May 04 2009
Retro Revue: River City Ransom
 |
In River City Ransom you play the role of Alex (or Ryan). The antagonist, Slick, has kidnapped Ryan’s girlfriend and is holding the school of River City High captive. Alex and/or Ryan set out to rescue the High School, Ryan’s girlfriend, and the entirety of River City from Slick’s evil clutches. |
| The story, while not being deep, serves its purpose well. And what is that purpose you ask? To create a reason for you to run around the streets of River City hitting pedestrians until they toss their cookies AND their coins and then using said coins to purchase nudie mags and comic books! | |
| The combat is simple and intuitive for the most part; The “A” button punches and the “B” button kicks. Pressing both buttons at the same time causes your character to jump, and while in the air you can perform a jump-kick or a punch. Double-tapping Left or Right on the Directional Pad causes your character to run which can be combined with attacks. Pressing and holding an attack button with the right timing will allow your character to block enemy attacks. |  |
| The combat system is delightfully simple but is done much better than many more popular brawler games. Adding plentiful weapons into the mix make the combat even more enjoyable; You can pick up chains and hit enemies from a range, bash people with wooden sticks, or even roll tires down the street towards clusters of enemies! The amount of usable weapons in the game is great. There are sticks, chains, boxes, and even downed enemies can be picked up and used as melee weapons! |
 |
While River City Ransom may still appear to be a run-of-the-mill beat-em-up at this point, I assure you it is not. Mindless fighting will not lead you to victory in the long run. To get farther you have to get cash from downed foes and use it to purchase items that will increase your power and allow you to use more skills. Skills are essential to taking on more than one enemy at once when facing off with the stronger gangs. |
| Many items must be used outside of stores, but some are used as soon as you purchase them. For example, most items in a diner will be used before leaving the diner, while items from a book store must be used after leaving. Food items restore health and books and other things boost stats and teach new skills. |
| River City Ransom also has a great two-player mode which functions basically the same as the single-player mode and allows you and a friend to put the smack-down on the city’s street gangs. One player is Alex and the other is Ryan. I did not have anyone to play multiplayer recently so I was unable to refresh my memory on how well it plays, though I remember having many fun times playing the game with friends. |
| A great remake also came out fairly recently on the Gameboy Advance. It is as great as, if not greater than, the original game. It is titled “River City Ransom EX” and I seriously recommend you purchase it if you own a GBA console. |
| River City Ransom is one of the greatest beat-em-ups ever created. It deserves your attention, especially if you have never played it before, so you should get to hunting down a copy right now! |
|
|
| How to acquire: eBay |
Possibly-related Articles: (auto-generated)
