The game runs
(obviously) on the Double
Dragon engine. Moving left to right (or right to left in some cases), you'll be
beating down thugs on motorcycles, scantily clad women, and guys 10 times your size. All
of this plays out pretty well, but the lack of any true combos bring the game down a
notch.
NO uppercuts, roundhouses, or foot sweeps here, just basic straight punches and kicks. With the sheer lack of moves, the monotony of the gameplay brings the entire package down. Not only are the moves limited, but performing some of them such as a jump kick are complicated by a ludicrous control scheme.
Not only are the gameplay ideas borrowed from numerous other games, but the games graphics and sounds are ripped right out of other classics as well. In fact, the main characters head was taken right from the same sprite in Double Dragon on the NES. The rest of the cast is pretty much what you'd expect.
The animation is severely limited with very little of the upper body ever moving. The bosses look decent and are usually quite large making them somewhat impressive. Of special note are the supposed "helpful" messages that appear on the bottom of the screen during the gameplay. Quotes such as "Get them busted" (whatever that means) and "Yo Dude" do the player little good.
While the basic soundtrack is pretty catchy, there's only one tune! Every level features the same theme song repeating over and over with no end. The rest of the sounds feature effects taken from numerous other Technos games meaning you've heard it all before.
Target Renegade isn't necessarily a bad game, it's just that so many other games do it so much better. Graphics: average, sounds: average, gameplay: just below par. You add it up. Anyone looking for a decent beat-em-up for their NES would be much better off skipping this one all together and digging a little bit deeper for a better game.
