"River City Ransom in feudal Japan."

In Japan, RCR was known as Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari and it was part of a videogame series by Technos starring a high school student named Kunio and told the story of Kunio and his friends & enemies. There was several sport games , a couple of fighting games and a Puyo-Puyo clone. This one is the sequel of RCR, or at least it's as close as you gotta get.

The story of Downtown Special is about a warrior called Kuniomasa (Kunio). One day, Kunimasa and his partner, Tsurumatsu (Sonokawa), are called by their teacher, Bunzou (Gouda). When they arrived to Bunzou's place, they encouter Kunimasa's lover, Okoto (Hasebe) and her fiancee, Asajirou (Toudou), who seems to have a grudge agaisnt Kunimasa. After that encounter, they enter Bunzou's place and are told to find cure for Bunzou's curse and that's where the game begins.

The gameplay is similar to RCR, however instead of being stricted to a linear path you are free to go anywhere while searching for rival clans. Pressing Start and the B button allows you to see you're current location and that of the clans. There are ten different areas in all, each has it's unqiue looks, feel and BGM.

One thing most people will notice at the start of the game is the addition of a partner system similar to the Saturn game, Guardian Heroes. You control Kunimasa while the CPU controls his partner (or vice versa). You can adjust the way your partner behave (should he pick up weapons, fight aggressively, stay away, ect.). You can go to the main HQ and change your partner (eacn partner has it's own unique special moves and stats). While most of your allies will be defeated bosses, there are some that won't join you unless your current partner is defeated at a certain point of the game. Also, if you're not careful, one of your allies might end up betraying you (usually the neglected one). Sometimes, an ally will leave you only to come back to your party later. The only flaw with this system is the fact that it slows down the game a bit and in order to speed-up, you must either, kill your partner or throw all weapons off-screen, plus nothing beats playing the game with another living being.

Special moves also has their on seperate iventory and they can be turn off and on anytime, so you don't to waste precious space in the iventory to have that Maha Kick you always wanted. Speaking of special moves, there are a couple of new moves like a pin attack (similar Renegade) and a Teleport punch.

The graphics is just a good as RCR. As minor addition, you can see the character's mouth moves as they speak during a Non Playable Scene. The music (by Kazuo Sawa, who also compose the music for RCR, Super Dodgeball and various Kunio-Kun game) is also great. Like previously stated, each area has it's own unique BGM, each fits in with that unique area. There's also more SFX than RCR.

While Downtown Special is not really a sequel to RCR, it's as close as you gotta get. It's still a great game despite all the slowdown problems.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/27/00, Updated 03/27/00