Three and Out – ‘River City Girls’

There are far too few experiences nowadays that carry a similar air to the arcade scene, but recently we’ve been blessed with a fresh adventure, River City Girls, eager to scratch that nostalgic itch. Published by Arc System Works and Developed by WayForward, River City Girls proves itself to belong in those neon-furnished warehouse arcades. Its gameplay supports both camaraderie and competition without taking away from solo play. Wasting no time, this game opens up with a lovely animation – paired with some fantastic music – that sets up the story and the tone of the game itself. A classic arcade style beat ’em up where the main characters are a pair of high school girls (Kyoko and Misako) whose boyfriends (Kunio and Riki of the River City games) were kidnapped and must be found. It’s a hilarious and almost adorable setting that delivered on nearly every expectation I had for this game. 

Most of my experience in River City Girls was in single player as Misako, but I never felt that I had missed out on anything while playing. Gameplay is similar to what anyone should expect from a side scrolling beat ‘em up, movement is free in all directions, there’s running and jumping, and constant hordes of enemies to fight on the way to find Kunio and Riki. Combat is done with three buttons: a light attack, heavy attack, and special attack. Inputting different directions of the buttons unleashes an assortment of moves from your arsenal that grows either upon levelling up or through purchase in dojos found around town. River City Girls is very honest and does not hold back in its difficulty. From the classroom to the end of the road in a Yakuza tower, I rarely felt invincible and only ever had moments of rest in the various shops and dialogue scenes glittered across the game. The only big complaint I had when playing River City Girls is that sometimes I found myself in the middle of attacking an enemy, only to be interrupted by another enemy, bouncing me around the screen into the other enemies who just entered the screen. It’s a situation that was much more common than I cared for. And while it never feels unfair, it also never feels good. Outside of that occurrence, River City Girls‘ combat never once felt boring nor did it ever get stale. Each boss battle felt unique. They always delivered in overwhelming force while also being actual characters, rather than roadblocks.

Beautiful sprite work, great music, and a hilarious cast of characters are found everywhere in River City. Each interaction was a treat. Something River City Girls took advantage of was a great deal of support from the video game community and took a pretty fun approach by having many names from the community to appear and work on the game, making the experience just that much more fun. Some of the guests include SungWong Cho, Victoria Holden, Erika Harlacher, and Ross O’Donovan. Even some of the music in the game (which is fantastic by the way) was done by Nathan Sharp and Christina Vee. This amount of collaboration helped make River City feel like it truly was an environment where the notable citizens knew one another – even when attacking almost everyone in sight. The dialogue among the side characters and bosses is also hilarious and sometimes even feature adorable comic book style cutscenes when explaining a backstory. Pair everything with a lovely art style that compliments the wacky and vibrant nature of River City Girls, and I was met with fantastic fun that continued on ever after finishing the game. 

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