Considering that this is one of the first beat 'em ups ever made, there's an impressive array of fighting maneuvers at your disposal. You can punch, kick, run and jump kick. Running can be combined with kick or punch. Getting close to an enemy will allow you to grab them and from there you can either knee them or throw them over your shoulder. You can also sit on top of a downed opponent and punch them while down for some extra brutality. While it's cool that there's so many different moves, there's an issue with the control scheme which we'll get into next...
The punch and kick buttons reverse depending on which way you're facing; punch will be your forward attack and the kick will strike enemies behind you. This probably sounded good on paper and I can see what they were going for when implementing this, but ultimately my brain can just never become accustomed to this design choice. There were several times when in the heat of a battle I'll find myself accidentally throwing a kick instead of a punch which inevitably resulted in getting whooped. This had me resorting to non-stop jump kicks throughout my play in the game, which worked but was hardly the most engaging beat 'em up gameplay.
Renegade features 4 missions, each consisting of several screens. The level layouts are simple, consisting of a small area where enemies will come in from either side of the screen. Once all enemies are defeated, you'll move on to the next screen and repeat. Mission 2 has a unique section where you hop onto a motorcycle and drive to the next destination, battling against the enemy punks on their bikes along the way. You can throw a kick while on your bike and lining it up properly will knock the enemy off his bike. Stage 3 goes back to the standard formula of simply beating everybody up but the 4th and final stage presents a new challenge in the form of a maze. After clearing a screen, you'll have several doors to choose from and you'll only be able to face the final boss if you manage to go through the proper doorways. Do yourself a favor and look up the solution beforehand, as this part can be a bit confusing and will continue to loop until you eventually either die or choose the right combination.
Renegade was downgraded quite heavily in the transition from arcade to home port. The arcade features larger sprites with more color and detail, as well as the ability to have more fighters on the screen at once. The backgrounds took a massive hit as well, with the detailed backdrops of the arcade looking quite plain & boring on the home port. The music and sound design are downgraded as well, with the NES port completely ditching the digitized speech samples of the arcade version. The music doesn't sound near as good and neither do the cracks of your fists. Overall the NES version did a decent job of giving an approximation of the arcade game (for the time at least) and while it is a decent title, the arcade original is far superior. If the NES port is somehow the only way you've experienced Renegade, please do yourself a favor and look into the arcade version (which was released by Hamster under the Arcade Classics series for the PS4 and Switch, but sadly not on the Xbox One).
Renegade was an early NES release and just an arcade port at that, so there's not much for options or modes available here. You can play 1 or 2 players and the difficulty can be adjusted between 3 levels. On the higher levels, there will be more enemies and they are tougher to beat. As far as options for this new port, you have the same stuff we had in River City Ransom (or any of these I.T.L. ports). You can edit the screen size, background, scanlines and for some reason add reverb to the sound. There's also a manual included, which is a nice touch and lets you look up all the moves (not that any of them are that complicated). There's also an option for online play, which allows you to create or search for an online game. It's highly unlikely you'll find a random player online, so be prepared to coordinate with a friend if you plan to play this one online.
Buy Renegade - Microsoft Store
Beat 'em Up Games - Xbox Overview
No comments:
Post a Comment