My daughter and I were big fans of the original River City Girls so the sequel was sat on my wishlist for ages waiting for a bit sale. That came around, and we played it through together.
It’s more of the same, really. A side-scrolling, semi-open-world beat-em-up with RPG elements set in the world of Kunio-kun/River City Ransom and made by Wayforward, just like the first game. It has a great cartoon style, loads of in-jokes (with both River City adjacent links, like Double Dragon and Crash And The Boys, and Wayforward properties like Mighty Switch Force) and satisfying and upgradable combat.
As it’s set in the same city as the first game, many locations are back – like school and shopping centre) although they have been modified so aren’t a complete copy-and-paste. There are plenty of new areas though. Similarly, there are both returning and new characters, although I don’t think most of the new ones are as good as the ones in the original. Also returning is another soundtrack from Megan McDuffee, which is also excellent.
The plot is mostly concerned with revenge on the Girls taking down the bad guy in the last game, although there are a couple of twists.
Gameplay-wise there are a few tweaks to improve stuff from before. Shop purchases work slightly differently, and there’s seemingly a lot more money available with which to buy them. The game seems easier too, meaning less death (which causes both progress and money loss).
It’s not all improvements though, sadly. Loading times are particularly bad, but also there are a number of bugs like items getting stuck out of reach, sound cutting out, and a few full crashes. Nothing major because of frequent save points but annoying nonetheless. Some of the new areas, like the overdone game trope of the “forest maze”, aren’t great either, and I’m sure there’s more backtracking this time round too, hindered by the aforementioned loading times.
That said, the fun, humour and style of the game massively outweigh the issues. It’s maybe not quite as enjoyable as the original, but doesn’t miss it by much.
