RENEGADE 👊 Version Comparison - Does The Amstrad Now Have The Best Version? With "Renegade Reloaded"

#amstrad #amstradcpc #renegade #amstradcpc464
"Renegade" the classic coin-op beat 'em up from Technōs Japan and Taito was one of the best ever arcade conversions on the Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum, and it was a close fought battle as to which one was the best! A few weeks ago however some clever people updated the CPC version with some new moves plus scrolling(!) and released "Renegade Reloaded"! Is the Amstrad version now the best? So here we're going to take a close look at it, along with ALL the other versions of Renegade in a comparison, and see which fighter comes out on top!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renegad...)
Get "Renegade Reloaded" here ▶ www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/games/re...
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Background music featured - "NAEON" by "24:7" - 247retro.bandcamp.com/
Timings -
00:00 Intro
00:43 Amstrad Vs Spectrum Renegade History
02:01 Renegade Reloaded
08:22 Version Comparisons
19:04 Summary & Conclusion
21:51 Outro

[@mashk]

The Amstrad was always the best 8 bit version. Didn’t have a problem with the flick screen scrolling. Far more preferable than slow and jerky scrolling and movement. Wish more games did this.

[@Xyphoe]

I guess you're talking games generally here and not referring to the scrolling in Renegade Reloaded - because it would be nice if the scrolling here was a hardware scroll rather than a software one - but I think it's decent and it doesn't affect sprite movement which stays consistently smooth around 25fps by the looks of it, so that's very clever of Geco. Geco did originally explore a hardware scroll using CRTC tricks but due to reasons to long/boring to explain here it wasn't possible in the end. But I get your point, there were some bad games with terrible scrolling that would have been better off being flick screen.

[@mashk]

@@Xyphoe yep, I was talking about a lot of CPC games in general. Games crippled by slow scrolling that probably would have benefitted from not scrolling at all. Rastan, Altered Beast, Final Fight etc all hideously slow to the point of being unplayable.

[@Xyphoe]

@@mashk Well those are games that are *supposed* to scroll, and there are multiple ways and methods to do it on the Amstrad without it being a horrible laggy mess. I guess it's a combination of inexperience / poor skills but more likely infeasible and ridiculous short deadlines imposed by bosses at game companies wanting to churn product out meaning the game was rushed out.

[@oldstylegaming]

Great production, love all the versions on one screen, I know how much work that is to do 🙂

[@Xyphoe]

Thank you mate, means a lot coming from you and you can spot things like that etc! Yea that little segment took like 2 days to do and get right!!

[@darrenwilson99]

I remember buying this and my Speccy mates, there were no 8 bit wars as we all loved playing each other's games, thought the screenshots were from the arcade. Ultimately we played the game to death on the home micros and loved it on each version.

[@magicknight8412]

It's one of the Amstrad's crown jewels, definitely the best version.

[@Xyphoe]

I think I would have to agree with you there!

[@jimmyj8161]

Absolutely loved this when we were kids the motorbike level was brilliant 👏Target renegade was great also

[@yahhteebockity]

Legend! Looking forward to having a go

[@yussef961]

ah waw a channel about amstrad i love it thx and i loved the game , new subscriber i had an amstrad cpc 464 with green monitor

[@rickyzambrossiakachristian5727]

The Amstrad version beats them all - definitely. Great vid - thanks for your work

[@Xyphoe]

Thank you Ricky/Christian!! It was indeed a lot of work this one!

[@jonasm8220]

Great video mate 😊. I loved both the specrum and Amstrad versions. My cousin owned the Amstrad version. I owned the C64 version(😬) back in the day which certainly had an odd control scheme! Could never defeat Big Bertha!

[@Markus-zw8tr]

Great stream, I like this game and renegade with scrolling is amazing 🙂 this shows me the value of cpc hardware until today 👍

[@1Top_Banana]

Cpc renegade is legendary. I had this as a kid and loved it. The scrolling never bothered me, you get used to it. Graphics and game play are excellent.

[@Xyphoe]

Yea I got used to it too, the game was so good it didn't really bother me either. Their (the same team's) next game Gryzor it DID bother me though!

[@steuph1976]

Yeah it's like Cauldron or Who Dares Wins II, it's one of the games in which the lack of scrolling still works.

[@steuph1976]

@@Xyphoe that said if it had had scrolling then, it would have probably slowed down to a crawl like Rastan so maybe it was better for it. :D

[@henrimedot]

I didn't know Renegade had had so many conversions! Let alone the MO5 one! Now I understand why you were mentioning it during last stream 😉 Thank you for the nice video Xyphoe 👍

[@Xyphoe]

Me neither! I was very surprised too, I thought there were just be the usual Spectrum, C64, maybe Atari ST and possibly NES ... ARGH I was in emulator hell spending hours and hours getting Thomson MO5 and Enterprise 128 emulators running and finding roms!! Thank you for your kind words Henri!!

[@yussef961]

ah the famous MO5 lol with rubber keys, it was from Thomson being in France too I knew it

[@totoonthemoon3593]

Great comparative video! :)

[@Joliie]

one could also mention Golden Axe :), awesome work 🤍💙

[@Xyphoe]

Thank you TotO!!!! Amazing sprite work here!!! Can't wait to see more from you!!

[@Legion_Centurion]

OMG😮😮 WTF🤯🤯 what the hell my goodness this is amazing this right here is just amazing an the way some clever people have rebuilt recoded this cult classic original Amstrad not only is it better than the original arcade but now increase that so much more when now have the RENEGADE reloaded OMG we have the best of all time we now have the scrolling and ability to run an punch or run flying kick too maybe a future release where we can do the throw move to complete the set of moves in game. This certain is one my all time fav Amstrad games an best fighting game on the Amstrad and this best better version than the original arcade in my view which saying that shows how much great potential the Amstrad always had. I always remember that quote in the high score table at end an would show on start screen The Shadow Knows , i loved that im so impressed with this RENEGADE reloaded 💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎

[@KorenLesthe]

Great video ! Between you and Mark from Battle of the Ports, the Amstrad eats well ^^

[@Xyphoe]

Thank you Koren! And I will have to check his channel too.

[@Joliie]

How to miss your CPC when moved to Amiga and Target Renegade was a favorite on the CPC. Yeah was no good on the C64, but a few years later they got Golden Axe :)

[@Xyphoe]

It took a long time before the Amiga started getting good arcade conversions it seemed, really the Amiga started to shine when original games were made directly for it (not Atari ST ports) that played to the strength of the machine - and that took a good few years it felt.

[@ArtoPekkanen]

I wonder why they didn't implement scrolling on the original version. The CPC has hardware support for vertical and horizontal scrolling of character cell in mode 1.

[@Xyphoe]

I mean you can ask that question about thousands of Amstrad games. The answer is it's very messy, complicated and limiting. And coders generally weren't up to the task of doing it or just didn't have the knowledge / or skills. It's incredibly tough to do. The hardware scroll using the CRTC chip (and the R12/R13 registers to define the start address of the screen) is documented but it actually isn't smooth - it's not a 1 pixel scroll. And it's messy. I think you can see it used in some Amsoft games like Roland On The Ropes and Roland In Space. What people later found out, which wasn't very well documented, you could then do on top is use other registers like R3 or R5 for horizontal or vertical sync/adjust to get it down to a 1 pixel scroll. But that introduces more issues like instability issues with the screen like flickering, edges of the screen distorting, etc. So then you need to sort out the flickering, and then you need to sort out the rough edges by using rupture to split the screen eg by putting a static panel of lives, score etc if it's vertical scrolling game like on Mission Genocide. Bit tougher to do on a side scroller like Renegade that would need two splits either side with some kind of border covering over the mess! So that's a LOT of work just for scrolling for a game that's coming from a commercial house like Ocean/Imagine that wants to churn product out under a tight and short deadline that wants to move onto their next game in a few week. Although in this era Ocean tended to allow their coders a little bit more time prior to Robocop becoming a smash hit.

[@jamesrizzo295]

Great vid! Amstrad version has my vote. The speccy game play looks good (not necessarily better) but I just can't get over how ugly the graphics are. And yes I agree, I would love to see an update to Gryzor! I absolutely loved this game when it was released.

[@Xyphoe]

Thanks James! Oh I think it looks great on the Speccy given the limitations, I suppose a Spectrum fan could fire back and say the CPC version looks 'blocky' and like 'Lego bricks' or something! 😂 Usual stuff! The Speccy does have smaller pixels therefore more detailed sprites I guess. Personally, and I'm trying to not be too biased here, I do think the Amstrad version does look better 😎

[@timoheinonen9570]

I take less colour with clearer graphics and more defined sprites any day. To my eyes Amstrad CPC version of Renegade looks blocky, low resolution and messy. Some times less is more and more colour is not always the same thing as better graphics. Personally I prefer Target Renegade to Renegade, but both Renegade games have pretty good versions for General Sound soundcard on ZX Spectrum and are worth of occasional game.

[@Lucasrainford]

Not really being a Renegade fan I can take the unbiased view and after seeing all the ports I have to agree the CPC version looks the best m8. I most likely had a copy of it for Amiga bitd, can't remember? Not surprising really coz it looks tripe! Nice vid dude

[@Xyphoe]

If you did have the Amiga version and can't remember it - I would assume you tried your best to erase it from your memory! Probably binned or erased the disk and put a better game on it within minutes!!! Absolutely shocking conversion. I await it appearing in an OSG vid of another 'worst ever Amiga conversions'!

[@Lucasrainford]

@@Xyphoe Yeah! I would've deffo copied over it! 👍

[@steuph1976]

The Atari ST version, which hopefully we had pirated, brings back painful memories haha. It was even worse than Double Dragon which was something. As for the Master System version, it's pretty easy actually : the console's life had already ended in Japan in 1989 and in the US in... 1991 ? I recently learned even Wonder Boy III, arguably one of the best if not the best game on the console wasn't even released in Japan on the Master System, they cancelled it and it only came out on Game Gear two years later.

[@Xyphoe]

Yea, the Master System in the UK didn't go on sale until 1988 and the launch was rather botched - I don't really remember seeing any in friends houses until around 1990 when sales picked up - by then the Mega Drive (Genesis) was around the corner!

[@heyhonpuds]

New version = best version. Cheers for another great vid Xyphoe.

[@Xyphoe]

Thanks Heyhon! Glad you enjoyed it!

[@ATheV]

Great video, very informative. BUT... one point remains unspoken. The Spectrum-version has one ace up its sleeve that the Amstrad-version seems unable to counter: The music plays perfectly. Fred Gray was going for a 'Rockabilly'-style soundtrack for Renegade, and while it's almost perfect on the Amstrad, it IS perfect on the Spectrum, because it was written for its hardware. The minute difference in frequencies between how the Spectrum and the Amstrad playback their AY-music is the key. :) EDIT: And then I saw your coverage of the MS-DOS version (didn't know that existed) - there's No Way that version sounded that sweet back in the day. Back then there was only the PC Infernal Beeper, the demented smoke alarm. It may have belted out a rendition of the soundtrack, but what we're hearing in this video ain't it.

[@Xyphoe]

Hey Arni, I'm not sure I agree re the music. I don't know the technical details without doing a deep dive, but I believe the AY chips differ slightly between the Amstrad and the Amstrad produced Spectrums and the latter always sounds a slightly higher/faster pitch and frequency. Fred when porting his music to the Amstrad could have easily tweaked it but chose not to. So I don't think you can assert Fred's intentions were perfect or not for one system. You can perhaps definitely make that argument for Target Renegade when it goes all wobbly and out of sync on the Amstrad port! Both Renegade's sound great, best not to be drawn into arguments over minute differences in frequencies making one sounding better than the other.

[@Xyphoe]

Oh and regarding the PC MS-DOS version.... this came out in 1988 and I selected to use Ad Lib music synthesizer sound card, which came out in 1987. Perhaps I should have mentioned that in the commentary but there was already so much I had to remember!

[@davidfernandezsabio3844]

Which emulator is the best for playing this enhanced version of Renegade?

[@Xyphoe]

Most Amstrad emulators are fine - the old warhorse and most user friendly WinApe does the job, CPCEC which is the most regularly updated and accurate is perhaps recommended, but Retro Virtual Machine makes that AY chip just thump out the tunes that little nicer...

[@104d_3rr0r_vince]

As much as I loved Target Renegade, the controls kept me away from the first one. Nice job with the Reloaded version though.

[@Xyphoe]

There's a cool program called "JoyToKey" you can install and setup a custom profile specifically for playing Renegade on to remap the keys to anything of your liking when playing via emulation! I have it ready to open and run mapped to my arcade stick for when I'm streaming!

[@lewiswaddo5045]

Amstrad version has always been the best, now the gap between the rest has grown larger! Whoop whoop!

[@Xyphoe]

Definitely one to be very proud of for CPC fans! And certainly the best of the recent 'improvements' of Amstrad games, hope there are more to come!

[@andymountain130]

It's like having your first pint of Stella with a case of red bull and some southern American country marching Powder!?

[@Xyphoe]

😱 If you say so!! I was about 8 years old when I first played Renegade..... dunno about yourself!! 😂

[@noneofyourbiz5973]

I think the Enterprise version clinches it as it looks smoother. The CPC version still looks absolutely wonderful. It would be good to see the throw move added in both the Enterprise and CPC versions.

[@Xyphoe]

I have pretty much written off the Enterprise 128 version purely on the basis that it is an absolute f'ing NIGHTMARE to get running in the one and only emulator I could find. Unless there's something else out there or a better way of doing it.... but I had to watch a 2minute KZbin tutorial on just how to load ONE GAME that has a ridiculous amount of steps and hoops to jump through, from vague memory - load a specific ROM file that allows you to 'open files' (LOL!) epfileIO.rom, then go to the config menu, load an ASCII file, then load a specific config file making sure it's the 128k_FILE_IO.cfg one because it's a 128k only game, set a new working directory for where the game file resides (one directory per game file btw), load a .COM file, then finally run the game file I think. I might have missed a step somewhere. You see what I mean? No thanks! I believe there may be a 'gamebase' frontend out there but last I could find it was well over a decade old and couldn't find it. Also the colours in the Enterpise version are a bit more muted and flat compared to the Amstrad one. So respectfully I think I'll take the Amstrad Renegade Reloaded version over the Enterprise 128 one. But great work and I'm really happy for the Enterprise community, and if anyone from that community wants to educate me on emulators etc I will be more than happy to listen and be educated!

[@Gecoaa]

@@Xyphoe Yes, setting up of EP128emu for loading files from a folder in your operating system needs some steps, but if it is done once, it is very comfortable and fast, do not need to care disk images, and tap files :D There is another emulator, EP32, it does not require set up for loading files from a folder, just it is old, and not perfect. When you run into an enemy, it does not cause damage, it just falls to the ground.

[@Gecoaa]

Otherwise, congratulation for the great video :)

[@Xyphoe]

@@Gecoaa Thank you Geco and glad you found the video and liked it! It was mostly done in recognition of your amazing talents and hard work! As you can tell, I absolutely loved it!! The Amstrad community thanks you!! Regarding the EP128emu ... thanks for the information. Once I've done that, does it save those settings so I don't have to do that again for other games - or do I have to do that every time for the next time? It's such an awful un-user friendly way of doing things. I've had to use hundreds of emulators to capture footage for my videos when I've done comparisons, for some really obscure machines like some bizarre Japanese PC's that hardly anyone has ever heard of but sadly this was by far the worst user interface experience I've had - it almost made me angry! I don't know if the emulator is still supported by the developer any more but they really need to rethink the whole process from the ground up in my opinion, especially if they want to welcome new users to the Enterprise scene. That's just my thoughts!

[@Gecoaa]

@@Xyphoe The biggest worth is for @Toto, he created the graphics, and he encouraged to create the CPC version also with the new movements, when i started, i wanted to add the scrolling, because i know usually missing scrolling, or jerky scrolling is a pain point of CPC community (and poor Spectrum ports also, like for us on Enterprise :D :D ) If you set up once the emulator it saves the setting, you do not need to specify the folder again, just if you want to use another folder, but it is fast and easy, the 1st set up of PC file handling is a bit tricky only, and you can choose any of config files which contains FileIO for use this options. The GUI of the emulator is good, and the debugger is the best, the problem is that, unfortunately the developer stopped to work on it (this emulator is 99,9% perfect for Enterprise emulation), and the link to the ROM package does not work on Github, because of changed security settings of EP forum, i just recognized 1-2 weeks ago. If you have any question regarding the emulator, you can ask me on CPCwiki forum in a PM also :)

[@apokalip6]

La versión de amstrad es la mejor,la verdad es que konami con este juego y gryzor se salieron

[@Gambit771]

So this is why you've been troubling yourself with the Enterprise emulator.

[@Xyphoe]

Oh mate. Unless there's another better one out there.... don't bother and trouble yourself with trying to work it out. I'll probably never do a live stream of Enterprise games.

[@SwainyAtRetroAsylum]

The 128k Speccy version is better than the original Amstrad version however the new version is superb. If they can add the throw then it would be perfect.

[@dlfrsilver]

mmhh no. The ZX is the Amstrad CPC for the poor. Renegade is much much better on CPC (this was wanted at Ocean).

[@SwainyAtRetroAsylum]

@@dlfrsilver So why couldn’t you throw in the Amstrad version?

[@Xyphoe]

Agreed if they added the throw move it would be perfect. Talking of the original version, the 464 version doesn't need 128k for any additional stuff apart from to load all the levels in in one go, so it would win there against the Speccy 48k one. As for the Speccy 128k version vs CPC original ... I don't know whether it's so clear cut. Pros and cons on both sides. Larger playing window and that throw move on the Speccy vs more colourful graphics and faster moving sprites and gameplay on the CPC. It comes down to what there you value more? And that comes down to personal preference :)

[@noneofyourbiz5973]

@Dean Swain - where's Double Dragon on the speccy?!

[@dlfrsilver]

@@SwainyAtRetroAsylum probably because this move doesn't exist in Arcade. And out of this, Renegade on Amstrad CPC is the best version. There's nothing you can do about that.

[@RetroUnlim]

The spectrum version is still the best by far. 🎉

[@Xyphoe]

I can understand and respect that, but 'by far'? Nah!

[@RetroUnlim]

@@Xyphoe 🎣

[@Xyphoe]

@@RetroUnlim aha! naughty boy!

[@luffy-yy9zc]

all versions suck except one : CPC version FOR EVER !!!!!!! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🤩🤩🤩🤩✨✨✨✨😘😘

[@Xyphoe]

Haha cheeky! Have to say the ZX Spectrum version is absolutely excellent, and I really enjoyed playing the NES and Master System ones even though they don't feel like true conversions more like 'inspired by' or kinda sequels to the original game. Of course the arcade original is cool to play.