Renegade

It is 2 A.M., the wrong time to be on the subway alone. They have got clubs, chains, blades, and your girlfriend. Fight your way through four stages of scum, and maybe, just maybe, you will be able to rescue your love if you can take out the BIG BOSS. Fans of Double Dragon should find this a fun distraction.

The game plays like Double Dragon II but it does not have the large battlefields, the ability to pick up weapons or the cooperative simultaneous play features that helped make the Double Dragon series so popular in the United States. On the other hand, Renegade does not suffer from program slowdowns. It's considerably more challenging and faster-paced than Double Dragon and sports some unique, brutal moves. You can attack a downed enemy by raining-down punches upon him. Enemies can be hurled into one another in order to clear a path to safety.

On the first two levels, try to throw the baddies off of the platforms. Also, to kill the third boss, run away from her and hit the kick button repeat. When fighting the knife gang on the final stage, if you are stabbed even once, you will die. The safest way to defeat them is with dashing punches. Never engage a single enemy or stick around in one place too long, otherwise you will eat steel.

The original Japanese version of Renegade, entitled Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun, has many cultural differences with its American counterpart. The main character, instead of a street fighter, is a Japanese school student named Kunio and rather than rescuing a kipnapped girlfriend, Kunio must beat-up gangs from rival schools who are always picking on Kunio's brother. Most of the sprites in Kunio-kun have been changed in one way or another for Renegade: the train station of level 1 became a subway all of the students have been modified to look more like thugs and Kunio's brother has been entirely replace by a damsel in distress.

Kunio-kun was so popular in Japan that it has spawned countless of spinoffs for the Famicom, Super Famicom, PC Engine, Game Boy, etc. One of these titles is Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari which is the Japanese version of the NES cult hit River City Ransom.

LICENSOR: Technos
This game is an Americanized version of Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-Kun and it is actually Double Dragon's predecessor.

The game was converted to Spectrum, Amstrad, Commodore 64 1987 and Amiga early 90's by Imagine/Ocean Software.

Imagine/Ocean also released two unofficial sequels for the Spectrum, Amstrad and Commodore, entitled "Target: Renegade", 1988 and "Renegade 3, The Final Chapter" 1989.

The game uses a 6502 CPU and a 68705 microcontroller for processing and a 6809 for its sound CPU.