River City Ransom EX

"Any of the new features don't make up for the absence of co-op in River City Ransom Ex."

I am hoping that if you have, or have had a NES in your lifetime, that you have played a game called River City Ransom. RCR is the kind of game that is essential to any gaming collection. It was a classic by any means of the word. If you are unfamiliar with this game, as it is the only game in the series apart from its remake that I am reviewing, RCR is a brawler. Following in the footsteps of Double Dragon, RCR was a very fun and accessible to any NES owner due to its reasonable difficulty and fun and addictive gameplay.

Fifteen years after the release of the original game comes its remake. This happens to a lot of classic games and tends to ruin or enhance a lot of classic games. For the good or for the bad, remakes are and always will be here. River City Ransom's remake is simply the classic Nintendo game with redone graphics and on a handheld system. If you ever wanted to play River City on the go, now you can. But the real question is, is this a worthy remake? Read on and find out.

The plot of River City Ransom is as simple as this-your buddy Ryan's girlfriend was kidnapped by some creep named Slick so you and Ryan go to save her. However, Slick has all these gangs ready to fight you so you can't get to him. Not original, but it works. It's actually like most of the other games plots and awesome games like Super Mario Bros. used it, but that is not the point. The point is, in games like RCR, the plot just does not matter one bit. It is nothing to the game.

River City Ransom Ex is a brawler game. If you are unfamiliar with the brawler genre, it is basically a sidescrolling fighting game. In RCR Ex you basically have two characters, one being controlled by you and the other being AI Controlled. You maneuver through these levels beating up anyone who comes in your way. So you punch, you kick, you learn all kinds of moves. In fact, you can learn moves by buying books that will teach you them. That is another big thing in RCR Ex, you can enhance your character is so many different ways. You can buy all kinds of different foods and items to increase your stamina and a lot more. Other things of this game aren't so polished though. For example, in a lot of scenarios you can just run right through the areas unlike in basically every other brawler which has you beat all the enemies before you can progress. This makes the game somewhat easy and if you play like that, it just won't be much fun. In addition to that, the battle system isn't so hot anymore either. The animations are stiff and kind of slow and it just isn't as fun as many other brawler games. Also, this game is missing a co-op mode that was an awesome aspect of the original game. Co-op was very fun in the original and its absence in Ex is disappointing.

So what makes this game any different from River City Ransom on the NES? Well for starters, the graphics have been bumped up in quality. Unfortunately, there are much better looking Gameboy Advance games then this one. It does look better than the original but is still nothing more than mediocre. There is a new confusing and annoying save system, but is better than nothing I suppose and it does beat the old password system. There are some new gangs to fight and some new attacks and weapons. Other than that, just not enough has changed. Do remakes necessarily have to make a drastic change? Of course not, but RCR is now a somewhat dated game and more changes or additions to the game would have been welcome.

People tend to look at consoles for more graphics over handhelds, but it's still nice to have a decent looking handheld game. RCR Ex, isn't so great though. It's an improvement over the original but for a Gameboy Advance game it just looks a little plain. The detail isn't too great and there are just a lot better looking GBA games out there. All that can be said is that it is merely an alright looking game but definitely not a graphical powerhouse. The music on the other hand is pretty good and it pretty much the same as it was before. It's a little dated and sounds a bit grainy on the GBA speakers. However, it holds up if you want to hear some alright music in a GBA game.

River City Ransom got a lot of its charm partly because of the goofy phrases the enemies will say. Now I know this isn't a very important thing to write about but with RCR it kind of is. How many games to enemies say "BARF" after you've defeated them? Not very many games deserve this kind of honor for their goofiness, but from the select few, River City Ransom is one of them.

River City Ransom Ex is not for everyone. In fact, it is mainly for anyone who enjoyed the original and wants to play a remake of it or wants to be able to play it on the go. It was a great game fifteen years ago but the times are changing and so are the video games we play. Some games hold up, other games don't. While River City Ransom Ex is by no means a bad game, it is one of those games that doesn't quite hold up with the others.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/12/07

Game Release: River City Ransom EX (US, 05/25/04)