Some of those who are reading this article will certainly have played or at least heard of it Double Dragon. But few will know the series that gave birth to this milestone of the beat 'em up genre, that is, Kunio-kun.
Together with Double Dragon, Kunio-kun gave birth River City, a much more niche and truly known title little in the West: many in fact have had the opportunity to try it only through a Famiclone or by retrieving the American version for NES.
Although the series did not have a huge media prominence with us, the same thing cannot be said in the land of the rising sun, where River City not only was it very well received by critics and the public, but it also became a title for a good period must have for every beloved gods arcade games.
The series saw the creation of infinite chapters and due to its importance, even after the failure of the studio that had given it birth, this was bought and saved by Million Corp, who decided to buy the rights.
Thanks to this the brand continued to churn out new titles and remakes until 2010. After that date, however, it suffered a setback and for good 8 years nothing was known about it.
At least until a few months ago, when the title that we are dealing with today was announced, that is River City Girls.
Wayforward e Arc System Works will they be able to create a sequel capable of doing justice to the brand and at the same time rejuvenating it? Discover it with us thanks to ours review!
They kidnapped Kunio and Riky!
If in the original River City, history saw Kunio e Riky face hordes of enemies of various kinds while save their girls, in River City Girls la situation is reversed.
In fact it will be right up to Misako (Kunio's Girl) e Kyoko (Riky's girlfriend) save their kids by exploring River City and gathering information that can help them find their loved ones suddenly disappeared.
How to make a beat 'em up modern
River City Girls re-proposes some canonical components of the series such as the combat of various types of enemies, each with their own unique characteristics such as high attacks, chance to stun us or the throwing specific objects.
Every time we defeat an opponent this will drop coins, ci will donate experience and in some cases it might as well leave some food that will restore our life.
At the end of each area we will find ourselves at face a boss. Each of them will have to be dealt with differently and, whenever their life bar drops beyond a certain point, they will begin to use new moves, forcing us to face well 3 different stages for each of them.
By defeating the bosses you will get, in addition to a good amount of exp and money, too an object that we can equip to our character.
In River City Girls, we will be able to recover various objects both by defeating the bosses, as mentioned earlier, but also buying them in stores. In fact, in the city there will be various shops where our heroines, spending the money obtained from the fighting, will be able to buy items for healing and in some cases improve statistics.
Plus, in this last installment of the series they were added equipment, which if worn will give various bonuses such as the ability to do more damage to specific enemies, recover life by walking and more.
Finally the player will be able to spend the money in Dojo. This is one news compared to the previous chapters of the series, and undoubtedly it is one of the elements that goes to rejuvenate everything.
Inside the Dojo you can learn various moves that will blossom every time you do will level up. At the beginning to learn them we will not be asked for large sums of money, but as you advance in the plot and level up, they will go up more and more.
The combat system turns out a lot closer to a fighting game title rather than the classic beat 'em up video game. In fact, all the moves that we will have at our disposal will be possible concatenate perfectly, so much so that you can make real combos from at least 15 hits.
Our heroines will also be able to learn special moves that will damage and in some cases they will waver the enemies. To carry them out we will have to consume ours bar SP which will recharge through the use of normal combos.
Finally in this new chapter was added the ability to hire and summon common enemies. To do this we will have to inflict a certain amount of damage on them by forcing them to ask us for mercy.
At this point it will be possible to recruit, unlocking the ability to summon him to your side to make him make his signature move. He though it will not be invulnerable, and in case he suffers too much damage he will die by giving us the experience points that we will have obtained by killing him.
Technical department
Thanks to the cooperation between Arc System Works e Wayforward, River City Girls can boast some excellent ones smooth 2D animations and to the really well detailed and characterized scenarios. Even at the sound sector it turns out very nice, since every new place we are going to explore will have one own characteristic soundtrack.
Finally, before a boss fight or an important event they were additions of anime style scenes who can boast a good characterization e graphic quality.
The only flaw that River City Girl has is that you can play in co-op only in local mode.
So if you decide to play it with a friend this will have to be physically there with you.
Concluding
River City Girl is River City's worthy heir. Thanks to the collaboration between two studios that have made school in the 2D video game industry, the title can boast a great gameplay from beat 'em up, modernized by the addition of elements from fighting, and succeeds in giving new splendor to the River city saga thanks also to the excellent technical department.
