River City Ransom Review

Summary:

"BARF!"

Pros:

+ Very influential and innovative for an NES title

+ Charming amd humorous

+ Well-executed gameplay that feels mostly solid

Cons:

- Easy to be cheap due to upgrades

- Veru unclear as to what certain stats/items do

- Jumping has some issues

Review:

[Originally written for Zentendo in May of 2008.]

The beat-'em-up genre is a well-established one that many feel has gone out of style in favor of action games with more RPG elements, such as God of War or Ninja Gaiden. River City Ransom, for its day, was quite innovative in its use of RPG growth in an action-based brawler. It has developed a cult following since and has seen a few re-releases.

Players control Alex and Ryan, two teens who receive a ransom note and head off to save River City High and the supposedly lovely girlfriend, Cyndy (whom I never saw at all throughout the entire game...). To get there, they'll need to bust heads and mop the floor with the various gangs of River City, ranging from the "Frat Boys" to the "Squids," stealing their lunch money along the way. And oh how important money is in River City -- for an NES title of this genre, it was no-doubt quite innovative in its day for revolving so strongly around the concept of character growth. Shops serve as a break from the action as players chow down on different foods which restore health and increase character attributes. Items can be purchased for use later when in a pinch, and items like books or shoes can be bought and equipped to raise attributes or learn new techniques. It's all quite a lot to acquire, and while laying the smack on generic thugs is fun, it's a lot more enjoyable when players know they're earning money all the while to upgrade their bad selves. Delivering the harshness on high school punks feels satisfying and solid, and gradually becoming faster, stronger, and more durable is a good feeling, especially in the context of an 8-bit brawler. The game also delivers some unexpected humor in text delivered from certain items (playing a game that's "almost as fun as River City Ransom), the text that enemies spawn in battle (such as the famous "BARF!" upon defeat), and even at shops (such as buying a "smile" for "free"). The way the game expresses itself in such a humor-filled way was well-executed for its era.

The game's controls make a lot more sense than its pseudo-prequel, Renegade -- which mapped left and right attacks to A and B, respectively -- as A and B are Punch and Kick, while the direction players face is what direction the attack faces. It was kind of a big change at the time. Players can walk in all directions, dash by double-tapping on the D-pad, and jump by pressing A and B together. This, along with the techniques that can be earned through books, offers a pretty versatile array of moves for the genre, especially back on the NES.

The presentation is of course old-school, but still holds up -- characters are fairly expressive for an NES title with large faces, and environments are mostly clean-cut and effective. The music can be a bit repetitive some times, but is of a good quality for its time.

As innovative and solid as River City Ransom may be, however, it is not without its issues. With all of the different items and foods that can be purchased, one would think that it'd be useful to know precisely what each item does. On more than a few occasions, I found myself pondering whether or not to gamble my hard-earned money on an item -- and, in some cases, it was, in fact, a waste. The operations manual that comes with the Virtual Console release helps explain Special Moves that can be bought -- which the game never actually explains itself -- which is very useful, but what items do is not clear until they are used. Furthermore, at a certain point in the game I acquired a special move that I found to be so incredibly useful (ie cheap) that it made the rest of the game kind of a joke, and not even the final boss series gave me much trouble once it was in my hands. Of course, that ability took some time to earn and by then my other stats had been significantly boosted, but all the same, stats don't matter when you can attack in a way that denies your enemy movement. In the end, I'm not sure whether to consider this a flaw in game balance or not, but know that because of the RPG elements, players can get themselves to a point where the game has no more challenge to it -- though players can always turn up the difficulty at any time if they so choose, which does change things up. There are a few brief points in the game where jumping is necessary, and because of the odd quirks of jumping against walls bouncing players off, these sections can be a tad irritating. One other issue of note was how frustrating it was to move forward -- the camera does not stay centered very well, so when moving to the right, players have hardly any warning as to attackers coming from said direction. One plus that the Virtual Console release has over its original, however, is that passwords don't need to be used because of the auto-save feature.

Bottom Line:

Despite some of its flaws, many of which are technical issues to do more with the hardware's limitations than anything, River City Ransom merits the cult status it has achieved and is an enjoyable adventure for five dollars which offers a peek at the beginnings of the beat-'em-up genre and its initial steps toward innovation which have culminated in many modern action games.