The River City/Kunio series has seen numerous episodes over the years, but only a few of them received English releases until a few years ago. When Arc System Works took over the license of the defunct Technos, more games starring Kunio and his buddy Riki started leaving Japan. WayForward’s release of River City Girls also sparked a lot of interest in the franchise. That game was based on ideas from a Japanese Super Famicom title called Shin Nekketsu Kouha: Kunio-tachi no Banka. Nearly 20 years later, WayForward has been localized Kunio-tachi no Banka as River City Girls Zerolaunched first on Switch and then on Xbox, PlayStation and Steam. River City Girls Zero tells a seriously gripping story, but will limit the frustrating gameplay Zeroappeals to only the most hardcore River City/Kunio fans.
The game starts with a motorcyclist who looks exactly like Kunio, the main character of the River City series, run over and kill a bystander. Kunio and his friend Riki (charged with complicity) are immediately imprisoned for the crime, but they soon manage to escape. Thus begins their journey to clear Kunio’s name and discover who is after him. Without going into spoilers, Kunio will clash with the Sanwa gang and their leader, Sabu, a villainous mobster who first appeared alongside Kunio in defector and will act as the main antagonist of the coming River City Girls 2.
Zero is a 3-4 hour game with a strong emphasis on story. The story is more serious than that of River City Ransom, a combination of elements of teen and crime dramas. Despite the difference in tone, someone who likes the original River City Ransom and River City Girls should easily be able to jump right in and enjoy the story. The more serious visual style is also quite refreshing as most games in this series, even newer ones like River City Saga: Three Kingdoms, use the original 8-bit art style instead of creating something new. The images contain a lot of color, detail and parallax scrolling, making Kunio-tachi no Banka one of the best looking 16-bit beat ’em ups. The soundtrack is also catchy and atmospheric.
although Zero takes place in the same universe as River City Ransom and contains many text-based stories, RansomAction RPG elements and free-roaming progression are absent here. Players start out as Kunio and Riki, with their girlfriends, Misako and Kyoko, and become playable within the first hour of the game. The four characters mostly share the same basic moves, although each has some unique special moves that are a little too difficult to perform consistently. All four heroes can stomp on knocked-down enemies, but only the boys can sit on enemies and punch them.
The arsenal of combat moves is typical of the 16-bit era, with a handful of grapples to complement the basic range of punches, kicks, and backward attacks. It’s even possible to grab an enemy from behind so your co-op partner can punch them, though grabs are hard to safely execute on purpose, quickly pushing enemies away from them. Players can’t wield weapons, but a few bad guys attack with knives or pistols. It’s a shame, because weapons would have added a welcome variety to combat. That said, a few areas have overhead objects for the heroes to hang on to and perform kicks, which is nice when the opportunity arises.
ZeroThe assortment of moves doesn’t quite empower players as they should, largely due to the game’s steep difficulty. Enemy moves take precedence over practically everything the player does, including regular punches and kicks. For a chance, Kunio and his friends must rely largely on backward attacks (a staple of many Techno’s beat ’em ups) and jump kicks. Sure, you can go for regular combos and grabs every now and then, but enemies have an unfairly high chance of interrupting regular attacks and dealing their own damage. Later bosses also have way too much health, making those tough fights take forever to win.
The difficulty of the battles is compounded by the life system or lack thereof. Players can choose from all four playable characters for most of the game. However, if the character you control dies, you cannot switch to another character. In a single player game, it’s just game over. In co-op, a player who dies remains dead until the remaining player has a game left or restarts the game. Losing even one character in four counts as a game over is such an unintuitive system. Gamers ultimately have to watch each fighter’s health carefully and switch between them before it’s too late, leading to plenty of stressful battles as the game progresses.
The difficulty is such a shame because Zero is a very well made game. The story and journey are immersive and take the protagonists to numerous interesting locations as they hunt down Kunio’s impostor. Memorable set pieces include an area where the heroes must jump over the roofs of cars on a spinning Ferris wheel, battle through a collapsing high school, fall from a burning rope bridge and more. The game also features a few 3D bike riding sequences that are graphically impressive but frustrating due to their difficulty. One player controls the bike while the other can kick against oncoming enemies. Bumping into the walls causes the bike to crash and lead to a game over, a system seemingly designed to frustrate.
When we asked WayForward about Zero‘s difficulty issue, we were told that players can select Easy difficulty to make the game more manageable. That’s right, but the game ends early when you play on Easy. Players should switch to Normal at that point, so Easy difficulty is more of a training wheel than a real alternative. That all said, Zero has always provided a generous password system that allows players to advance or jump to any area, so game overs aren’t as painful as they could be. WayForward has also added a simple save-state system to this release. Players can choose to save and quit at any time. Resume saving yes not delete the save, so you can reboot indefinitely from a save. My partner and I relied heavily on saves to get through the bike levels and later boss fights.
While WayForward left Zero‘s gameplay alone, when locating it, they added some cool bonuses in addition to save statuses. The game starts with an anime intro and a catchy theme song sung by Megan McDuffee. Starting a new game then leads to a fully voiced digital comic series in which Misako and Kyoko replace the game in River City Girls canon. Another comic takes place after beating the game and watching the full ending; don’t stop after the original credits are rolled! Players can choose from a handful of display options, including a few widescreen borders. The Extras menu also offers scans of the Japanese manual and 3D replicas of the Super Famicom game’s box and cartridge.
I wish I could recommend it River City Girls Zero to all fans of the genre or even just to all fans of the River City series. The gameplay is just too heavy for its own good, something that will put off many players. A rebalanced difficulty setting where enemies behave less aggressively and losing a character doesn’t lead to a game over would have made for a much better game. Still, Zero does offer one of the best stories in the River City series, full of surprises and fist-pumping moments. Hardcore fans of the series and players who can tolerate some old-fashioned dishonesty will find this game well worth checking out. Everyone should probably wait for River City Girls 2.
River City Girls Zero retails for $14.99 on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and Steam.
Xbox and Switch codes have been provided by the publisher for review.
verdict
The co-op experience: Two players can switch between up to four playable characters (Kunio, Riki, Misako, and Kyoko) at any time. If a character controlled by a player runs out of life, that player gets a game over.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final graphical score reflects this experience along with an average score for the game in general. For an explanation of our scores, please refer to our Review Score Explanation Guide.
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