4.5/5 ★ – bokonon764's review of River City Girls.

River City Girls is a sort of sequel/reboot game of Kunio-Kun, an arcade game from the 80s, I think? Whatever the case, this is an excellent side-scrolling beat ‘em up, dripping with style! I was all in just moving through the title sequence. This was my second attempt at this game. The first time, I got stuck on a mandatory side quest that didn’t make a lot of sense to me. If there’s a big problem with this game, it’s that. Not even quests in general, but that quest in particular. You have to get this weirdo guy a burger, but it’s a specific burger? I don’t know, maybe I should’ve paid more attention when the guy was talking to me. Either way, it could be a potential road block for some players, it was for me. River City Girls stars Misako and Kyoko, two high school girls searching for their kidnapped boyfriends. They have to beat up the whole town to do so, as is customary in these types of games. You can play solo or co-op, but if you play solo, you play as one of the two girls, and the other doesn’t appear. I kinda wish there was an AI partner system if you’re playing solo, but it wasn’t to much of a drag. The story is light and moves like your average tale of this nature. Fight through the goons, talk to a townsperson, help them with a thing, fight the boss, rinse and repeat. I saw the ending coming, but it still got laughs out of me. Anyways, Misako and Kyoko are hilarious, great fuckin characters, especially Kyoko, who is the sort of lovable, head-in-the clouds-but-always-down-for-violence archetype of the duo. Really all the characters are great, the designs for all the bosses, side characters, and enemies really pop. The enemy sprites are particularly great; although, they do lean on palette swaps a little too much. Regardless, there’s something that just looks so great about anime teens doing fuckin roundhouse kicks in bright, retro style graphics. This game is very anime, and the voice acting is no exception. There’s some heavy hitters from the Japanese to English dub world; Kira Buckland as Kyoko who played 2B from NieR and Jolyne from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure; Erika Harlacher as Noize, who played Ann in Persona 5, and Elizabeth in Seven Deadly Sins…to name a couple. The OST also fucking ruled. When it wasn’t radtacular, 16-bit-style, 80’s jams, it was vocal-driven poppy synth wave, all composed and performed by Megan McDuffee. I wouldn’t listen to music from the game outside of playing the game, but I have been digging some of her other music, you should check it out as well, dear reader! If you’re even there at all……. Hearing soundtracks like this makes me want to get into writing and recording music for video games. Wish I knew how. I’m usually pretty bad at games like this, but this one is smooth as fuck. It took a bit to get good, which especially sucked because there’s actually consequences for death in this game. The currency is just regular old money, dollars and cents; if you die, you lose a good chunk of cash. I died quite a bit at the beginning. By the end, I was beating ass. It’s all direction+attack button based, so it stays pretty simple. Some of the attack animations are so great, they’re like moves you’d do in volleyball. And of course, there’s weapons: baseball bats, wrenches, yoyos, benches…it’s got all the classic beat ‘em up fixin’s. Yeah this game fuckin rules. No chance I’m skipping the sequel, perhaps I’ll jump into it pretty soon here.