The Classic PC Gaming Era (1977-1989) - Renegade III: The Final Chapter
You've got to try this insane PC-only threequel to the classic arcade game where you battle your way through time towards a bonkers ending sequence.
RELEASE DATE: 1989
DEVELOPER / PUBLISHER: ImagineSoft
PLAYABILITY TODAY: Fairly playable
BEST VERSIONS: Commodore 64
If you have ever enjoyed Double Dragon or River City Ransom, you may not realize both owe a significant debt to Technos and Taito’s 1986 classic Renegade, which also known as Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun in Japan where it was not only the first game to feature Kunio (the hero and mascot of a long line of games that followed), but also established the mechanics of the arcade beat ‘em up such as the horizontal/vertical belt scroll, a multi-button control system and combat combos. Unfortunately, when the game was localized for the west, it underwent significant changes including moving the setting to Brooklyn, replacing many of the sprites to fit a Hollywood aesthetic and removing the names from the characters. Whereas Kunio was fighting for the honor of his friend, the hero of the rechristened Renegade was fighting to save his girlfriend from evil gangs.
Despite the changes, however, the game was still great, and it not only enjoyed popularity as an arcade game but also on the PC through numerous ports. In North America, those ports were published by Taito and were handled by a couple of developers. But Ocean had the rights to many of the European platforms, and it released its own excellent take on the game for platforms including the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and Atari ST, developed in conjunction with Imagine Software.
While Technos and Taito moved Kunio on to other games, Ocean and Imagine created a 1988 sequel to the westernized version of the game called Target: Renegade, which was notable on the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC for providing a great beat ‘em up experience that could also accommodate one or two players at a time. Today, it’s one of the most celebrated games in the ZX Spectrum’s library, in part because it manages to surpass the Commodore 64 and NES versions in many ways and because it’s better than the Spectrum’s lousy port of Double Dragon.
I’ll pause here and say I definitely recommend Target: Renegade for modern players, and while it’s a bit dated (particularly on the Spectrum), its simple mechanics and brevity make it a fun experience overall.
And yet I’ve instead chosen to feature the third game in the westernized series, Renegade III: The Final Chapter, in part because I couldn’t stop laughing as I played it. It’s an entirely unserious take on the genre (quite similar in style to the 2015 short film Kung Fury), and it’s a blast because of it. While Renegade and Target: Renegade focused on offering the same gritty, crime-ridden big city aesthetic that came to typify the beat ‘em up genre, Renegade III decided to instead toss its hero into the prehistoric era, ancient Egypt, the Middle Ages and, oddest of all, some sort of space alien-powered future on the moon where the Renegade’s girlfriend has been taken.
It gets weirder still. In the prehistoric era, you fight squat, hairy, club-wielding cavemen seemingly modeled after the cartoon character Captain Caveman and dinosaurs who walk around upright, spoiling for a fistfight. In Egypt, you’re not only battling mummies and their babies, but also soldiers dressed like Anubis who are patrolling around a pyramid. In the Middle Ages, you face an onslaught of sword-wielding knights, flying gargoyles and grinning jesters. And then, once you finally get to the future, you’re overwhelmed by robots, flying saucers and creepy-looking aliens until suddenly, out of nowhere, a time machine appears and you walk inside. In the ZX Spectrum version, you learn you’re trapped in the future due to the machine being broken, but in the Commodore 64 version, the game instead explains that your girlfriend rescued herself, found a time machine and has come back to rescue you. “Well, it was good fun, wasn’t it?” the game asks.
And honestly, yes, it totally is. Renegade III is a brief game that can be completed in under a half an hour, but it’s so ridiculous and focused on fun that it’s an easy recommendation. In its own way, Renegade III fits in with the similarly offbeat games centered around Kunio-kun and Nekketsu High. While I like the Commodore 64 version better and feel it’d appeal more easily to a modern gamer, the ZX Spectrum version is quite good for what it is and shouldn’t be overlooked, though its gameplay can be a little bit more frustrating.
As Our Series Continues…
In the coming weeks, we’ll talk about fighting games, gameroom games, puzzle games, unusual games and so much more.
And while you’ll definitely see some titles from prominent North American publishers like Sierra On-Line, Infocom, Activision, Electronic Arts, Brøderbund, SSI, MicroProse, Lucasfilm Games, Epyx and Sir-Tech in the mix, you’ll also see references to games from the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Spain and Japan.
If you’ve missed the earlier entries in the series, which cover ASCII games, adventure games, wargames, strategy games and role-playing games, you can find the entire archive at https://greatestgames.substack.com.
Anything I don’t share here will be in my upcoming book, tentatively titled The Greatest Games You (Probably) Never Played Vol. 1. Subscribe to this newsletter so you won’t miss it!