River City Ransom

"Great game. I wish there was a sequel for the SNES..."

River City Ransom was somewhat of an obscure fighting game for the NES. I just can’t see why, since it did have an English version released outside of Japan. The game was released by Technos, in 1989. Well, it’s a great, great game, and those who have never played it, oh, they don’t know what they’ve been missing for all these years. With surprisingly good graphics, precise control, superb gameplay, and an overall charm, RCR is for sure an enjoyable experience.

Story: In the very beginning you’re asked to pick one of the two playable characters: Alex or Ryan. That doesn't matter much, since they play exactly the same. Some guy named Slick holds the whole River City captive, including Ryan’s girlfriend, and it’s your job to defeat him and his gang and rescue everybody. Nothing really surprising here, besides the fact that a whole city must be freed, instead of just a girlfriend!

Graphics: Really good for a 1989 NES game! Everything was drawn manga-style. One of the things where this can be noticed is the super-deformed style of the characters. This gave the designers the possibility to draw a variety of faces for the fighters, which gives them a nice touch. Although there are some palette swaps, you won’t be beating the same guy over and over.

River City looks great, with a good variety of settings and backgrounds. You’ll find yourself beating the crap out of bad guys in places like roads, tunnels, parks, bridges, factories... The animation is smooth (for a game of that era, that is). Punches, kicks, throws, weapons, everything is well animated. Oh, and the malls look great (more on that later). In the outside, they all look the same, but the characters that sell you items, as well as the backgrounds of the stores, are beautifully drawn, and helps give the game a humorous touch

There’s not much bad to say about the graphics in this game. Well, the backgrounds could use some animation (but they still look very good the way they are). Enough with complaints, these are some good graphics! (9/10)

SoundFX/Music: The sound FX are somewhat standard, but there are some pretty good ones, like the weapon sounds. Everything else isn’t really noteworthy, and some of the noises are actually annoying, such as the one that you hear when there’s dialogue. (5/10)

The music, on the other hand, is really upbeat and fits the mood of the action. Most of the time you’ll be hearing some kind of MIDI rockabilly, but it does work fine, and is quite enjoyable, too. There are not many songs in this game, but the ones that are there are good. They always remains on the background, which is good, since they don’t interfere in your playing. A nice soundtrack, but there could be one or two more songs. (8/10)

Control: It’s just like Double Dragon’s, only much better. While the button schemes of these two games are similar (A punches, B kicks, and A+B jumps), the response time is much less of a plague. Something cool here is that you can run: just tap the directional pad twice to the left/right. The only problem control-wise is when there’s a hole nearby and you need to run and jump. You should be careful, because your guy slides a little whenever he lands from a running jump. So, whenever you’re ready do kill Louie (or Vinny, Brad, or whatever stupid name the bad guy has) with a running flying kick or an Acro Circus, take look at where you’ll land. Also, it’s kind of hard to control your jumping. But that isn’t a big problem either, since there are very few pits in the game (and, consequently, less cheap deaths). Everything else is really simple and responsive, and shouldn’t give you any big problems. (8.5/10)

Gameplay: So here is what makes this game different than other games in its era. Some brilliant concepts make this game unique. To begin with, you have your status window. You’re given points which measure your abilities: punch, kick, stamina, defense, will power, are some of them. You can also get money from the enemies you beat. As you progress in the game, they get tougher (and leave more money). Money is used in the malls to buy food, toys, shoes, music CD’s, medicine, etc. All of these items and many more I can’t remember of right now increase your stats in many different ways. Of course, some of them are more expensive than others – which doesn’t necessarily mean the more expensive, the better. Some items can make you spend money earned with the sweat of your brows and not help you much.

River City consists of *one* huge level. Occasionally you’ll find bosses, or one of the malls. These are basically places with a certain number of stores, where you can run around freely without having to fight. There you can buy the aforementioned power-ups. Among them, there are some books that can be used to learn techniques. For instance: the book called “Stone Hands” can make you give three quick punches; “Acro Circus” gives you a cool new jumping move; and so on. The only one I couldn’t figure its purpose is “Fatal Steps”. Anyway, the books make the game even more fun!

Now let’s just stop to think for a moment: stats, money, malls... These are elements of RPG, smartly blended into the beat’em-up-action! Money is like experience points; the malls play the role of cities; the technique books can be compared to magic spells; and so on. All of these aspects make of River City Ransom a truly unique gaming experience! (10/10)

Replay? Yes, definitely. It’s just so much fun to play this game! And the RPG elements help a lot as well. The gameplay can be so fun, you never get bored of beating those little guys up, even when you need to make money to buy that super-duper-item that costs a whooping $100. The only major grip here is that the game gets too easy once you master it. There’s the option of changing the difficult level during the fights, whenever you feel like things are getting too easy. However, there are only two levels – “normal” and “advanced”. I wish there were more difficulty options. This would help increase the replay value. But you’ll have good times even when you have to go back to buy that super-duper-item you can now afford, or when you forgot to beat that boss. (8/10)

Overall: Awww, just go play this game already!!! You’ll be doing yourself a favor. Rent, buy it new, buy it used, borrow it, download the ROM, steal the cartridge, the bottom line is you must play this game!
(10/10 - not an average)

[Date of the review: 12-21-2000]
[Last updated: 12-31-2000]

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/01, Updated 01/03/01