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<\/p>\nThere are few things that I enjoy more than a good retro games collection. Sure, emulation exists and it\u2019s not going anywhere any time soon, but as someone who creates for a living, I do like the idea of supporting other creators by actually buying their creations.<\/p>\n
In the retro space, however, that\u2019s an increasingly pricey prospect, not helped in the least by the \u201ccollecting\u201d types who prefer their games entombed in slabs and seen as \u201cinvestments\u201d. Let the poor games breathe and BE GAMES, people\u2026 but I digress.<\/p>\n
Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics is the latest compilation from Arc System Works, the company that now owns the rights to the Technos Japan library of games.<\/p>\n
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Mention Technos to most fans of old-school gaming and the title that will spring to mind as being the biggest and most important is of course Double Dragon\u2026 but to quickly clarify, Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics is an entirely Double Dragon free zone. Arc System Works has other plans for Double Dragon, not that it\u2019s been shy in either emulating or licensing out that property<\/a> in recent years.<\/p>\n Instead, what you get is a really mixed bag of Technos titles, including, as the name suggests, a number of titles featuring Technos\u2019 other effectively best-known character, Kunio-Kun. If you ever played River City Ransom back in the day on a NES, that was Kunio-Kun with his Japanese identity not-so-subtly shaved away.<\/p>\n So what\u2019s on offer here? It\u2019s a small library of just 12 games, comprising 7 Super Famicom titles and five arcade games:<\/p>\n River City Renegade (Super Famicom)<\/p>\n Kunio\u2019s Dodgeball Time, C\u2019mon Guys! (Super Famicom)<\/p>\n Downtown River City Baseball Story ~Play Ball, Kunio!~ (Super Famicom)<\/p>\n Kunio\u2019s Oden (Super Famicom)<\/p>\n THE COMBATRIBES (Super Famicom)<\/p>\n SugoroQuest++ \u2013DICENICS- (Super Famicom)<\/p>\n DunQuest (Super Famicom)<\/p>\n Super Dodge Ball (Arcade \/ NEOGEO)<\/p>\n XAIN\u2019D SLEENA: SOLDIER OF LIGHT (Arcade)<\/p>\n CHINA GATE (Arcade)<\/p>\n THE COMBATRIBES (Arcade)<\/p>\n SHADOW FORCE (Arcade)<\/p>\n You might have noticed that THE COMBATRIBES (yes, it\u2019s really always been in caps like that) is listed twice, so that\u2019s really only 11 experiences, but realistically it\u2019s actually more like 10 because Super Dodge Ball and Kunio\u2019s Dodgeball Time, C\u2019mon Guys! are fairly similar dodgeball-centric games.<\/p>\n There\u2019s another trap here for non-Japanese audiences, because Arc System Works is happy to take your money for this collection, but it wasn\u2019t entirely willing to do a lot of work to get these games to a wider worldwide audience.<\/p>\n SugoroQuest++ \u2013DICENICS- and DunQuest were originally Japan-only titles back in the day, and while they\u2019re both present, they\u2019re both also only available in Japanese, which is going to be problematic if you\u2019re not relatively fluent.<\/p>\n For what it\u2019s worth, SugoroQuest++ \u2013DICENICS- is an interesting board game \u2013 Japan loved and loves digital board console games \u2013 while DunQuest is an action RPG title. If fans can be bothered to translate these kinds of games for free, why can\u2019t Arc System Works if it wants our money for them? For most gamers then, we\u2019re down from 12 titles to 8 actually differentiated titles.<\/p>\n It\u2019s always tricky evaluating retro collections like this because I can\u2019t account for anyone\u2019s particular nostalgia. I can say that I played a little COMBATRIBES in the arcade back in the day, and while its brash visuals were fancier than Double Dragon, it was always a slightly less satisfying game, perhaps because so many of its combat animations were rather laborious to go through, rather than feeling properly meaty. It\u2019s not something that we as humans should perhaps be proud of, but there\u2019s something satisfying about a game that gets skull cracking just right. It\u2019s kind of neat having the Super Famicom version included for comparative purposes, but any old school COMBATRIBES players will inevitably bounce to the arcade version.<\/p>\n Of what\u2019s left, the arcade games are the standouts, whether it\u2019s the Journey To The West-inspired CHINA GATE, the run-and-gun action of XAIN\u2019D SLEENA: SOLDIER OF LIGHT, or the sidescrolling brawling of SHADOW FORCE. I can\u2019t say that I\u2019m a huge fan of dodgeball games per se, but Super Dodge Ball does have some charm, if only for the quite out there character designs.<\/p>\n I will go to my grave defending the Super Famicom as the greatest game system of all time (and I\u2019m right!), but the 16-bit sections of Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics are a little less compelling. River City Renegade is the 16-bit version of River City Ransom (strictly speaking Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari), but it\u2019s a slightly slower and less dynamic version, which means it hasn\u2019t really aged well unless you are nostalgically attached to it. Despite having the most fun title in the collection, the same is broadly true of Kunio\u2019s Dodgeball Time, C\u2019mon Guys!<\/p>\n Downtown River City Baseball Story ~Play Ball, Kunio!~ is a baseball game as the name suggests, and it does try something that some older sports games used to, mixing in closeups of the action with a full field view, though again I found it slightly less than engaging, and I suspect old-school baseball fans might be better served by something a little more directly sports-centric.<\/p>\n Kunio\u2019s Oden is a bit of a hidden gem, even though it\u2019s actually just a classic dropping and matching puzzle game, this time based around food. What makes it stand out is that it\u2019s nicely customisable, with options for how many matches you want and game speed giving it a decent level of challenge.<\/p>\n You do get the by-now-standard niceties of modern emulation, so you can create multiple save states for each game, add scan lines or adjust screen ratios if you\u2019re some kind of 4:3 hating philistine and so on.<\/p>\n The problem is.. that\u2019s pretty much all you can do, and that kind of detail is really rather table stakes by now. The bar has been raised on what a retro compilation can be by titles such as Atari 50<\/a>, and in that context having a collection that includes untranslated games and the bare minimum of emulation options can\u2019t help but feel just that little bit cynical.<\/p>\n I like my retro gaming to be bathed more in rosy nostalgia and details about what made a game great or a company significant, not drenched in cynicism. Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics isn\u2019t awful by any stretch, but it\u2019s hard not to come to the conclusion that it is something of a cynical cash grab first and foremost. Do better, Arc System Works!<\/p>\n![\"Super](\"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2025042917123800-CD421F641640DC8ED63382C808EC77B2.jpg\")
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