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Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 8:12 pm
by R-Tape
I feel I should know this, but do the Renegade bosses have names? In particular I want to know the level 3 boss - the burly madame. Is it Suzy?

(Long story. Erm...asking for a friend :D )

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 8:54 pm
by Alessandro
The bosses of the Americanized version appear not to have any names, but in the Japanese original, they are called respectively Riki, Shinji, Misuzu and Sabu.

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 9:13 pm
by R-Tape
Alessandro wrote: Thu Sep 26, 2019 8:54 pm The bosses of the Americanized version appear not to have any names, but in the Japanese original, they are called respectively Riki, Shinji, Misuzu and Sabu.
Cheers Ale,

It describes her as "A giant woman from a female university".

I thought she was running a brothel, and all the other women were in her employ. That can't be just my assumption can it? (prodge's joke interview in the first Woot suggests otherwise).

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 9:20 pm
by Alessandro
You have to understand that in the Americanization process, the original references to Japanese youth subcultures were put aside in favor of other pop culture references recognizable by the American public. In this specific case, Misuzu is a Sukeban, that is, the leader of an all-female teenage gang, recognizable from their seifuku, i.e. "sailor dress". Whereas for instance the first gang boss, Riki, is a benchou, i.e. the same but referred to an all-male gang wearing the traditional Japanese high school blue uniform with brass buttons. Also take into account that "university" might be a mis-translation from chuutookyouikugakkou, literally "secondary school" but meaning "university", not "high school".

Is it then possible that the Japanese boss and her minions were turned into a "madame" and her "girls", which are immediately recognizable by American players.

The Trivia section in the Renegade entry says in fact:
The original Japanese version of Renegade, entitled Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun, has many cultural differences with its American counterpart. The main character, instead of a street fighter, is a Japanese school student named Kunio and rather than rescuing a kipnapped girlfriend, Kunio must beat-up gangs from rival schools who are always picking on Kunio's brother. Most of the sprites in Kunio-kun have been changed in one way or another for Renegade: the train station of level 1 became a subway all of the students have been modified to look more like thugs and Kunio's brother has been entirely replace by a damsel in distress.
On a side note, I would really like to redesign the sprite graphics of Renegade and replace them in the game, to revert it back to its Japanese roots... if only I knew how to do it! :(

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 10:44 pm
by Ralf
I would swear the boss from level 3 name was Big Bertha. Heard it somewhere and was able to google it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bertha

Fictional characters:
Big Bertha (comics), a member of the Great Lakes Avengers in Marvel Comics
Big Bertha (Sanctuary), an "abnormal" in the Sanctuary television series
Big Bertha, an enemy character that appears in Super Mario Bros. 3
Big Bertha, a female boss character in the video game Renegade


Or is it unofficial nickname? Anybody able to confirm?

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 11:36 pm
by Ast A. Moore
The instructions only mention Big Bertha by name:
The third level takes place in the sleezy downtown streets, the headquarters of a gang of female marauders armed with both clubs and whips. When a number of these “ladies” have been defeated, their leader, Big Bad Bertha, is brought into the fray.

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2019 12:13 am
by Alessandro
Most probably that was added by Imagine/Ocean, the original Taito arcade manual does not make any mention of it.

Edit: I am now sure that this Bertha name is an invention of Imagine/Ocean - I dug out both games from my MAME coin-op archive, and while the Japanese original version has names written in Hiragana characters alongside the energy bar of each boss, the Americanized version has simply "BOSS".

Edit 2: To make the game look like the original Japanese version, backdrops would have to be changed too, not only sprites. I could redraw them but do not know how to place them back into the game code without making a mess...

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2019 9:45 am
by Ralf
Well, foolish me, I should start searching form the most obvious place - the instruction ;)

So according to the instruction:

- level 3 boss is called Big Bertha or Big Bad Bertha
- girlfriend being rescued is called Lucy
- everyone else is nameless ;)

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2019 2:14 pm
by Alessandro
Again, I am sure these are inventions of whoever wrote the instructions for the home computer versions. Boss names only appear in the original Japanese version. Not to mention the fact that there, the main character does not have to save his girlfriend (yawn...) but to teach the gangs that beat up his brother a lesson; the latter's name is also known from the arcade coin-op, i.e. Hiroshi.

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2019 2:25 pm
by R-Tape
Ah! I had Bertha in my head, and short of reading the instructions there was no way of finding out.

Cheers for the background Ale. I don't need to be faithful to the original for what I have in mind - "Big Bad Bertha" works perfectly.

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2019 5:12 pm
by Ralf
By the way people, how do you understand the title "Renegade"?

From dictionary:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/renegade

1 : a deserter from one faith, cause, or allegiance to another
2 : an individual who rejects lawful or conventional behavior


Is it definition 1 or 2 here?
Is he some "traitor" who left his gangster's life and started beating his former friends?
Or is he an outlaw who rejects social norms?

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2019 5:37 pm
by Ast A. Moore
Ralf wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 5:12 pm Is he some "traitor" who left his gangster's life and started beating his former friends?
Yes.

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2019 8:55 pm
by R-Tape
[mention]yerzmyey[/mention] would be the man to ask, but I don't think he's been here for a while. The catchy AY on More Tea Vicar is a cover of something apparently. If I once knew — I've forgotten. Does anyone know what it's a cover of?

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2019 9:33 pm
by Stefan
R-Tape wrote: Fri Oct 04, 2019 8:55 pm @yerzmyey would be the man to ask, but I don't think he's been here for a while. The catchy AY on More Tea Vicar is a cover of something apparently. If I once knew — I've forgotten. Does anyone know what it's a cover of?
From http://www.speccy.pl/forum/index.php?topic=435.0

KOTO - Megamix

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2019 9:57 pm
by R-Tape
Stefan wrote: Fri Oct 04, 2019 9:33 pm
R-Tape wrote: Fri Oct 04, 2019 8:55 pm @yerzmyey would be the man to ask, but I don't think he's been here for a while. The catchy AY on More Tea Vicar is a cover of something apparently. If I once knew — I've forgotten. Does anyone know what it's a cover of?
From http://www.speccy.pl/forum/index.php?topic=435.0

KOTO - Megamix
Ah thanks! It took me a while to make sense of this.

Dragon's Legend is a song recorded by an Italian band called Koto, and released in 1988. It contains samples from Dragon's Lair, a Speccy game that never made it to the arcades (ahem).

When MTV was released I remember someone comparing it to a god-awful remix of "I like to move it". For ages I wondered if it was that!

I love this track—Yerz's version is better than the original IMO. It sort of gets me dancing every time I play MTV, though it pains me to say that this guy in a tin can suit has better moves than me.

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2019 5:07 am
by djnzx48
0:00 - 1:48 is from Visitors
1:48 - 2:49 is from Time
2:49 - 5:24 is from Dragon's Legend.

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2019 9:46 pm
by R-Tape
djnzx48 wrote: Sat Oct 05, 2019 5:07 am 0:00 - 1:48 is from Visitors
1:48 - 2:49 is from Time
2:49 - 5:24 is from Dragon's Legend.
Thanks. I see what you mean (at first I thought you were referring to references made in Dragon's Legend song itself).

So it's compound cover! Maybe it's just hindsight, but it does make sense — even to a non-musician there are at least two distinct moods there. The early bits of Dragon's Lair and Time in general (Yerz's version, faster, catchier) are the bits make me want to throw shapes the most.

Quite like Koto. Kraftwerk, but a bit more crazy.

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2020 8:57 pm
by R-Tape
Does the little corpse collecting, head booting lizard guy in Barbarian have a name?

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2020 10:53 pm
by Ast A. Moore
R-Tape wrote: Sun Aug 09, 2020 8:57 pm Does the little corpse collecting, head booting lizard guy in Barbarian have a name?
Do goblins even have names?

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2020 11:14 pm
by R-Tape
Ast A. Moore wrote: Sun Aug 09, 2020 10:53 pm Do goblins even have names?
He's a minion of Drax, there must be something at the top of the contract.

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2020 11:59 pm
by Ast A. Moore
R-Tape wrote: Sun Aug 09, 2020 11:14 pm
Ast A. Moore wrote: Sun Aug 09, 2020 10:53 pm Do goblins even have names?
He's a minion of Drax, there must be something at the top of the contract.
Hmm. Hadn’t thought of that. Could it be . . . Laurence?

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2020 8:31 am
by Juan F. Ramirez
Whatever name he has, it's a hard job... badly paid, probably

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2020 11:31 am
by Ralf
Well, in Barbarian the main hero actually has no name. We have Drax, princess Mariana but the barbarian is actually called Barbarian. He's an unknown warrior coming from the north.

Well, I suppose they couldn't use the name Conan ;)

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2020 12:19 pm
by Ersh
Juan F. Ramirez wrote: Mon Aug 10, 2020 8:31 am Whatever name he has, it's a hard job... badly paid, probably
In the c64 version he laughs heartily before dragging the body away, so he seems to enjoy himself at least. ;)
Ralf wrote: Mon Aug 10, 2020 11:31 am Well, in Barbarian the main hero actually has no name. We have Drax, princess Mariana but the barbarian is actually called Barbarian. He's an unknown warrior coming from the north.

Well, I suppose they couldn't use the name Conan ;)
The US release called the warrior Gorth, wouldn't say it's canon though.

Re: Miscellaneous game questions...

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2020 12:46 pm
by Juan F. Ramirez
Ersh wrote: Mon Aug 10, 2020 12:19 pm
In the c64 version he laughs heartily before dragging the body away, so he seems to enjoy himself at least. ;)
So we're facing a badly-paid psychopath, definitely.