Renegade
1986 · Beat 'em up · Arcade
Overview
Renegade (1986) is Yoshihisa Kishimoto's street-fighting game, called the first fully developed beat 'em up, which led directly to Double Dragon.
Deep Dive
A belt-scrolling brawler played with an eight-way joystick and three buttons, in which the player fights through street gangs. In the Western version he takes on four gangs to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend. For the West the game was restyled after the 1979 film The Warriors, and the Japanese delinquents and yakuza became generic street gangs.
Developer Story
Yoshihisa Kishimoto designed the game at Technos Japan, and it reached Japanese arcades in May 1986, with Taito publishing it in the West. The Famicom version, released in April 1987, sold around 400,000 copies, and the game became the basis for Double Dragon (1987).
Did You Know?
- In Japan it is Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun.
- Kishimoto drew partly on his own high-school fights and on Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon.
- Ocean's home computer version topped the UK all-formats chart in September 1987.
Sources & further reading
- Renegade (video game) — Wikipedia
