Technos Japan

Technos Japan (株式会社テクノスジャパン Kabushiki-gaisha Tekunosujapan) was a Japanese videogame developer, best known for the Kunio-kun and Double Dragon franchises. As of June 2015, Arc System Works owns the intellectual properties of Technōs Japan.

History

Initially operating from a single-room apartment, Technōs was founded in 1981 by three staff members of Data East. Their first game was Minky Monkey, released in 1982. Many of Technōs Japan's earlier games were often published or distributed by other companies, particularly Data East (as was the case with Karate Champ) and Taito, as Technōs at the time did not have the economical resource to distribute their own games.

Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun ("Hot Blooded Tough Guy Kunio"), a side-scrolling beat-em-up released in 1986 about a high school student who fought thugs and delinquents from other schools, was the company's first big hit in Japan. Kunio-kun was released in the west as Renegade with the game's graphics changed to make the game marketable in the overseas market. Technōs would then produced an Nintendo Entertainment System version of the game, which would be Technōs' first game for the home console market. Technōs Japan's subsequent arcade beat-em-up, Double Dragon, was a big success worldwide when it was released in 1987, which also resulted in an NES version of the game produced, as well as licensed versions produced by other companies for various platforms.

The success of Kunio-kun led to the production of numerous spin-offs and sequels starring the same character produced for the 8-bit Family Computer platform in Japan and later for the Game Boy and Super Famicom, resulting in more than twenty games starring Kunio by the mid-1990s, many of which were rule-bending sports games. A few Kunio-kun games were localized for the North American market; namely Super Dodge Ball, River City Ransom (considered by critics to be a cult classic) and Nintendo World Cup, but none maintain any connection with each other. Technōs would attempt to remedy this by attempting to localize several Kunio-kun under the Crash 'n the Boys label, but only Crash 'n the Boys: Street Challenge was released (the game's ending features a teaser for Ice Challenge, which was unreleased).

Technōs also released two arcade sequels to Double Dragon: Double Dragon II: The Revenge in 1988 and Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone in 1990 (the latter was developed by an external development team at East Technology), and produced the respective NES versions of those games, as well as Super Double Dragon in 1992, an original installment for the Super NES. An American-produced Double Dragon animated series and a live-action film were also made as well.

Outside the Double Dragon and Kunio-kun games, Technōs produced a few original games for the arcade and home markets such as U.S. Championship V'Ball, The Combatribes and Shadow Force, as well as two WWF arcade games (WWF Superstars and WWF Wrestlefest), but most of these games did not achieve the same kind of success that Kunio-kun and Double Dragon achieved. The company's last games were produced for the Neo Geo hardware, which include a Double Dragon fighting game based on the movie, their second and last fighting game Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, and a Neo-Geo sequel to Super Dodge Ball. By 1996, Technōs Japan declared bankruptcy and ceased operations. Some of the developers who worked on the Neo Geo titles briefly worked at Face, a former affiliate of SNK.

Following the closure, a licensing company named Million Co., Ltd was formed to purchase the former intellectual properties of Technōs Japan. Million continued to produce new games such as Super Dodge Ball Advance, Double Dragon Advance and River City Ransom EX for the Game Boy Advance, Super Dodgeball Brawlers for the Nintendo DS, as well as reissuing older titles via the Virtual Console and other services. On June 11, 2015, Arc System Works announced they had acquired all intellectual properties of Technōs Japan from Million Co., Ltd.

Neo-Geo Games

• Double Dragon
• Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer / Choujin Gakuen Gowcaizer
• Super Dodge Ball / Kunio no Nekketsu Toukyuu Densetsu