The fans of retro beat ’em ups will soon have an abundance of games to play, as Arc System Works has announced Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun Retro Bundle Brawler for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, including games that have never been released outside of Japan before.
Double Dragon is one of the most famous beat ’em up franchises of all time, and it codified the genre of walking around city streets and beating up thugs. Kunio-Kun is a long-running franchise in Japan centered around rival high school gangs. The Kunio-Kun franchise did appear in the west during the ’80s and ’90s, but these were heavily reworked to downplay the Japanese setting and were transformed into games like Renegade and Super Dodge Ball.
Arc System Works is bringing eighteen games from the Double Dragon and Kunio-Kun series to modern systems, as the company has announced Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun Retro Brawler Bundle for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. What makes this collection so exciting is that eleven of the Kunio-Kun games are being localized into English for the first time. The games that will appear in Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun Retro Brawler Bundle are…
- DOUBLE DRAGON (1987) DOUBLE DRAGON II: The Revenge (1988) DOUBLE DRAGON III: The Sacred Stones (1990) Renegade (1986) Super Dodge Ball (1988) River City Ransom (1989) Crash’n the Boys Street Challenge (1992) Nekketsu Renegade Kunio-kun Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club Downtown Nekketsu Stor 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
The beat ’em up genre faded away over the years, as it lost prominence in the arcades due to competitive fighting games. The fact that beat ’em ups were generally short meant that they didn’t have as much appeal in the home console market in comparison to regular fighting games either.
It’s possible that the beat ’em up genre is due for a comeback, as Streets of Rage 4 is currently in development, and River City Girls received a positive response when it was released in 2019. Fans of retro beat ’em ups will soon have a chance to enjoy retro titles that stayed in Japan, as Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun Retro Brawler Bundle will be available soon.
Source: Arc System Works, Arc System Works/Twitter
