IGC Retro Bowl III: Capcom Beat Em Up Bundle versus Double Dragon & Kunio-kun Retro Brawler Bundle

IN THIS CORNER
Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle
$19.99 for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PS4, & PC
7 Arcade Games released between 1989 – 1997
Set provided by a fan.

IN THE OTHER CORNER
Double Dragon & Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle
$39.99 for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4
18 NES/Famicom Games released between 1987 -1993
Set provided by publisher.

 

I’ve never been the biggest fan of brawlers as a genre. Sometimes they’re fine. I was fond of Castle Crashers. I was fond of Charlie Murder. Of course, those strive to be a little bit more than just holding right and mashing an attack button. I’ve probably gotten more hatred and blowback for my review of the Simpsons Arcade Game than any other classic review. But, despite my hesitance, sometimes I do want to just mindlessly beat up generic enemies. Of course, most of the more famous brawlers of the 90s are tied to licensed properties, so a Ninja Turtles set is out of the question (“or is it?” she said with a coy smirk). Well, it turns out there are options if you want to get as much brawler for your buck as possible. Or, in the case of Double Dragon & Kunio-kun, brawlers with sports games featuring punching and kicking added.

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Once upon a time, Final Fight was actually considered a pretty big deal. After being a moderate hit in arcades, it was a flagship third-party launch-window release for the Super NES. It’s more on the heels of that version than the arcade version included here that Final Fight’s legacy is built. Bizarre, since that version is so stripped down that it’s barely a shadow of the arcade original. It’s not even a two player game and enemies are limited to three on-screen, roughly 1/3 the maximum the arcade version that’s included in Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle can handle. I suspect that if Final Fight hadn’t been released within that relatively quiet first 18 months of the Super NES lifespan, it’d been almost entirely forgotten to history. It’s so.. generic.

And, speaking of generic, Captain Commando was, for whatever reason, a character Capcom was banking a lot on. If you bought early-generation NES games, you’d recognize it as a pseudo-mascot of the company that promoted the Capcom brand in instruction manuals. I guess some people were confused as to whether Captain Commando was, in fact, the star of Bionic Commando. That was cleared up when he finally got his own beat ’em up game. A game which feels like it’s trying way too hard to be wacky. A baby in a mech suit is a playable character. Mind you, a lot of my fans weren’t even aware a Captain Commando game existed. That was par for the course with the rest of the set. The King of Dragons and Knights of the Round were, at best, third-string arcade beat ’em ups turned weekend rentals on the Super NES. But, at least they were remembered. Warriors of Fate and Armored Warriors were barely remembered at all by virtue of not getting 16-bit home releases, while Battle Circuit never came out in the United States at home or in arcades. Without this set, they’d been lost to history completely.

Meanwhile, Double Dragon is still one of those “oh yea, I remember that” NES franchises that hasn’t had the strongest staying power. Modern takes on the series tend to get, at best, “meh, it wasn’t horrible” type of reviews. It’s not a franchise that causes universal elation with each new release. Meanwhile, Kunio-kun was once a huge deal.. in Japan. In the United States, it’s mostly remembered for three games: River City Ransom, Super Dodge Ball, and Nintendo World Cup. In reality, this series was huge on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. The Famicom version of Dodge Ball was so popular (and so easy to make) that multiple spin-offs were created of varying quality. The first soccer game was so viable that Nintendo published it under their own label in the United States and even included as a pack-in for the NES at one point.

The thing is, Double Dragon is one of those franchises that feel like its best days are long gone. Think about it: it was a series with such name recognition that it got a live action movie. But even when that movie came out in 1994, it was believed that the best days of Double Dragon were already behind it. Sure, the movie was crap, but it takes more than simply being bad to fail to the degree the Double Dragon film did. It’s telling that twenty-five years later and that belief that Double Dragon doesn’t matter has proven remarkably true. Double Dragon may have laid the groundwork for the genre, but it was irrelevant before it even left the 8-bit era, while Kunio-Kun had a cult-following at best. Compare that to Final Fight, a stripped-down port of a game that was as shallow as a puddle of spit to begin with, still making “best-of” lists. Hell, Capcom’s beat ’em up style is more iconic than any individual game in Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun’s set. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself what would make bigger headlines today, in 2020: the announcement of a new Double Dragon game, or the announcement of a completely new but completely generic 2D sprite-based brawler from Capcom? The Capcom announcement would be huge. The Double Dragon announcement? Not so much.
Slight Edge: Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle

PRESENTATION & EMULATION

Both collections have good emulation that features save states, multiple viewing options, button-mapping, and online play. Both, however, come a little bit short of perfection. Neither set has rewind, something that the Technōs set hurts for a lot more than the Capcom set, especially the Double Dragon games with their platforming sections despite being totally unfit to have such sections. The lack of rewind is especially damning since Double Dragon, Double Dragon II, River City Ransom, and Field Day (Famicom Online only) are on the superior Switch Online NES/Famicom emulator that has rewind. If I could give my friends at Arc System Works one piece of advice: figure out rewind and patch it in. It would take away the only competitive advantage Switch Online has over it.

And actually, Double Dragon/Kunio-Kun’s package isn’t as perfect as it looks on the surface. You do get tons of Famicom-exclusive games, but for the three Double Dragon games, you can only play the US versions. That sort of sucks since the Japanese versions tended to be more player-friendly. For example, you can play the entire adventure of Double Dragon II on Famicom no matter what difficulty setting. On the NES, easy mode ends after level 3 while normal mode gates you from fighting the last boss and getting the ending. Arc System Works went the extra mile with their set, but the thing about going the extra mile is sometimes you miss the small details for the mile you had to travel. Nonetheless, the variety of achievements, avatars, explanation cards, and ability to sort the eighteen games shows the type of effort Capcom doesn’t display in their set. The icing on the cake is that most (but not all) of the titles included in Retro Brawler Bundle remove some (but not all) of the flicker and slowdown inherit to NES hardware. What more can you ask for? Well, besides rewind..
Edge: Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun

EXTRA EFFORT

Both sets have grafted online play to their games, which is nifty. But beyond that, the amount of effort to show fans just how much their support is appreciated is a little lopsided. Capcom’s set has a selection of concept art and flyers. Meanwhile, the Kunio-Kun franchise was largely a Japanese-only series, and so Arc System Works translated all the Famicom games to English. This is no half-assed effort, either. They even went in and changed the graphics of the title screens into English. If the game already had an NES release, they still translated the Famicom version completely separately. These games weren’t quickie ports when they came to the US to begin with. The graphics and gameplay were often tweaked, so it’s truly like having two similar but often different versions of games like Nintendo World Cup, Super Dodge Ball, or Crash ‘N the Boys. So if you play the Japanese version of River City Ransom, you’ll get an entirely different script. If you play the Japanese Super Dodge Ball, you’ll get entirely different graphics. Granted, this effort makes the Double Dragon & Kunio Kun package cost double that of Capcom Beat ‘Em Bundle (and yes, that’s pretty much where the added cost comes from) but you can’t say they didn’t work hard for the money.
Major Edge: Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun

WHAT IS MISSING THE LEAST

I have to really stretch on this one to pretend Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun isn’t running away with this category. And actually, it’s not. Yea, it wins it, because.. fucking duh. They included every NES game (except Double Dragon & Battletoads), even the Japanese ones with full translation. UPDATE: Yes, Super Spike V-Ball is not included, but it’s not part of the Kunio-kun series and Nintendo still owns the US rights in their entirety, so non-Switch versions couldn’t include it. But, you have to take into consideration that most of those games are sports titles that have to work within the limitations of the time. Gaming has come a long ways, and while none of these games aspire to be sports simulations, hardware limitations and the two-button design they’re all held-back by severely limits their play value today, in 2020. All Out Dunk Heroes came out in December 13, 1993 for the Famicom, two months after NBA Jam came out in arcades in the United States and only six months before the Super NES and Genesis ports of that iconic arcade-action take on basketball. Which is not to say Dunk Heroes doesn’t have some incredible ideas. The issue is the Famicom hardware couldn’t support the design’s ambition. The game plays slow and clunky enough that, while you can admire the concept, playing it today is kind of the pits.

There was a potential solution to this: include Kunio Kun games from other platforms. The soccer games came out on the Mega Drive (Genesis) and PC Engine (TurboGrafx 16). Super Dodge Ball had releases on the Super Famicom and Neo Geo. There were more options for the games that never had a chance of holding up. Did those later versions age better? I have no way of knowing. But they can’t possibly have aged worse than these did. I appreciate that we were given a complete collection of all these games from the 8-bit Nintendo platform, be it NES or Famicom, but that doesn’t mean the games hold-up today.

As for Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle, the problem with it was the decision to be married to arcade-only versions of the games. As many readers pointed out to me during my play-session, the title of the collection doesn’t imply arcade-only games. Final Fight got multiple sequels, but all SNES games were left out of the lineup. Having said that, it’s not reasonable to expect Capcom to include licensed games like X-Men or Alien v Predator or The Punisher. It’s just not. Which is not to imply they phoned the lineup in. Back during the PS2/Xbox era, Capcom released a pair of comprehensive classic arcade collections to those consoles. Among the games not included in those all-encompassing sets were Armored Warriors and Battle Circuit. Both those titles are making their home debuts in Beat ‘Em Up Bundle. Well, Armored Warriors got a limited release on Sega Saturn in Japan, but it’s also not reasonable to ask for Sega Saturn games to be emulated. Either way, it’s truly something that Capcom included two extremely off-the-grid games in this set, maybe every bit as much as including English versions of the Kunio-Kun titles. Okay, not quite that cool.
Slight Edge: Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun

BINGE POTENTIAL

If we did a list of the top pleasant surprises I’ve had reviewing games these past nine years as Indie Gamer Chick, near the top of the list would be Capcom ‘Beat Em Up Bundle. Under the Retro Odyssey format, it went 4 for 7, when I think the average IGC reader would have guessed it would either go 0 for 7 or 1 for 6. As a matter of fact, once you get past the earlier, blander stinkeroos Final Fight and Captain Commando, the next five games are at least always interesting. I still found Knights of the Round to not be a net-positive game for the collection, but at least it took me the entire length of the game to decide that. It’s a travesty that Final Fight is the most famous game in this collection. It’s far and away the most boring to play now, in 2020. Skip it and you could easily binge the other six games all at once and never get bored. IT’S A BRAWLER COLLECTION! These games should, by all rights, wear out their welcome quickly. Besides Final Fight, they don’t. Well, King of Dragons was right on the cusp of boring me to quit, but then the game ended with perfect timing. Three of the seven of these are among the best games in the genre ever, and the only truly putrid one is at least historically important.

Meanwhile, Retro Brawler Bundle actually is surprisingly less brawler than you’d expect. Really, this collection is the near-complete works of Technos on the NES, most of which were probably insanely fun back then. Of course, it’s not back then anymore. In fact, only one of the three Double Dragon games (the second one) is especially good. The first Double Dragon is frustrating, slow, and clunky while the third game is among the worst I’ve ever played. Meanwhile, the Kunio games are maybe fun to sample. I enjoyed dipping my toes in their wacky-violent versions of soccer, basketball, and hockey. They get old very fast, but variety’s the spice of life. Only Fighting Legend really is worth a look among the “sporty” Kunio-kun titles, though with multiple players it’d probably make a fun party game. Really, the money is found in playing River City Ransom and its spiritual sequel, Historical Period Drama, back-to-back. These games are legitimately compelling, hilarious in their over-the-top violence, and genuinely fun today. Ultimately, one of these packs is a series of walking right and smacking attack buttons.. albeit it done better than pretty much any other games from that era did walking right and smacking attack buttons.. while the other is walking right while smacking attack buttons with some light sports fighting highlights mixed in. This was the closest call of any category, and ultimately I decided that you’re more likely to want to experience the seven games offered by Capcom from start-to-finish all at once. Frankly, most of the games in the Technos set will only be played once for a couple minutes, no more than ten, by most gamers. Sad but true.
Edge: Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle

BEST AND WORST GAMES

Remarkably, the Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun set had not one but TWO games that’ll plug their nose and plunge into the murky depths of my NES rankings. Renegade (both the Famicom and NES versions) and Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones are among the very worst games I’ve ever played. I couldn’t get past the first screen on Renegade, which I’m sure will cue up the typical “you suck at games” cries from retro fans. To which I say, I wasn’t alone. Maybe there’s no other levels. Maybe this is a Noah’s Arcade type of scam game (party-on those who get that reference). EDIT: Right before publication I finally did it. And then there’s Double Dragon III, probably the new “worst NES game I’ve ever played” on the grounds that they should have been able to make much better games by the point it came out. Presumably it would have been better, except the director decided to be a complete fucking asshole by turning the damage enemies cause up higher, the damage you cause lower, and then shrank the amount of lives you have to ZERO. You die, you start over. Fuck. That. There’s no comparison in the worst games Capcom’s set has, which are Final Fight and Captain Commando, because at least those simply BORE instead of frustrate or outright troll players.

On the flip side, River City Ransom fans will be delighted to play the previously unreleased-in-the-US sequel/spin-off called Historical Period Drama. While the name doesn’t inspire confidence, trust me, this is the sequel people who grew-up with River City Ransom would have died for as a kid. A co-op adventure (replaced with an NPC that holds-up their end of the bargain if you’re playing alone) that has even funnier moves and characters that River City did, it’s fun and fresh even today, if still a bit clunky and vague in its interface. You’ll want to use a guide. You’ll also want to check out Double Dragon II: The Revenge, where my body made squeaky noises as I grabbed enemies by the hair, kneed them in the face a couple times, and then threw them off buildings. This made me so much more happy than any act of 8-bit murder should have been able to.

But, the best game of IGC Retro Bowl III was easily Capcom’s Armored Warriors, a 1994 mech brawler that has never gotten a home release until this set. It was one of the fastest-paced, cathartic, balls-to-the-wall clusterfuck brawlers I’ve ever played. Items come in the form of different arms that change your character’s move-set, allowing a wide variety of attacks. The violence is insanely over-the-top, the bosses are (almost) all clever, and the levels are paced absolutely perfectly. In fact, the level length and timing of when enemies spawn or when the boss battles begins is the most fine-tuned for any arcade brawler I’ve ever played. And, as a special bonus, there’s Megazord/Voltron style combining of mechs during some boss fights if you’re playing co-op. Make no mistake, there’s some good, even very good brawlers here (Battle Circuit and Warriors of Fate were solid and fun, if unspectacular, beat ’em ups), but I wasn’t expecting such a delightful game in this set. When I do an IGC Retroboard for arcade games, expect Armored Warriors near the top. It’s the clear-cut MVP of this Retro Bowl.
Major Edge: Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle

PLAY VALUE TODAY

For the record, if you don’t absolutely love the 8-bit sports shenanigans of Super Dodge Ball and its sporty cousins, there’s almost zero replay value to be found in either set. Except Fighting Legend, which I could see getting play at parties. I really can. But, really, who wants to play beat ’em ups more than once? I can’t imagine how boring someone who genuinely loves playing Final Fight over and over again must be, but they exist apparently. Here’s the deal though: the brawler genre, when done right, is probably a little more fun that I ever took the time to realize. I certainly had more fun than I ever could have imagined playing all these games. But, if you want actual red meat gaming, the only hope you’ll find in any of these sets is from River City Ransom and its formerly JP-exclusive sequel Historic Period Drama. They’re not perfect. Not even close. Both games have shitty jumping mechanics that sometimes leave absurdly-low margin-of-error. Objectives can be unclear. Items can be really unclear and even counter-intuitive. In most games, food provides a one-time health refill. In River City Ransom, you do get health back but you also receive permanent stat upgrades. What you get from every item isn’t stated at all. Purists will claim it “doesn’t hold your hand” and “you have to figure it out for yourself” but considering you get those items by grinding, it really sounds like just padding and busy work to me.

And yet, these were the only gameplay experiences that felt deep and rewarding during this entire play session. Brawlers are gaming fast food. They’re dumb, unrewarding, unhealthy gaming comfort food. Which gaming does need sometimes. Hey, even Mr. Olympia probably craves a Big Mac once in a while. But River City Ransom and Historic Period Drama are deeper. They seek to entertain by more means than simply seeing people get beat up and fall down. There’s something to be said by the fact that even the act of grinding for hours never once got boring for me. Was I frustrated by the vagueness? Sure. Annoyed? Sure. And make no mistake, I walked away from these games wishing someone would remake them with modern gameplay hand-holding that would make retro snobs’ blood boil. But, I also walked away from them feeling like I was better for having finally played them. Actually, getting to tell people about Historic Period Drama’s existence and seeing the elation of so many NES fans who had no idea there was an actual 8-bit sequel/spinoff to River City Ransom made me feel good. If Armored Warriors is like unhealthy but delicious fast food, River City and Historical Period Drama are like having small portions of a greatly cooked meal, where the worst part is you wish you had more. And then they’re garnished with a game where you can grab someone by the hair, knee them twice in the face, and then throw them off a building and to their death. So that set wins.
Slight Edge: Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun Retro Brawler Bundle

WINNER
DOUBLE DRAGON & KUNIO-KUN RETRO BRAWLER BUNDLE

I feel like this is the first time the Retro Bowl format really pitted two games that were very close to each-other. Ultimately, all gamers are winners when we have sets like this competing for our money. It could have gone either way. If you value.. well, VALUE.. over things like binge potential, you might enjoy the $20 Capcom Beat ‘Em Up release (which is discounted all the time) over the $40 Technos release. If you really like 8-bit sports games, you’ll get A LOT more value out of the Kunio-Kun games than anyone else. I think the debate between these two releases will be compelling no matter who is telling it. But, this is IGC Retro Bowl, and in my book, gameplay is king and extra-effort is a close second. The only two games worth a deeper look are in the Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun package, and they went the extra-mile to translate many Japanese-only games for the English speaking world. That’s why it wins. Barely, but it’s better than barely losing.