese exclusive games is pretty big news.
It's also interesting that the Western release is putting Double Dragon front and centre of the title and package even though the Double Dragon games were only intended to serve as a bonus to the Kunio-kun games that otherwise comprise the rest of the package.
You'd think that the Western release would have included a few more Double Dragon games from the era to round out the package, such as the Game Boy versions of the games (only the first of the Game Boy games was ever released as a 3DS VC port). There was even a Battletoads crossover on Game Boy.
@dewokkel Where does it say it has the arcade version?
Famicom version of Double Dragon isn't as good as the arcade version. Online co-op making up for it though.
GB version is kinda terrible but i understand why some people may want to play it for nostalgia purposes. GBA version was much better
Well, it's great news for those who were interested in the series and didn't grab the Japanese release back in December 2018, but for those who did, like me, it's a kick in the nuts. I don't think the Japanese physical copy will allow us to play the Western version, I guess that only works when the games are released simultaneously in all markets and digitally. But after taking the time to localize all these games it would be great that a patch with the translations was released for us early adopters. Who did expect to see this release in the West being such a niche thing? Nobody.
By the way, there are no arcade versions here. You guys can buy Double Dragon I & II and Renegade from Arcade Archives line, they're different versions and they're not included here.
Yeah the description on the eshop says they're all translated. Woop. Can't wait to play the football titles. Wish they'd release the neogeo dodgeball game
This is great news!!! This and the Mana Collection were the two games I wanted to be localized the most. Definitely going to be picking this one up.
Bit of a shame they haven't included the Super Famicom or Gameboy Kunio games.
Funny how the description says "Family Computer Disk System" when none of the DD or Kunio games were disk based.
This is another excellent colelction.
@Moroboshi876 cheers, I was just wondering if those was NES/Famicom only or if the Arcade versions were in there too, given how different the home ports of the original Kunio and DD games are (according to Wikipedia at least)
@gaga64 Yes, I haven't played any of the Double Dragon games (just Double Dragon II on Game Boy when I was a kid and didn't know that was actually a Kunio-kun game and not a D&D entry), but as far as I know the NES versions are different from the arcade originals and not just for the graphics (obviously worse). In fact, Double Dragon II for NES is considered superior to the arcade version for its gameplay.
As @ramu-chan said, it's a shame GB and SNES games are not included here, but they could do another collection -and they might as well include the Mega Drive and PC Engine versions of the game we know as Nintendo World Cup-. There are enough GB and SNES games in the series to do a decent new collection, IMHO.
@dewokkel arcade versions?
@Moroboshi876 Yeah the Nes version of Double Dragon 2 was fantastic. It wasn't just a beat'em up it had a lot of game design ideas and platforming that brought variety to the game. It was very creative. The flaws are the platforming gameplay is a little bit clunky and the beat'em up gameplay is kinda broken since you just have to spam your super moves like the hurricane kick or the super uppercut but the big enemies have broken moves too so it's kinda balanced lol. Double Dragon 3 on the Nes was a complete let down.
@cptspaulding Nintendo World Cup is a different game. I think it's the first Kunio football game and, for some reason, it's not on this collection. The one in this collection is the sequel.
@PiXeLSteF I’m sorry, I was misinformed. Too bad.
@anibalherrerab Thanks for the heads up on that!
@dewokkel did I miss something? Where do you see arcade and nes versions?
Will there be a physical copy?
Physical or digital only?
@TimboSlice Nah sorry, I was wrong. Wish it did though.
What are the good non English Kunio-Kun games?
Wow they won't stop pumping out Kunio-Kun... wasn't 3 in like 6 weeks enough for them? It would be a more desirable collection if it had Super Double Dragon IV or Switch Online didn't have the popular games.
I can't give them my money fast enough!!!
@WeirdoOfWierdos Wayforward is a great studio, so far non of their games have been awfull.
They technically made 2 games in the series so far: Double Dragon Neon and RiverCity Girls both great modernization of the series without trying to hard.
No Super Duper Double Dragon?
@tendonerd
I want the collection for the football games. I don't think nintendo ever re-released nintendo world cup, which I enjoyed as a kid. I like that they've got the quality up feature which gets rid of the flickering sprites.
So no patch for translation of the Japanese release, as I suspected.
No physical no sale.
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