I hate the name because I can never remember the whole thing, but I’ve said before that Double Dragon & Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle is one of the most important retro collections to be released in North America in recent years. If you’re reading this and haven’t played it, you should.

We got a few of the Nekketsu/Kunio-Kun/Downtown/River City games on NES – most notably, Super Dodge Ball and River City Ransom – but a tremendous number remained in Japan on the Famicom. It was a hugely prolific series for the console, and most of them are great. Even if they’re not great (none are particularly polished), they are packed with personality and creative energy. The Double Dragon & Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle seemed unlikely that it was going to release in North America because of the sheer amount of translation work that would be needed. But then it did, and that’s amazing. Now you can play Ganbare Dunk Heroes in English.

I’m not sure it sold very well, and I feel that was indicated by the fact that they started selling the titles piecemeal and then abruptly stopped. But maybe that’s because you’re either entirely in or entirely out with Nekketsu/Kunio-Kun/Downtown/River City.

In any case, I thought it was a lost cause that we’d see the follow-up Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics over here, but the same day it was announced the North American version was confirmed, so you know what they say when you assume. This one collects the Super Famicom Kunio-Kun games, giving them full English translations. It also includes some other Technos games to fill out the package. Rad, even in the fact that it exists.

Because I’ve had so much success with this format, I will now give you a small review of every game in the package. I may later circle back and do full reviews of any of these games, so let me know if there’s on you want to hear more about. This is in the order listed on Nintendo’s store page.

RIVER CITY RENEGADE

Released in Japan as Shodai: Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun, this is sometimes considered to be a SNES follow-up to River City Ransom. It’s kind of like that, except complete crap. It sucks all the fun out of the RPG-brawler-shopping game format with a septic hose.

It involves Nekketsu High going to Osaka and getting embroiled in a war between two factions of local high schools. It’s the plot of so much Japanese media. Kunio goes from station to station along a subway line, beating people up. Not just high school students, either, but, like, Salarymen. 

That’s all fine, but now imagine River City Ransom if most of it took place in a sewer, the combat sucked, it had the pace of a glacier before its morning coffee, and most of the shopping was taken out. For good measure, make the UI just as unwieldy as before. The art style is really uneven, as well. What bothers me the most is they made Kunio’s school uniform look several sizes too big for him. He looks like David Bryne from Talking Heads wearing that ridiculously big suit of his.

KUNIO’S DODGEBALL TIME, C’MON GUYS!

This one was Kunio-kun no Dodge Ball da yo: Zenin Shūgo in Japan. It’s sort of rad on the surface in the fact that it’s largely just an SNES version of Super Dodgeball. However, it’s extremely unbalanced as you can pump up your players and stroll through your opponents like they’re nothing. If there was some care given to the game’s progression, it would have been miles better. C’mon, guys…

DOWNTOWN RIVER CITY BASEBALL STORY

I imported this game as Downtown Nekketsu Baseball Monogatari because I love Kunio Basketball and I love Kunio Hockey. I wondered what the series could do for baseball.

Not a lot, it seems. For basketball, they stacked three hoops on top of each other. Here, it’s essentially just a slightly more aggressive form of baseball. It’s nine innings a game and it plays excruciatingly slow. It’s so drab that I couldn’t stand to play it for very long, which is unfortunate.

KUNIO’S ODEN

This is a weird match-’em-up, falling block puzzle game spin-off known as Kunio no Oden in Japan. I barely know what to say about this game aside from “I hope this was released as a bargain game.” it’s tremendously insubstantial. It doesn’t have much visual flair, there isn’t really a creative twist to it, and it’s just kind of there. It’s not bad, but you probably own dozens of better, similar games.

THE COMBATRIBES

This came out in North America. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be Combat Ribes or Comba Tribes, but the clerk at my formerly local video game dispensary and I decided on Combatribés. It’s a unique beat-’em-up where you play as a huge dude who brutally swats away swarms of smaller dudes until a bigger dude shows up.

It’s fun. I wish the arcade version was first on this list, because there’s a distinct difference that is worth noting. However, I’ll just say you have limited continues on the SNES version, so it’s easy to get far into the game, but difficult to actually finish it. There are also a lot of limitations from it being on a weaker platform, but it’s still pretty fun. Not entirely a mindless bemup, but one where you get to really let loose on thugs.

SUGOROQUEST++ -DICENICS-

I guess this is the trade-off for us getting this collection in North America despite how niche it is. Two of the games included haven’t been translated, and they’re the ones that need it the most. Sugoroquest++ is one of them. It’s a cross between a board game and an RPG. It can be played competitively, and seems like it would be fun with a few friends. You know, if you could comprehend it.

Truthfully, you could probably feel your way through a lot of it if you gave it some time. That’s more than can be said about the next game.

DUNQUEST

Dunquest is the other included game that is still in Japanese. Worse, it’s an action RPG, so there’s lots of text just to get to the gameplay. From what I can glean, it’s a bit like a Mystery Dungeon game. I don’t know, there isn’t a tonne of information online that I can find, and my Japanese comprehension only got me to the combat. I didn’t really explore much past that.

SUPER DODGE BALL

If there’s one enticing reason to get this collection, it’s Super Dodge Ball. Wait, why is that two words in this instance? Whatever. This isn’t to be confused with Super Dodgeball or the other dodgeball on here. This one released for the NEOGEO MVS hardware (I think this is the AES version, which is only slightly different). This did come out in North America, but for hardware that basically nobody owned, and this is the first time it’s been ported since (that I know of).

It’s pretty far out. It’s three-on-three, and rather than conform to the old art style, the characters have been giving a complete manga-like makeover. Power throws are performed by doing fighting game-style stick combinations, and it now includes team attacks when your super gauge is full. You can tell it’s a NEOGEO game because it makes heavy use of the hardware’s scaling capabilities to keep zooming in and out of the action, which might be nauseating to some.

It’s great. Kind of short-lived, but great. This was the last Technos-era Kunio/Nekketsu/Downtown/River City game (that I know of), so it was quite the way for it to go out. It makes me wish Technos had hung on for longer, because if this was the vision they had for the series going forward, I’d be on board. Ganbare Dunk Heroes in this art style? Yeah.

XAIN’D SLEENA

Whatever that means. It was called Solar Warrior in arcades apparently, so I’m not sure why they didn’t use that title.

It’s a pretty clunky run-and-gun. Also, rather challenging. Also, not great. Maybe I need to give this one another fair shake, but I don’t think I’m going to discover a game that is secretly better than Metal Slug.

CHINA GATE

I’ve already reviewed China Gate in full, so I’m going to take credit for it being on this collection. Clearly, my review resulted in a wave of interest that Arc System Works is capitalizing on.

Real talk: it’s okay. Short, but in the context of this collection, that’s maybe not a terrible thing. There’s a charming edge to its art style, and it’s modestly fun. Not something that really stands out in the collection, but worth trying out, at least.

THE COMBATRIBES (Arcade)

So, now we get to the arcade version of Combatribés. It’s a lot like the SNES version, but with a few differences. First, there are more enemies. The graphics are more detailed. The levels are bigger, but that doesn’t really matter. Most importantly, the health bar is like Gauntlet. Each credit you pop in adds to a big numeral, rather than a separate life. For some reason, I don’t like this approach. Not entirely sure why, but I find it somewhat deceptive. Not worth articulating, though.

Again, it’s a decent bemup. The best part of it is the brutality of some of the moves, like mashing an enemy’s face into the concrete. Worth a try.

SHADOW FORCE

Shadow Force is a rather clunky beat-’em-up, especially for 1993. In a post-Final Fight world, we deserved better, especially from the company behind Double Dragon.

There’s a diverse cast of characters to play as, but the real hook is the ability to take the form of most of the enemies. However, doing so doesn’t really seem to have any advantage. Functionally, you’ve just changed characters. You don’t get a separate health bar or anything. So, I’m not sure what the point is.

It’s not the worst bemup I’ve played, but that’s about as far as I’d go in terms of praise.

IN SUMMARY

We’re net negative in terms of games that are enjoyable in this collection. To be fair, Arc System Works priced it lower than they did Double Dragon & Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle. It’s cheaper than a Taito Milestones and better value than an Irem Collection. It’s twelve(ish) games for the price of three-ish Arcade Archives releases. Wait, why am I doing all this math?

I’m happy that Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics exists, because I don’t want the best Kunio-Kun/Nekketsu/Downtown/River City games. I want all the Kunio-Kun/Nekketsu/Downtown/River City games. This gets us closer. It’s maybe as close as we’ll get, since – and I know what I said about assumption – I don’t see us getting the Genesis/Mega Drive, PC-Engine, and Game Boy versions in a collection. Please, prove me wrong once again, Arc System Works.

So, this collection is for a very specific kind of person. Someone like me. It would be for a much broader range of people if DunQuest and SurgoroQuest++ were translated. It would also be better if Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-tachi no Banka was here, but that was licensed to WayForward to release as River City Girls Zero. That’s nice, but without it here, the whole thing feels lopsided.

At least there’s NEOGEO Super Dodge Ball, which almost makes the whole thing worth it.

5/10

This review was conducted using a digital Switch version of the game. It was paid for by the author.