Technōs Japan

Renegade itself then.

Technōs built the arcade as Nekketsu! Kōha Kunio-kun, uh, a schoolyard scrap, and Taito localized it for the West as a street vigilante collecting his kidnapped girlfriend.

Imagine Software under the Ocean label handled the British home conversions in September eighty-seven.

Mike Lamb coded the Spectrum, Ronnie Fowlds drew it, Fred Gray wrote the music, and Bob Wakelin, uh, painted the inlay, uh, everyone stared at in the shop.

Right.

So in the chat, if you want to be entered into the wheel of doom to win a Technos super pocket, oof, get the word Technos in the chat.

You've heard it here.

Worldwide.

The 2026 roadmap.

Let's have a couple of minutes each while Blunner's beaver's away.

So, Andy, what are your thoughts on the 2026 roadmap? Keep putting Technos in the chat.

Oh, yes.

Kung Fu Master was followed up in 1986 by Renegade.

And although you can consider Kung Fu Master the first beat-em-up, Renegade, which was developed by Technos Japan, is really the game that defined the genre.

It put a lot of the things we take for granted in there, such as the ability to move up and down the screen as well as left to right.

Renegade is about a street fighter named Mr. K trying to save his girlfriend from a group of gangsters.

It would probably be really strange back then if you'd seen a Kunicon game.

You'd have probably thought, what's this rip-off of Renegade? Yet rarely nowadays, only sad old farts like me will know what Renegade is, whereas the River City games, they keep on coming.

The River City series was originally made by Technos Japan, but the series is now handled by Arc System Works, who purchased all of the intellectual property rights from Technos' successor, Million Corp.

But, I need to talk a little bit about River City, because the story of this game is based on a sort of semi-autobiographical story of...

He eventually turned all those experiences into a video game.

The developer, Technos, made a 1986 game called, and I'm going to butcher the fuck out of this, so I should have John read it instead, Nekaketsu Koha Konyo-kun.

And by your blank reactions, you might know it from the 1980s street gang makeover and called it Renegade.

that you guys have probably seen.

Perfect, Ted DiBiase, and Demolition, Smash and Crush.

Hawk and Animal, Legion of Doom were also in there, but they basically did a weird...

I understand it now, but as a kid, it was weird that they weren't in the game, but Technos, the actual publisher, basically made sure you couldn't touch them.

So you would pump quarter after quarter after quarter to beat them, and you had to earn the right to fight them, but you could never unlock them, which obviously nowadays with your...