The Kunio-kun series is so old and spans so many consoles that you may have stumbled upon one of its games without knowing it was part of the connected universe of fighting games. The best known of them are Super Dodge Ball, Double Dragon and River City Ransom. These are all separate stories revolving around what seems to be no shortage of faces to punch in River City. River City Girls 2 is 2019’s excellent side-scrolling action sequel, as well as the final form of the action-RPG design that River City Ransom pioneered in his late ’80s. It’s only slightly different from the previous one, opting to refine the system and increase its size, rather than completely rethinking how something works. , why should we change the technique?
Details about how and why the yakuza, who Kyoko and Misako thought they kicked out of town in the previous game, are back are shaky, but they and their punchable faces are the school and all the locals. That’s reason enough to crack skulls and break ribs at once to start a dual-wielding crusade to wipe them off the streets. It’s easy to ignore, but the writing is sharp and interesting. I laughed consistently at the one-liners and the banter between the main character and the various enemies and side characters they encountered.
Four returning characters (the two lead females and their boyfriends, River City Ransom heroes Kunio and Riki) are immediately playable in single-player or up to four-player co-op. Gaining new techniques by leveling up organically or through dojo purchases transforms the combat system into a powerful palette for violent self-expression after a few hours, but the early game feels especially shallow There is. With just a handful of techniques at your disposal, the button-spam nature of the genre has never been more apparent. Further down the combo rabbit hole, the offensive options feel spectacular.
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River City Girls 2 has a lot of moves to learn, but simple inputs (directional and light attacks, heavy attacks, special attacks only) make it easy to incorporate them into your game plan. The characters also fit easily-defined archetypes, making each one unique in important ways. Both Misako and Kyoko are all-rounders, but Misako and Kyoko are much better at aerial games, and Kyoko can lock zones around her with her Chun-Li inspired kicks, or the world’s most Fight them off with a sturdy dub.
Just as best friends feel like two sides of a similar coin, so do their boyfriends and new characters, Provi and Marian. Although it fascinates opponents, Breakdancer’s trick is better against groups of enemies than Riki’s single-target lockdown. Marian is not only a complete unit, but also a more hands-on grappler that complements Kunio’s rowdy instincts. This ultimately means that there are multiple options for those who fit her particular style of play. However, inactive characters level up much more slowly than characters in the field, so it’s a good idea to drill down on one character and stick with them. You are not aggressively leveling them all equally.
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Gang victims come in a fantastic array of different shapes and sizes. Many of them are references to Kunio-kun’s history, fighting games as a genre, or pop culture in general. They are very tenacious and until you get better crowd control tools, having them simply surround you and whine at your side can be frustrating enough. Most of the can be avoided by simply running to the exit, and there are relatively few scenes where you are locked into battle before proceeding.
As in the first game, defeated enemies will occasionally surrender and beg to join your crew. This allows them to be used like assist characters in tag-based fighting games.River City Girls 2 goes a little further, offering a selection of NPCs you can join without having to subdue them first. I wish the final He hour had a similar resolution – it was especially boring when you make your way through the locked-screen gauntlets stammering waves of bad guys at the climax. test.
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However, I wasn’t just doing street fighting during my entire eight-hour adventure. Shortly after embarking on a quest to save the city, I occasionally took on odd jobs like catching ghosts, robbing Yakuza-owned banks, and training locals in the lost art of dodgeball. The more bizarre the distraction was, the more I missed it when it was gone. These were the critically acclaimed meanders that helped break the monotony of Punch Doran.
Equipping equipment purchased from shops scattered across the city’s seven districts will give you an even chance of winning battles. Items like health giving her shields when health is low or adding elemental her properties to heavy attacks were personal go-tos, but almost nothing to interact with River City Girls 2 There is also an option to change all methods. There are accessories for that. If you only want to hit a male (or female) enemy hard, there’s something for that. Food items are a one-time consumable item, but can be stored when needed to grant a permanent stat his buff the first time a character eats it. So if you choose to grind, there are plenty of places to spend all your hard-earned money.
In River City Girls 2, the map of River City is very large, much larger than the representation in the previous game. The first time I kicked butt through places like Ocean Heights’ bustling fish market and her Technos complex’s sleek offices, it was so well drawn and colored that it was a lot of fun. is. That said, given the size of the city, even in the presence of a fast travel system, a significant amount of time was spent ticking boxes to backtrack parts of the city and advance the main quest. Also, many screens feature a lot of obstacles and architecture that can be a platforming challenge or add a little more tactical thinking to your chosen battles But I’ve found that just as often it slips off the edge or its view of the action is blocked by something in the foreground.
But still the landscape is worthy of attention. Character models and backgrounds are in a chunky pixel style, mixed with fluid animations to capture style and expressiveness worthy of beautiful retro contemporaries such as Streets of Rage 4 and his TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge. I’m here. This also applies to music. Megan McDuffee’s Killer Her soundtrack features toe-tapping, genre-breaking instrumentals. Occasionally, you’ll walk into a room and hear a delightful attempt to parody a local radio station in the background. In some of the more prominent areas, songs feature lyrics from villains who taunt you as you travel to them. I can’t help but want to kick the .
