Double Dragon/Kunio Retro Brawler Bundle (All in English)

[ZenithianHero]

Arc System Works is localizing all the Japan only Kunio-Kun games from their recent Kunio-Kun World Classics Collection.

www.gematsu.com/2020/02/double-dragon-kunio-kun-retro-brawler-bundle-coming-west-for-ps4-and-switch-on-february-20

Feb 20 on PS4 and Switch. No news on the XBOX One and PC version. Appears Digital only for now.

Titles:

Double Dragon Series
Double Dragon (1987)
Double Dragon II: The Revenge (1988)
Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones (1990)


Kunio-kun Series
Renegade (1986)
Super Dodge Ball (1988)
River City Ransom (1989)
Crash’n the Boys Street Challenge (1992)

Kunio-kun Series (Published only in Japan, first time localized in NA)
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

[Snake]

Damn you digital-only! I want a physical disc! But still cool, all the same. But these are all NES/Famicom release? It would be a nice bonus if they included the arcade versions for Renegade, Double Dragon, etc.

[ZenithianHero]

Famicom only for both series. You can already play the Arcade versions of Double Dragon 1 and 2 under Arcade Archives.
There's a dozen more Kunio games between Game Boy and SNES. I would love for them to make a follow-up collection.

[shelverton]

One of those Kunio games was actually Nintendo World Cup, right? The Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club Soccer perhaps. Didn’t that come to the US?

How many of the Kunio games are actually ”retro brawlers”?

[🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀]

I was thinking of making RCR or Double Dragon my next NES purchase, but now I see I might have to reconsider.

Cool to see them localize a bunch of old games for the first time. More companies should do stuff like that.

Feb 6, 2020 5:56:52 GMT -5 shelverton said:

One of those Kunio games was actually Nintendo World Cup, right? The Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club Soccer perhaps. Didn’t that come to the US?

How many of the Kunio games are actually ”retro brawlers”?

I think on the NES there's only like two or three.

Nintendo World Cup I thought only came to Europe. but looking it up, it was also released in the US I see. I've got in for the EU NES, but I remember not liking it at all.

[Snake]

Seems like half the Nekketsu games are sports games or mini-game/obstacle courses.

I feel like Nintendo World Cup/Nekketsu Soccer was one of those very few games that actually could make use of the NES Satellite/Fourscore for 4-Player SIMULTANEOUS GAMEPLAY~!~!~!!!!

Pity there weren't many quality 4-player games. Nightmare on Elm Street was hardly "good."

[shelverton]

Speaking of which; Wasn’t Swords & Serpents a 4 player game? I never thought about it back then. I can’t imagine how you would play a game like that with three friends?

[ZenithianHero]

For reference, the original localized NES titles come with new translated versions.

Nekketsu Renegade Kunio-kun - Renegade
Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club - Super Dodge Ball
Downtown Nekketsu Story - River City Ransom
Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club – Soccer Story - Nintendo World Cup (this version not included)
Downtown Nekketsu March Super-Awesome Field Day! - Newly translated
Downtown Special Kunio-kun’s Historical Period Drama! - Newly translated
Go-Go! Nekketsu Hockey Club Slip-and-Slide Madness - Newly translated
Surprise! Nekketsu New Records! The Distant Gold Medal - Crash’n the Boys Street Challenge
Nekketsu Fighting Legend - Newly translated
Kunio-kun’s Nekketsu Soccer League - Newly translated
Nekketsu! Street Basketball All-Out Dunk Heroes - Newly translated

[toei]

Also, most if not all of the newly-translated games have a complete fan-translation. 

[ZenithianHero]

I compared Historical Period Drama's new translation to the fan-translation and Arc System Works properly named the characters. Kunio is Kunimasa as intended for that game. How accurate are some of those?

EDIT
Gematsu was showing a few videos that is where I got my info.

[spanky]

This would have blown my mind 20 years ago at the height of my NES collecting when I learned that was a whole WORLD of of Kunio games that the west was missing out on. Still pretty pumped for this.

[shelverton]

Maybe it’s the ”retro brawler” title that seems a little misleading to me, but after giving it some thought I still feel like this is a very cool collection even for those of us who aren’t necessarily into sports games. It’s not like these are FIFA or Madden after all. I expect Limited Run to swoop in on this sooner or later, cause there will undoubtedly be a demand for physical copies...

[ZenithianHero]

Feb 8, 2020 8:27:26 GMT -5 shelverton said:

Maybe it’s the ”retro brawler” title that seems a little misleading to me, but after giving it some thought I still feel like this is a very cool collection even for those of us who aren’t necessarily into sports games. It’s not like these are FIFA or Madden after all. I expect Limited Run to swoop in on this sooner or later, cause there will undoubtedly be a demand for physical copies...

For what its worth, the two track and field games (Crash'n the Boys and Field Day) have beat em up elements to them. Field Day you are just pummeling each other the whole time.

[toei]

ZenithianHero The old Samurai Special fan-translation was a bit crappy, being a very old patch released back when standards where lower, and it's definitely not focused on accuracy since WildBill edited the text. It wasn't as bad as in a lot of later fan-translations in which he was involved, though, since the game doesn't have a ton of text compared to a SNES RPG. Really, the biggest problem with that game was the awful slowdowns, which were just constant. I hope they fix that, more than anything.