| paleface [sys=PS4; cat=Action_Variety; reg=JPN] |
| | | A collection of all the Famicom AND NES games by Technos Japan starring their "Kunio" high school character, plus the three NES Double Dragon games. You can opt to play the games without the original hardware's excessive sprite flickering and stuff ("QualityUp" versions); although this is a Japan-only release, the Collection's menus are all in English.
As far as I can tell/remember, the games play great; this collection is a real treat. I'll admit that for the most part the Kunio games are just a bit too wild and crazy for me to hang with--and I'm intimidated at the thought of trying to get through River City Ransom, but maybe I'll work up the dedication for that *some* day--but even the ones I downright dislike are at least interesting to check out. And the first two Double Dragon NES games are STILL great beat 'em up fun, even if you can't continue : P (actually have to get good, I guess, ack!).
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| | | | I made videos of each of the games in the collection: (on my smbhax2000 YouTube channel). |
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| | | | A later release called "DOUBLE DRAGON & Kunio-kun Retro Brawler Bundle" for the first time included full English localization of the 11 Japan-only Famicom releases; in this "World Classics" collection, their in-game text is still Japanese-only. |
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| | | The English names of the 11 JP-only FC games, as given on https://arcsystemworks.com/game/double-dragon-kunio-kun-retro-brawler-bundle/ , are:
– 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 |
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"Double Dragon II: The Revenge"
I started out on easy ("Practice") but uh that only goes a few levels so I had to restart on medium ("Warrior") and it turns out that doesn't let you fight the final final boss or whatever. Oh well. : P
You get back to the difficulty selection menu after entering the continue code, so it LOOKS like I could load my last medium difficulty save, die, enter the continue code, pick the hard difficulty, and in theory get to the true final battles and ending. ... I'm not currently feeling motivated to do that; the boss fights in the initial ending weren't very fun.
But I suppose if I were ever going to play the game again, it would be picking up from a save near the medium ending there, because I sure as heck don't ever want to go through those platforming parts earlier in the enemy base. They aren't nearly as bad in Naxat Soft's later PC Engine version, which is much more generous with lives, has more responsive controls, and omits some parts entirely, like that hellacious locomotive at the end of mission 5.
But the actual fighting is better in this Technos Japan NES version. Punchier and crunchier.
Weapons disappear as soon as the batch of enemies who dropped them disappear. : PP
I played in 2P Play B mode to steal my brother's lives, and did have to use the continue code that I found on GameFAQs--just before reaching the end of the medium difficulty game, it turned out.
You enter that later levels continue code with the 2P controller, just because the game is sort of mean. This was slightly complicated by this Japanese-region PS4 game reading the X and O buttons backwards on the game's input config screen when playing under my US profile on my US PS4!
I'm glad I didn't have this game without save states on the NES as kid, the whole end section would have been pure digital torture (or really, most sections after mid mission 4!); I probably wouldn't have known the continue code (which turned out to be pretty generous, starting you at the beginning of the last level you reached--I sure didn't have to save-scum painfully for as long as I did here), but even if I had, I would have inevitably entered it wrong at some point and had to restart from the beginning of the game--like the easy difficulty setting makes you do after just the first room of the airship level. : p
I missed being able to throw enemies into other enemies like you can in the PC Engine version.
I hadn't noticed before, but all of the I think five screen sizes from which the collection lets you choose are very slightly blurry. Phooey. (I was playing in 4:3 Zoom mode this time.) And the control is pretty laggy, but it's less so in the QualityUp version, which I guess suggests that the amount of lag is an intended part of the emulation? I don't have an actual NES with which to compare it. |
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