Video Game / Franko: The Crazy Revenge

This is the best this game will ever look.^note Franko is the second from the right. The supposedly-deceased Alex is the first one from the left.

Szczecin, Poland, 1987. Two teenagers roamed through the streets, practicing martial arts for self-defense and showing off. One day they got ambushed by a gang led by a guy named Klocek^Translation Fecol, and while the two tried fending off, Franko eventually got knocked unconscious and Alex fared even worse (except that he's still a playable character, somehow). Swearing revenge, Franko kept on training for few years and in the early nineties he's now ready to take on Klocek, and all of the thugs, punks, skinheads, pakers, karatekas, crooked cops, ZOMO^Note Communist-era Poland's state police, disbanded by the time the game proper is supposed to take place troopers, a software pirate, soldiers, exhibitionists and others before him.

It's a bit crazier than it sounds.

One of Poland's earliest commercial games developed for the Commodore Amiga, this 1994 Beat 'em Up's main draw was undoubtedly its setting that quite accurately replicated the few areas of the actual Szczecin city (albeit with more crime) and its off-kitler tone. All of that helped the game secure its Cult Classic status within its country of origin despite its amateurish visuals and some technical deficiencies.

After twenty-eight years, it received a sequel, Skinny and Franko: Fists of Violence, on Steam in April of 2023.

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LET'S GO:

• Anachronism Stew: One of the enemy types are ZOMO troopers, as in members of the Communist-era riot polish that were disbanded by the time the game proper would take place.^Note To be fair, these could be communist-era holdovers that still kept their job after the country's transition, in an allusion to the Polish 1992 film Psy, about a former state police officer trying to adapt to the new post-communist reality.
• Art Evolution: Skinny and Franko improves the graphics by miles, with the animation looking like an action graphic novel coming to life.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: In the sequel, Skinny and Franko, with the new character Skinny as the Little Guy to Franko's Big Guy.
• Bonus Stage: In between the main stages the player gets to drive from one district to the next in a Fiat 126p, driving over non-innocent pedestrians for extra lives in a way.
• Context-Sensitive Button: A downplayed example, but the standard kick command (Fire button while holding down) becomes a sweep attack whenever player is facing the boss. It also does the ground beatdown attack, see Difficult, but Awesome below.
• Coup de Grâce Cutscene: Each time you bring a boss down, Franko (or Alex) would do something extra on his own:
  • The first boss: Boss gets pissed on
  • The software pirate: Boss gets his back broken, Bane-style
  • Klocek: Franko just lets Klocek rest on the railing that wouldn't support the weight.
• Creator Provincialism: The game is based on the city of Szczecin, much like their developers.
  • The sequel Skinny and Franko retains the Szczecin setting for most of it's campaign, except for one level (and the transitional levels around it) that is based on Szczecin's neighbouring city Stargard.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The grapple move, performed by Fire while holding forward. While it's a bit tricky to get used to with how long it takes until you'd grab, when you'd grab a thug you can either do a grapple attack (headbutts, etc.) or throw the opponents onto other opponents. These are among some of your most damaging moves.
  • And then there's beating down grounded enemies. You'd have to correctly position yourself on top of the opponent and use fire+down (the same command for the kick if you miss) but if you pull this off, it's a guaranteed instant kill against non-boss enemies.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: The second boss of the game is the owner of a software piracy shack that got locked down by the time you encounter him. Reportedly the real person that inspired the character laughed his ass off.
  Pirate: What the fuck are you looking at?
  Franko: I have eyes for that.
  Pirate: Then can't you see it's closed?
  Franko: I don't give a shit, I'm not buying at bootleggers!
  Pirate: I would destroy you for that insolence soon!
  Franko: Just try, dumbass!
• Excuse Plot: You and your buddy got ambushed by a drug dealer's gang few years ago. Now, go tear Klocek and his goons a new one.
  • It is possible that the plot may have been one of the last things thought up by the developers, which would explain some discrepancies regarding Alex.
• Every 10,000 Points: Outside of the Bonus rounds you gain a life stock for each 35th kill.
• Everything Fades: Averted, the defeated enemies stay lying down dead on the floor until the screen scrolls away from them.
• Expy: Franko certainly shares Cody's wardrobe.
• Fan Disservice: Let's just say you really wouldn't want to let one of those exhibitionists from the third level go anywhere near you.
• Foreign Cuss Word: On both sides. While this is a Polish game released in primarily Polish language, some enemies do cuss in english as well.
  • Case in point: one of the very first mooks you face says "....shit" once you'd encounter him
• Full-Frontal Assault: The coat flashers of the third stage.
• Funny Background Event: While the stages are one big static images - with only the first and third boss fights having any sort of background animation - there's quite a bit going on within the stages at times.
• Gorn: Downplayed as there's no ripping off spines and anything near that hardcore^note World Software's next game Doman: Sins of Ardan would up the ante with decapitations as well as amounts of Scenery Gorn in some of the stages., but nonetheless at the time the game did stood out in the genre with its level of violence, with blood spraying out and painting the floor quite a bit and bodies of the defeated staying down in a rather bad shape rather than blinking out of existence.
• Kick the Dog: By the time you'd finally encounter Klocek at the end of the final level, he's beating up a random kid.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: Goes with how much have the developers - especialy the artist, see the YMMV page - tried to tax on the hardware.
• Marathon Level: For the standards of the genre at the time, the game only has 3 main stages, but each of them are lengthy and can take around from 11 to 18 minutes or more each to go through, further compounded by the constant load times.
• Mercy Invincibility: Cruelly averted. It's not uncommon for the enemies to beat you up - or even worse, grapple attack you - as soon as you'd get up after getting knocked down. It can feel a bit random on whenever the AI would let you walk away without getting knocked down right again.
• Moveset Clone: Franko and Alex may have different animations for few moves (Alex has a groin punch in place of Franko's kick) but they play mostly similarly.
• Nintendo Hard: The lack of Mercy Invincibility noted above leads up for not a very forgiving game.
• Product Placement: The third level has a billboard advertising RoboCop 3 of all things.
• Production Foreshadowing: One of the blocs in the first stage has "DOMAN" written on it, and it's also one of Franko's cheat codes. World Software's next game after Franko would turn out to be Sword & Sorcery-themed Spiritual Successor Doman: Grzechy Ardana.^Translation Doman: Sins of Ardan
• Railing Kill: Self-inflicted by the final boss once you defeat him.
• Real-Place Background: Each of the three stages are based on Szczecin's noted streets that - aside of few streamlined areas there and there - are recreated as meticulously as the artist Mariusz Pawluk's Deluxe Paint skills would have allowed him.^note The password for the second stage is CENT as in Szczecin's Centre district and the third stage's passcode is DRZE, as in the Drzetowo neighbourhood.
• Retraux: Skinny and Franko, despite being made in 2022, has graphics akin to an arcade Beat 'em Up from the late 90s / early 2000s.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Revenge is in the title, even.
• Schrödinger's Player Character: Possibly one of the strangest inversions of this trope ever imaginable. The plot very much implies that Alex was killed during that gang ambush in the backstory..... and yet you can play as him.
  • Both Franko and Alex can be seen at the background on the screen with the dead Klocek, to boot.
  • The sequel Skinny and Franko - which does have a co-op multiplayer - downplays this. At the start of the single-player game, the chosen player character would have their own comment on the unavailability of the other protagonist.
    Franko: Skinny has a "little tummy ache." The dude have just shat himself, so I need to go alone.
    Skinny: Fat-arse is bullshitting us that the pain in his crotch prevents him from walking. Right, well... if you need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.
• Sequential Boss: You bring down Klocek, he goes to rest by the fence of the bridge to tear you a new one soon. And then the railing he was resting on breaks.
  Klocek: O KURWA!!!^Translation OH FUCK!!!
• Stylistic Suck: Diplomaticly speaking, the graphics aren't exactly great, yet they do sort of add to its charm.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Driving over old grannies and other innocent pedestrians during the bonus sections takes away your health and even lives.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Downplayed example with Alex, who wears a leather jacket with no shirt underneath.
• Wretched Hive: Szczecin, in-universe.

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SPADAJ PIERDOŁO^Translation Buzz off, dumbass!