Shin Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun - Kunio Tachi No Banka - Get framed for a hit and run! Break out of jail and beat up police officers!!

Playing Rage of the Dragons yesterday sure made me feel like playing another old school beat-em-up, so I did! That's right we're going to talk about Double Dra-NOPE! Instead we're going to talk about Japanese import title: Shin Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun - Kunio Tachi No Banka, and there's no way I'm typing that title again. You can roughly translate it as "The New Nekketsu Tough Guy: The Elegy of Kunio and Co.", and even that is a mouthful!

This game was released only in Japan in 1994 and is part of the long-running "Kunio-Kun" series. The series will seem unfamiliar to you right now but you might already be well acquainted with the guy if you played the popular NES title "River City Ransom". Yes, he was the star of the game too but the changed the names and Americanized it to the game that you know today. But that's neither here nor there, we're here to talk about this super famicom title instead.

Luckily, a fan has went through and translated the game into English, which is great because this game is surprisingly story heavy. As it starts out, there's a motorcycle hit and run by two guys who look suspiciously like our heroes Kunio and Riki. As a result, the two are framed for the crime and thrown into jail. Immediately, Kunio and Riki are informed that since their incarceration all hell has broken loose at their schools. It then becomes apparent to Kunio and Riki that it's no coincidence and somebody wants them out of the picture. They then proceed to break out of jail to figure out just what the hell is going on and to clear their (mostly) good names.

Being a Technos game, this game plays a lot like Double Dragon. It starts off with simple punches and kick combos, but as soon as you get your clothes back you're suddenly able to do a lot more like pinning a guy to the ground and punching him in the face repeatedly. For sure, Kunio and Riki aren't the most graceful or honorable of fighters but they get the job done. Later on in the story, they're joined by their girlfriends Misako and Kyouko as playable characters with their own set of moves. If you're playing by yourself, you get to switch between all 4 characters on-the-fly, and you'll need to since the enemies will put up a good fight. The scenarios are all pretty dynamic, there's a particularly memorable moment early on in the game where you have a showdown with a gang boss on top of the high school building. The building crumbles as you keep fighting, making things quite exciting as you try to avoid your opponents attacks AND suffering damage from the crumbling school.

Sure, it's kind of a goofy looking game with silly looking sprites, but they animate nicely for a super famicom game. Music is catchy as well, of course don't take my word for it at all since my taste in tunes is decidedly bizarre to most people I talk to. Overall, the game is worth checking out, especially if you got the english translation patch. The translator had a hell of a time writing this game as there's plenty of foul language in it, most of it coming from Kunio-kun himself!