Topic: RFN RetroActive #20 - River City Ransom - Official Discussion

[Da Jarvis]

Just Recently, I decided to replay through this game once again just to see if my opinion on it has changed after reading all the comments on this forum and a couple of my opinions have changed:


1) I will be the first to agree that the game was very much ahead of it's time and that a lot of things in games now a days can be said to have been inspired from this game, however, I still feel that game didnt' execute it as well as it should of.


2) The game actual takes a lot less skill then I thought it did originally. The best stratagy to beat the enemy is to just rush up on them and constantly kick them or throw them as they try to get up, which allows them to not even get a hit on you. That being said, the enemy can do the same thing to you, which I guess if far, but I feel it makes this game into a sprint to see who can know who down first, which isn't exactly a great idea for combat, espically for a Beat'm-Up.


3) I actually kind of dig the soundtrack . My favorite is the main theme that plays as you explore the world, as it's rather up beat and makes the grind kind of bareable... just a little though  .


4) The only power up needed to rip the game a new one is Dragon's Feet... NUFF SAID!


So yeah, I guess I still didn't like the game, even on the second playthrough. Now before you go all crazy on me and tell me that I should be easier on it for being an older game, hear me out:


Another game that decided to fallow a style very similar to River City Ransom was Zelda II. I know a good amount of people don't like game for things like an crazy save and lives system as well as the amount of grinding, but Zelda II has a solid 5 elements it had done better the RCR did (I will not include story because that just isn't far):


1) It used a level up system that was simple and made sense, along with allowing the player to decided on what stat he wanted to devote himself to. It takes out the exparamentation and the randomness of wasting money on random food that you might not gain anything from.


2) Zelda II's combat is just better. I would say Zelda II's combat is more like a Beat'm Up then River City Ransom is, and even though the combat is hard, it's a lot more engaging then simiply mashing the kick button until something dies or rushing the boss and kicking them while they are down. To simply put it, Zelda II's combat is engaging and fun where RCR is Repetative and Boring. Plus, when you die in Zelda II, most of the time, it's because you didn't prepare yourself well enough for the encounter you where about to come across, where RCR has you die because you got cheap shotted for once. Also on the note of dieing, at least when you die in Zelda 2, you know that after your 3 lives it's game over, and BOSSES DON'T REAPPEAR AFTER YOU HAVE GOTTEN A GAME OVER (Yeah I still am upset about that)!!!


3) Despite the fact both games are rather Grind Heavy, Zelda II is actually much less grind heavy then RCR, and this is why: Zelda 2 is a large adventure that is supossed to take multipule sit downs and the game never forces you to grind. If you just fight every fight you encounter and do every daungon, as long as you know what to do on certian enemys, you actually don't need to grind at all. RCR on the other hand is a very short game that can be beaten in under 15 minutes if you know what you are doing and are at max level, the problem is the game takes forever to get even high enough to take that time to get that high. It's just a pain really...


4) Bosses are really inconsistant and aren't very impressive. In Zelda II, bosses are big and very different from the enemies you fought in the game. In fact, even a good chunck of the enemies are vastly different from on another, but this game just has the same type of fighter for everything, except maybe with a certian type of enemy being smarter, stronger, or come in a group of two. It's just not very impressive and as long as you nail the first hit on the bosses and knock them down before you get knocked down, they are pretty big pushovers.


5) That last and more important factor, I feel Zelda II has actually aged a lot better then RCR. I mean, yes, the save system and lives system is terrible, but everything else about the game works well in to context of the way games are today. The game is challanging and would make for a intersting remake if Nintendo decided to freshen up issues like the save system and get ride of the lives, and bring it up to snuff as a 3D Classics title like they did with Excite Bike, but they won't.


RCR just doesn't hold up very well in today's standards and with issues like gameplay flaws and a desprate attampt at extending it's gameplay time, it just makes the package feel it's trying to do to many things. I mean, the things it's trying to do are great, but it's doing them without thinking them through, and thus makes the things not very good. I feel if it got a nice remake and updated everything, the game could be very good and maybe if I had played it back when it first came out, I might of liked it more and looked at this playthrough as a trip down nostalgia lane, but as I always say, nostalgia sometimes blinds the truth and the truth is, there are better games that does what RCR tried to do better...

[Kikori]

What the **** are these scripts? In the original Japanese version I'm playing, Kunio (Alex) does not say anything to himself like "I'm starved"  at all! In stores, characters do talk, but the script seems completely different; what they say in the sushi bar is totally unfamiliar to me. Japanese texts are also intentionally comical and weird. For instance, heart marks are used instead of periods, which is often seen in today's cell phone text messages between young Japanese.


I also noticed that not only texts, but also graphics are somewhat different. For example, Kunio wears a student's wear in the original version, and the sign of the sushi bar is in Japanese.


Another point where I think this game was ahead of it's time is that, like many Western games such as Fallout 3,  players can change the difficulty level at any time, which is still not common among Japanese games. This feature would be welcome for many players of this grind heavy game.

One of my favorite things about SPVTW was leveling up until my character was a beast and then being able to fly through the stages pummeling people like a dump truck with a rocket attached to it.  I'm hoping I'll see a noticeable difference after leveling up my character, because so far i've been on the receiving end of the beatdowns.

Oh don't worry, you will. You don't level up by actually fighting enemies, but you use the money that they drop to buy items to up your stats. In true old school fashion they don't tell you anything about what the items do though, but thats what gamefaqs is for if you'd rather just know instead of finding out.

[Kikori]

Are these pictures really from River City Ransom? I watched videos of River City Ransom on YouTube, but I didn't see any monologues.


By the way, yet another difference between the original Japanese version and River City Ransom is the number of difficult levels. River City Ransom has two: NOVICE and ADVANCED, but the Japanese version has three: EASY, NORMAL, and DIFFICULT. I've read that when Japanese games (especially old ones) are localized for the Western market, they tend to become more difficult because Western gamers appreciate difficult games, which might be partial reason why RFN crews often mention brutality of many 8-bit games.

What the **** are these scripts? In the original Japanese version I'm playing, Kunio (Alex) does not say anything to himself like "I'm starved"  at all! In stores, characters do talk, but the script seems completely different; what they say in the sushi bar is totally unfamiliar to me. Japanese texts are also intentionally comical and weird. For instance, heart marks are used instead of periods, which is often seen in today's cell phone text messages between young Japanese.


I also noticed that not only texts, but also graphics are somewhat different. For example, Kunio wears a student's wear in the original version, and the sign of the sushi bar is in Japanese.


Another point where I think this game was ahead of it's time is that, like many Western games such as Fallout 3,  players can change the difficulty level at any time, which is still not common among Japanese games. This feature would be welcome for many players of this grind heavy game.

One of my favorite things about SPVTW was leveling up until my character was a beast and then being able to fly through the stages pummeling people like a dump truck with a rocket attached to it.  I'm hoping I'll see a noticeable difference after leveling up my character, because so far i've been on the receiving end of the beatdowns.

Oh don't worry, you will. You don't level up by actually fighting enemies, but you use the money that they drop to buy items to up your stats. In true old school fashion they don't tell you anything about what the items do though, but thats what gamefaqs is for if you'd rather just know instead of finding out.

[marty]

River City Ransom has been one of my favorite games for nearly 20 years.

I recall the first time playing RCR.  My friend, Colin, had just gotten a new game so I rushed up the street to see what it was.  Six hours later, with a splitting headache induced by sitting 4 feet from a TV, I went home for dinner with a mind on begging my parents for a videogame--the best videogame.

RCR was the first game I played that felt like a self contained world--there were schools and shops, baddies and good guys, secrets and tricks and I was free to see them all.  Final Fantasy had a lot of these things but they weren't REAL--not like in RCR.  FF is detailed, but it's also abstract--you play in that world from afar. 

The world of River City is big and colorful and has it's own style.  When I kick someone, it's visceral, loud and funny.  The bugged out eyes, BARF!, that smarts, or gangs simply running away.  The game plays out at a more relaxed pace with breaks for shopping and powering up between battles.  And even the pace of the combat has a bit of comedic timing--the pauses between hitting someone once and the ability to hit them again feels exaggerated.  Watching someone get hit with a slow moving projectile and get knocked out is satisfying and silly.

The world is has a lot of charm to it, too.  The shops have their own flair and personality, the characters and their monologues--  even the font was unlike other games--wider and rounder, lighthearted, like the rest of the game.  Enemies also fight differently depending on what gang they're associated with--Squids can't take a punch but are brutal and merciless (and have chains).  Cowboys are a little more sturdy but aren't nearly as aggressive.  The little touches of personality go a long way when it comes to fleshing out a setting.

Also adding to the charm is one of the best 8-bit soundtracks to ever grace a cartridge.  The rockabilly over world theme is super catchy and the boss fight music is great too.  The Dragon Twin theme (also in double dragon) is classic VG music.  Roxy's Theme has a great, haunting melody.  There are some cool remixes of a lot of these songs on youtube, if your so inclined.

Going back and playing the game now, I have a hard time seeing the faults with the controls or the jumping because it all seems so normal--I've probably played this game for hundreds of hours and never really quit playing it.  I have stopped doodling out notes for it and making maps and item charts and such but it's always been one of my go-to games so the actual mechanics of the game don't phase me.  I will admit that leveling up, which is necessary to beat the game, can get monotonous since the combat options don't really open up until you are really powerful.

The difficulty curve of the game is also pretty much wrong, too.  I find that it's nearly impossible to fight "fair" and have a shot at progressing until you are really strong; and at that point, it's more or less a self imposed difficulty.  I think this is something game designers still struggle with (especially in action games with RPG elements)--the skill of the player and attributes of the character outpace how difficult the game gets.  Still, I think the satisfaction of taking a character from dead-meat to killing-machine is there.*  There is something really great about facing gangs that I used to run from and being able to thoroughly stomp them (literally, with Fatal Steps).

While the use of skill might get uneven, I think the game supports strategy pretty well.  When you start off as a weakling, you only have to fight through 2 screens before you get to the first mall and a chance to buy Dragon's Feet or Stone Hands (one of these is pretty much necessary to get anywhere in the game without a ton of grinding).  But after that, you can either farm either weaker gangs and bosses to level up or run ahead and try your hand at fighting tougher enemies that drop more cash.  I think there's a good element of risk/reward to this sort of gameplay that allows one to come up with their own strategy.  Even things like adding moves (and certain items i.e. Texas Boots) takes away inventory space so you can't have as many healing items on hand.

While the game isn't littered with secrets (just Merlin's Mystery Shop), I do like the sense of discovery you get from trying out different foods and items--yes, I don't think it was ever 'fair' that some stats are pretty useless or that some items are more efficient than others, but I noticed that I've always tended to try out different items rather than buffing one stat with the same item**.  There's also the screwing around aspect that makes multiplayer a blast--team kill is on so you have to be careful where you throw enemies and weapons and when you acro-circus.  (If anyone ever updated this game, they could take a page from the Super Smash Bros. playbook and up the clutter a bit to make the fights more hectic and dynamic--)there's nothing quite like getting a KO because you kicked a trash-can at someone really, really hard.

I'll admit that the game isn't perfect.  You do have to fight pretty dirty if you want to stand a chance early on and the game loses a lot of it's challenge once you get your stats and abilities up.  The game could benefit greatly from some flair, too.  I'm sure there are other criticisms to be made that I'm blind to.  At its worst, I feel this game is a relic from a simpler time.  But at it's best, it's warm and charming, where the sheer dadaist joy of whaling on enemies with a tire trumps a little grind and a few awkward jumps, where blissful chip-tunes still fill your head when you turn the TV off.  I've never thought of River City Ransom as the perfect game, it just turns out that it's been the perfect game for me.

PS
I also own River City Ransom EX and prefer the NES version.  RCR eX has more moves and a "broader" story but the balance of the game is way worse than the original.  There is also one gang that each member drops $7 or so when KO'd so grinding just turns into running around until you find that gang.

*I noticed this recently when playing a Tiger Woods game--that building up my character into a super golfer (by buying winning tournaments, playing well, earning sponsorships, and buying stat improving equipment) was way more interesting than playing as the super golfer once my stats were maxed out.
**In the GBA version, River City Ransom EX, you can only get your Stamina Maxed once per item forcing you to take different items to boost your stats.

PPS
Go ride a tire.

[Lithium]

Are these pictures really from River City Ransom? I watched videos of River City Ransom on YouTube, but I didn't see any monologues.

lololol thats some random webcomic i found

[gojira]

I'm just going to say I don't really like this game.  I love brawlers like the Ninja Turtles games and Double Dragon.  When it comes to these types of games I want an eventful ride through cool levels.  The characters and locations are pretty bland and the whole grinding aspect is a turn off for me.