Renegade Amiga Enhanced

Renegade Amiga Enhanced, or Renegade AGA, is a remake by Dave Douglas of the 1986 arcade Renegade by Technos.

The original Renegade, developed by Technos Japan, marked a crucial turning point in arcade brawlers. Its close-quarters combat, multidirectional movement, and gritty street-fight aesthetic laid the groundwork for what would later become the Kunio-kun and Double Dragon lineage. Unsurprisingly, it was ported to every major home platform of the late ’80s—but not all versions were equal. In particular, the Amiga port became infamous for its poor controls, crude animation, and overall failure to capture the tight gameplay that defined the arcade machine.

Nearly four decades later, developer Dave Douglas set out to correct that historical misstep. The result is Renegade Amiga Enhanced —a ground-up remake for both AGA and ECS Amiga systems, released in 2025. This project is not a reinterpretation but a technical and mechanical restoration. As Douglas explains: I disassembled the original code (6502) in Ghidra and rewrote the game logic for 68000, trying to be as faithful as possible. Of course, the graphics routines were completely rewritten. The music and sound effects use Frank Wille’s Protracker player routine.

The precision of this approach is immediately evident. Combat timing, enemy behavior, and screen flow mirror the arcade, while the rewritten graphics routines deliver clean, fluid scrolling and crisp sprites that finally do the hardware justice. The AGA version benefits from richer colors, but even the ECS build performs impressively given its constraints. Sound is also handled with care, with Protracker-driven playback reproducing the game’s punchy cues and iconic stage themes with surprising authenticity.

Gameplay feels tight, responsive, and—most importantly—accurate. It is unmistakably Renegade, but running as it always should have on Commodore’s 16-bit machine. This remake doesn’t modernize or embellish; it restores and respects.

For Amiga fans, beat-’em-up enthusiasts, and preservation-minded players, Renegade Amiga Enhanced finally gives the platform the definitive version it was denied in 1989. It is both a technical achievement and a satisfying corrective to gaming history.

Check the author website for more info.