PLATFORM: SWITCH | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
2019’s River City Girls was an excellent day-glo Saturday morning cartoon in the form of an addictive arcade-style beat ’em up. Its full-on sequel is still in the works but, to keep fans going, Way Forward and Limited Run Games have seen fit to release River City Girls Zero – the first official Western release of 1994’s Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-tachi no Banka, otherwise known in English-speaking territories as River City Girls (which isn’t at all confusing). Formerly a Super Famicom / SNES Japanese exclusive, the original gameplay remains the same but its presentation has been enhanced with a handful of fancy features that make the idea of playing an almost 30 year old beat ’em up much more appealing than it otherwise might have been.
Framed for a crime they didn’t commit, Kunio and Riki (the boyfriends of the actual River City Girls, Kyoko and Misako, who are also very much present throughout the game) break out of jail and head back to school where they investigate rumours of strange occurrences and the appearance of a Kunio lookalike. If you’ve played any 90s beat ’em up before, you pretty much know what you’re getting – the story might be a little sparse, but it’s the gameplay that always mattered most. Zero tends to fall on the simpler side of things there too, with players relying on jumping, kicking and punching their way across the game’s colourful and eye-catching levels. The combat tends to feel slightly stiff and isn’t really as smooth, responsive or fluid as other titles in the genre, but fans of brawlers and beat ’em ups should be pleased enough and a couple of vehicle-based levels mix things up nicely. Sometimes you just want to mash some buttons, batter some bullies and rock out to some excellent tunes, and RCGZ handles that brief very well indeed.
The most notable aspect of RCGZ is the way it’s presented. The new theme song, once again courtesy of the absurdly talented Megan McDuffee, is another incredible neon pop-rock banger, and the handful of other newly-created tracks form the undeniable highlight of this release. The opening and closing cutscenes fit the mood perfectly, although there’s a chance they might leave some players yearning for a slightly more substantial game than the one that ultimately plays out. A nice enough diversion to pass the time, but here’s hoping that the main course (in the form of River City Girls 2) will be with us very, very soon.
