A great thing about modern retro gaming is that new compilations of retro titles tend to be announced multiple times a year. Regularly, these also include a game or two that never came to America before. This time, Arc System Works is releasing a multitude of new-for-us games by the masters of beat’em ups: Technos!
The collection is titled, Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics, and includes a variety of sports and action titles. The full list of games include,
- Super Dodge Ball Arcade
- River City Renegade (Super Nes)
- Kunio’s Dodgeball Time, C’mon Guys! (SNES)
- Downtown River City Baseball Story (SNES)
- Kunio’s Oden (SNES)
- Xain’d Sleena (Arcade)
- China Gate (Arcade)
- Shadow Force (Arcade)
- The Combatribes (Arcade)
- The Combatribes (SNES)
- Sugoro Quest++ Dicenics (Super Famicom, Japanese Language Only)
- DunQuest (SFC, Japanese Language Only)
Of the titles listed above, at least nine of them have never been officially released in North America. The last two titles are being included as bonus games, and will not be translated in English for the collection. Additionally, I am unsure if Super Dodge Ball Arcade ever came to the USA.
One notable inclusion is the arcade and SNES versions of The Combatribes which is a popular beat’em up from the early 90s. Evercade fans will remember the arcade version as being included on the Technos Arcade 1 cartridge, which has since become legacy and is no longer being produced. Consequently, its inclusion here along with the console version is a welcome addition. Of course, some may be wondering why include both versions of the game? According to the Arc System Works website, the SNES version has 3 extra stages and improved gameplay mechanics. As such, I’m glad it’s here!
Sadly, as indicated in the list above, not all the games in this collection will be in English. These include Sugoro Quest++ Dicenics and DunQuest, both of which were never released in the West. Looking online for possible English-language romhacks of those two games came up with almost nothing. At least one of them had an attempted fan translation, but to my knowledge, it was never completed.
According to Arc System Works’ website, the collection is set to release on April 24, 2025 for Steam, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch (e-shop link forthcoming). Oddly enough, the store pages for Steam and PS5 state that it releases a day earlier, on April 23. I don’t know why there is a discrepancy on the release date, but I just wanted to point that out. I haven’t heard anything about an Xbox Series S/X version, or if a physical release will be coming later.
Cheap Retro Gaming 
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