Resurrect It: River City Ransom

Game setting? River City(hence the title...) Protagonists? Alex and Ryan. Mission? save fellow classmates from Slick, an apprehensive gang leader who has made the roof of River City High School his home base. Reason to care? Well, Ryan's girlfriend is one of the many held captive.

River City Ransom was a unique hybrid game. Picture Streets of Rage with RPG elements. Basically you can make any game good by adding a bit of role playing. Puzzle Quest is a good example. That game is nothing more than a Bejeweled clone if you take out the leveling and such.

River City Ransom features a fighting system that has a lot of depth. That's surprising considering this is a NES game. Usually a 2D side scroller would let you punch, kick and perform one special maneuver. This game actually allows you to combo a number of attacks together.

To build statistics for your character you had to buy things from in game shops. Also, you learn new techniques by reading books. One of the special moves is called Acro-Circus. It resembles Blanka's rolling attack from the Street Fighter games, Only it's an aerial maneuver in this game.

Gangs have their own personalities and tendencies. "The Frat Guys" flee when they feel defeat is near. "The Jocks" like to use running techniques and jump a lot. "The Cowboys" love to use weapons, and have very weak kick attacks. With each gang, a bit of strategy is needed if you wish to progress.

The combat in River City Ransom is both frantic and hilarious. Enemies exclaim "BARF!" after some hits. I've never heard such cries of pain from anyone I have beaten down as a hid, so it makes very little sense to me. Like many things in video games, It's best to to question the odd.

Video game logic is in full force here. After beaten, gang members turn to coins. This is what we had before blood fests like Mortal Kombat and Grand Theft Auto. Instead of gushing pools of crimson, we got a flood of currency as a reward for taking punks down. The 8-Bit era was so grand.

If you own a Nintendo, you must play River City Ransom. This was(still is) an extremely fun game to play. But alas, there will probably be no sequel. Technos filed for bankruptcy back in 1996 due to poor performances from their Neo Geo arcade titles "Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer" and "Double Dragon".

I suppose Technos' fate was unavoidable. Their Double Dragon fighter was loosely based on that horrid film that came out in 1994. If that wasn't bad enough, three of Technos' founding members used to work at the now defunct Data East. The same Data East that created "Bad Dudes" among other laughably mediocre games.

Kunio Taki, One of Technos' founders, transferred the companies assets to Japanese developer, Million Corporation. They have since released Game Boy Advance ports of games in the Kunio-kun series. While most have no changes made to them what so ever, River City Ransom EX features some noticeable enhancements.

Aside from a graphical upgrade, there are new items and techniques to acquire. One of the new gangs has members that parody famous rappers("6paq" and "Fiddy". When taking damage they yell "BizARF!" instead of "BARF!". Nice to see these amusing additions to an already great game.

The Kunio-kun series has always had a cult following in Japan. It seems like most people who have played River City Ransom, no matter location, fall in love with its concept. Unfortunately it is overshadowed by the more linear game play of Streets of Rage and other games of that ilk.

If this game were to get a real sequel it has a good chance of making some noise in the industry. Million Corp. should collaborate with Rock Star Games. "The Warriors" engine would be perfect for a three dimensional version of River City Ransom. Just like most good ideas, it makes too much sense to happen.