River City Ransom is one of the most iconic brawlers of the NES era, with players fighting their way across the titular River City to save one of the main characters’ girlfriends. Along the way, they do battle with the city’s many color-coded gangs, like a low-rent version of The Warriors, pausing only to learn new fighting techniques from books (how studious) and wolf down convenience store food to restore health. River City Ransom came about at a time when similar beat ‘em ups dominated arcades and consoles alike, but a follow-up just a few years ago brings some of that old magic back in a much different form, and it’s free now on the Epic Games Store.
If it weren’t for the name, you might not think River City Girls had anything to do with the NES cult classic that inspired it. Its main characters, Kyoko and Misako, don’t appear in River City Ransom, but they are recurring characters in the Japanese series Kunio-kun, of which River City Ransom is just one entry. But despite a different visual style and a focus on two different heroines, River City Girls is a modernized version of the classic it spun off from.
In River City Girls, players take on the role of either protagonist (or both with local multiplayer), as they fight their way across River City to save the pair’s kidnapped boyfriends. Apparently that happens a lot in this town. Just like in River City Ransom, the duo fights their way through hordes of enemies one screen at a time, gaining new moves and collecting power-ups along the way. While the core game owes a lot to old-school brawlers like its predecessor, its great combat keeps it feeling classic rather than outdated.
Kyoko and Misako are both capable of taking on the whole city in combat, but there are some differences in how they play. After leveling up, each character can learn new skills at a dojo, and each has access to a different set of attacks. It’s not quite enough to make it feel like an entirely different game by playing through with another character, but it does keep things fresh if you want to swap characters between levels or trade off in multiplayer.
Accessories that grant permanent buffs get even more silly, leaning into the fact that the game’s protagonists are both high school girls. These range from hair ribbons and sports bras to mp3 players and Tamagotchis
Along with gaining new skills, you can also mix up combat by using items you find around levels and equipping accessories. Like any good brawler, there’s a ridiculous assortment of objects you can use as weapons, from frying pans to magic wands (which don’t actually use any magic other than the magic of throwing a heavy object at someone from long range). Accessories that grant permanent buffs get even more silly, leaning into the fact that the game’s protagonists are both high school girls. These range from hair ribbons and sports bras to mp3 players and Tamagotchis, and while the buffs they offer don’t usually have much to do with what the accessories actually are, it’s a nice touch that they all line up with the themes of a pair of teenagers taking on the world.
River City Girls isn’t a complex game by any means, but its simplicity is part of its charm. It marries the sensibilities of old-school brawlers with modern systems that allow for more combat variety, better animations, and catchier music than River City Ransom could ever produce on the NES. That should all be unsurprising once you know the game was developed by Wayforward, which also made the Shantae series, Double Dragon Neon, and the recent Yars Rising, all of which feature a similar combination of classic and modern design. River City Girls is a fantastic throwback to a time when brawlers were at the top of their game, and it shines especially bright in couch co-op with another player.
