River City Girls (Switch)

After reviving the Double Dragon series with Double Dragon Neon, WayForward likely seemed a perfect pick for doing the same to the other Technōs Japan beat ’em up Arc System Works now owns: River City Ransom. While it would mostly be different employees than those who worked on Double Dragon Neon working on the new title, it was pretty clear the team would be reinvigorating the series in a new and interesting way once it was clear who the spotlight would be on this time around.

In most River City Ransom games, Kunio and Riki are two tough high schoolers who fight their way around town, but in River City Girls, we instead follow their girlfriends after they receive a text that Kunio and Riki have been kidnapped. The two leading ladies bolt off to rescue them, but first they have to find them in a city that’s not only packed with people all too willing to fight, but many of whom have a beef with the boys or want to be Kunio and Riki’s girlfriends themselves. Up to two players can fight their way to the answers on what happened to the boys, the two leading ladies contrasting well with each other. Misako is a tough girl through and through, most of her lines dripping with anger and her instinctual response to a problem seems to be beating up whoever is causing it until it’s fixed. She’s not a total brute, but her zero tolerance towards people giving her the run around makes her a fiery lead that makes Kyoko stand out even more for her more relaxed and silly nature. River City Girls packs in a lot of humor during this simple quest to save the boyfriends, a lot of it stemming from Kyoko being a bit of an airhead or leading conversations down interesting paths. Misako is a lot more understanding of her friend’s behavior than most people’s, and while their friendship isn’t explored too deeply, they do have a good dynamic.

Misako and Kyoko are two different sides of the same coin, and their differences in personality manifest in how they fight. Misako’s toughness is expressed by the weight behind her moves. When she pulls back for a punch, she’s going to deliver the kind of blow that hits hard, and she’ll even throw in a brutal headbutt to follow. Kyoko, on the other hand, will literally attack by doing a dab on the opponent with special sound and light effects to boot. Kyoko’s bubbly attitude means her special moves focus more on agile moves based on cheerleading and volleyball while Misako whips out the wrestling moves like a suplex and hits hard with uppercuts. At a basic level though, these moves are either light attacks that can be chained together until you activate your heavy attack to finish things up or knock the enemies around, special moves usually requiring both special meter consumption and the proper level or upgrades to execute. Different moves are tied to jumps and some can only be used when grabbing a stunned enemy, but on the defensive you also pack the option to guard or parry, although the parry isn’t outright required or rewarded too heavily if executed properly.

Weapons can also be found to briefly change your combat style, the player limited to only using whatever the object is until it’s thrown away or breaks from overuse. Baseball bats and wooden planks are fairly standard bludgeons, but yo-yos and chains have extended range, and even though it doesn’t look like you should be able to, you can smash people over the head with bicycles and park benches just as easily as you would with the shovel item. The last unique attack option you pack are assist characters. If a regular enemy is about to be defeated, they can sometimes get on their knees and beg you not to knock them out. If you show mercy you can recruit them to assist you at a button’s press, the enemy executing an attack and then leaving after. They can be hurt though and some have pretty bad attacks that rarely work or are hard to line up, but it’s an interesting option despite its faults.

All in all, Misako and Kyoko are packed with good options for beat ’em up action, but the enemies could have been more varied to match. A lot of your foes are high schoolers or street toughs who rely on getting in close and comboing you with a sequence of attacks, one that can’t even be broken if your co-op partner tries to hurt the enemy while they’re executing the moves. While foes like the cheerleaders move around more, police officers throw explosives, and there are even robots with extending arms, most of your fights are with crowds of baddies who feel somewhat similar. They’ll have a special attack usually that can crop up, but a lot of the game is spent fighting progressively harder versions of what you’ve already seen, their numbers and frequency meant to make them difficult. You might get locked into an area to fight some until the game lets you progress, but otherwise, as you explore the city, you’ll end up encountering a lot of baddies just out and about looking for trouble. Beating up the first bunch you find can be fruitful, experience and money provided when you beat the batch you’re facing, but if the game wants you to move on, it begins adding more and more enemies who provide nothing and are tougher than the area’s regular baddies. Even sticking to just the foes you need to fight the battles can end up feeling a bit too similar, but the only major problem with them is that you need to line up pretty well with who you are fighting. River City Girls may use a very expressive pixel art style that makes the visuals pop, but it seems the two-dimensional sprites don’t have the biggest hitboxes, meaning sometimes you whiff a move or fail to line up with your fallen friend when you’re trying to revive them.

While there are some unique enemies that are more region based than the waves of regular baddies you face, the real creativity went into some spectacular boss fights. The first boss is an almost deceptively straightforward fight with a really tough woman, but after her, you’ll face off with a man who uses actual black magic in a variety of ways, a flying fashion designer who sprays blasts down from above, and the musician Noize who you must dodge not only her rabid fans but her notes expressed in a similar manner to Guitar Hero button prompts, the notes scrolling down across the tilted plane the game’s beat ’em up battles take place on. Bosses often have some fun humor to them as well, but the game can get a bit odd in trying to make some seem more significant than they really are with throwaway backstories. Not only are these fights brimming with imagination, but they are definitely difficult tests for your abilities, more so than the regular enemies who often just test your ability to handle a group of similar foes.

To help turn the tables in the boss fights, you either have to learn their patterns or come in prepared. Regular enemies drop cash to spend at the many shops around River City, and unfortunately, you won’t know the effects of items until you’ve bought them. These can include accessories that provide small situational bonuses that honestly aren’t really felt all that much, new moves that are definitely encouraged to buy to up your options for a fight, and food items that can either be eaten on the spot for a quick heal or stored in your inventory for later as a mid-battle heal. Death mostly just resets whatever room you’re in, be that a boss battle or a room with enemies or some hazard like a deadly drop or electrified floors. Money isn’t easy to come by despite the abundance of enemies though, mainly because of the paltry amount of foes sent your way and death halving your current amount of cash, so the purchasing options can’t be embraced too much, but like the assists, they are an interesting supplement to the action when they can be interacted with.

Most of River City Girls’s appeal is related to the style though. There are some excellent background tracks, including many with lyrics by the character Noize that stand out even among the noises of the brawls you’re involved in. Recurring characters like Hasebe and Mami serve almost as rivals even though they mostly just show up to insist they’re Kunio and Riki’s true girlfriends and Misako and Kyoko are losers, and the very odd character Godai reappears throughout to give sidequests so you can earn enough cash to engage with the shops better. Each shop has a unique shopkeeper, many references to other Technōs Japan games of the past, and there are many well animated hand drawn scenes as well as some fun voice acting all around. The story does come to a bit of an unsatisfying end even if you do destroy the statues around town and win the secret boss battle, but most of the game provides plenty to look at or listen to to make up for it.

THE VERDICT: River City Girls does have a bit of a problem with most of its regular combat growing repetitive and unrewarding, but the total experience is brimming with personality, style, and creativity in most every other area. The bosses are unique fights that break away from what you’d expect in a beat ’em up game, the characters are chock-full of personality in their designs and expressions alone, and the game does a good job keeping things interesting with its humor and visuals. The story can feel a little aimless and you can’t embrace the shops as much as you might like, but a good variety in moves and an interesting city to explore ensures this brawler can still entertain despite its weaker spots.

And so, I give River City Girls for Nintendo Switch…

A GOOD rating. Amazing bosses, colorful characters, wonderful style… River City Girls has a lot that could have made it great, but the basics are where it fumbles. The regular enemy fights really needed more attention and variety to sustain their constant presence, but they do get a bit better near the end and the fighting mechanics themselves are fairly well done. The unusual structures of the boss fights make them stand out and really challenge your attack methods and it’s fun to make progress to see more of the main characters’ interactions with new people and situations, but the money system could be reworked or just more generous to encourage more use of the shop system. Accessories in particular feel underutilized, but a lot of attention was definitely given to the overall feel of the title. It’s a game you like more because it’s such a colorful world full of personality rather than focusing on what you are actually doing in it, and even though that beat ’em up bugbear of repetitive combat arises, it’s got enough style to smooth over those moments and ensure the game never gets boring.

River City Girls has the spirit and craft to be a great co-op brawler, it just needs to punch up some of its fundamentals to truly lets its style shine. The look, the music, and the bosses are probably meant to carry the experience while the enemies are meant to be fuzzy forgotten memories, and the game nearly pulls that off thanks to the effort put into its most exciting and interesting parts. River City Girls is still good for a whirl for beat ’em up fans, its strengths more than enough to make for a stylish game world and interesting game experience.