Eight Dragons - Spiritual successor to Target Renegade coming soon to Steam

It's been a good month for my inner child. Growing up, owning a ZX Spectrum, my three favourite games for it were Barbarian, Saboteur, and Target Renegade. What with Barbarian getting not one but two snazzy looking remakes released in the coming months (Barbarian +,and Cimmerian), and Saboteur getting its long awaited threequel (I don't care if that's not a word),  I really didn't think things could get better for the ten year old Chris that now only exists in the best part of my brain. Now we have Eight Dragons from the marvellous peeps at Extend Mode and it looks fantastic.

I'd call it a spiritual successor to Target Renegade. You could call it a pseudo remake, or a homage, or a "why the hell don't people make games like Target Renegade anymore, sod it, we'll do it ourselves" (Disclaimer: not an actual quote from Extend Mode). Regardless, it's a solid looking scrolling beat em up, less in the traditional sense of the Arcades but more in fitting with the 8 bit computer attempts to bring that gameplay home in the late 80's. What's really exciting is that the same developer of the excellent Target 2006 remake of Target Renegade is behind this new game. So its safe to say that he knows his onions, kicked them off a speeding motorcycle, and promptly pinned them to the ground and punched shit out of them.

So that was the rather spiffy 2006 remake, but the new game Eight Dragons is called that for a reason. It features up to eight players simultaneously and is much more than a remake. The amount of enemies on screen is as staggering as the amount of players.

...and the pixel art designs are excellent. A loving tribute the ZX Spectrum version (generally considered the best although the CPC version is also a classic) but cranked up considerably thanks to the wonders of modern hardware beef. The eight characters on offer look great and there's some nice nods to some of our favourite movie stars in there, all named with stuff that nobody is called in real life. Names like Randt, Chard, Cera, Becca, Aston, Locke, Zonda, and Danny. I mean, who's called that?

Originally penned for a Summer release, Eight Dragons is now likely to be released around October in order to add much requested online multiplayer (Target Renegade fans better dust off your modems). I've played a version and it's shaping up really nice. Its perhaps too difficult for a solo player at the moment (or I just suck), but here's hoping that by its winter release this is going to be the successor that Target Renegade deserves.

You can get updates on Eight Dragons by following these lovelies on twitter @ExtendMode, where you can also follow Christmas Milling's inner ten year old @GamesInBits, where he makes games too, sort of, a bit, yeah.

Links 1) Website