The beat em up/brawler genre dominated arcades in the late 80's/early 90's. It was the home of many great, original titles as well as a wide selection of popular licensed games, ranging from Dungeons and Dragons to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to a variety of Marvel superhero games. 1984's Kung Fu Master, published on the NES by Nintendo in 1985 as simply Kung Fu, is considered one of the forefathers of the genre, but it was Technos' Renegade (1986) that set the standard for dozens of games to follow. It introduced the gameplay concepts of moving freely in both horizontal and vertical directions as you punched and kicked punks in urban settings that would serve as the foundation of the genre. It was Technos' 1987 follow-up Double Dragon that would turn the genre into a worldwide phenomenon. I've only played the arcade version a few times, so for this review I'll be taking a look at the 1988 NES port.
