First off I want to start this review by stating that a dear friend of mine gifted me this game. I've always planned on playing the original Downtown Nekketsu Kunio-Kun, but I just never gotten around to do so yet.

Utterly lost and failed potential.

That is what comes to mind when I think of River City Ransom: Underground. A game that plays on people's nostalgia for an old NES game in the worst way possible instead of making it better, and as someone who grew up in this era of gaming I can point out a few things they could had made better. Which I shall.

For example, they could had provided an ingame journal that keeps track of what food item raises what stats and where to buy them and the price so you didn't have to keep a notebook yourself. They could had provided a better way at handling all your character moves, such as deciding yourself what buttons they should be activated on and the likes. For example, once I got Paul's secret move, it almost ruined the character for me as I kept activating it by mistake during my combos.

Max Level is Lv 40 yet there's nothing that indicates this until you realize you aren't gaining any more levels. Much the same goes for stat increases except you won't know this until max level. There's no way to get back your health to full, entering a safe house for example will not give you your life back. Instead you're expected to grind cash and hit the Sauna nonstop until max is achieved. This is just stupid. Even the best food in the game requires you to buy almost a full inventory of it just to gobble midbattle to get your health back. You'd think at the very end, you'd have better options.

Speaking of the end, you better be damn ready for the end because once you trigger it, only ONE kind of enemy will drop money anymore and they won't spawn every time. Sure they drop like 20$ but they're surrounded by a bunch of enemies that won't drop anything and is just annoying to fight. This makes it just better to hit the final area where you'll mostly meet these 20$ enemies, and fight as many as you can before you get defeated ( you can easily make around 400$ before you'll run out of health ), allowing you to keep half of whatever you earned.

I read a review of this game on an external webpage that commented on that the story is basically based on the 1979 movie 'The Warriors', so in preperation for this review I had to sit down and watch that movie, and yeah there's some clear parallels between the two. But that brings up another part that RCRU does badly: The enemies you fight at the start of the game, you'll fight, throughout the entire game with little variation. Even though there's suppose to be these gang-turfs, you fight mostly the same enemies all over the place regarding of turfs. This leads to showing just how little variation there really are.

The Arena mode is completely pointless addition to the game. I don't care that it lets you play as all other gangs in the game, those should had been allowed in story mode, not a seperate mode that's simply not fun to play in at all.

Out of all the characters, Paul the Boxer with the Little Mac ( Punch Out ) skin was the one that fit me the best. I recon that possibly Wes would be a secondary choice with his Muay Thai style. Paul's Boxing style reminded me heavily of the dead-game Zone 4 Fight District. Most other characters are just plain uninteresting.

The Soundtrack was adequate and I must admit to really liking Punch Hungry and Argyle Skulk the most out of them all.

I played the game in Hard difficulty. I had initially tried to jump in on the Hardest but the enemies were so frustrating that I had to go down a tick. The other issue I had with how the AI handled is their pixel perfect precision at dodging you, and it pissed me off like no other. THey would swarm you, and stand just far away enough to avoid all your attacks, or block them right before you'd hit them. Usually causing me to rage and rapidly punch all over the place to break them.

For all these reasons, I cannot recommend this game.
It isn't fun. - It's Average.

Get Streets of Rage 4 instead.

First off I want to start this review by stating that a dear friend of mine gifted me this game. I've always planned on playing the original Downtown Nekketsu Kunio-Kun, but I just never gotten around to do so yet. [i]Utterly lost and failed potential.[/i] That is what comes to mind when I think of River City Ransom: Underground. A game that plays on people's nostalgia for an old NES game in the worst way possible instead of making it better, and as someone who grew up in this era of gaming I can point out a few things they could had made better. Which I shall. For example, they could had provided an ingame journal that keeps track of what food item raises what stats and where to buy them and the price so you didn't have to keep a notebook yourself. They could had provided a better way at handling all your character moves, such as deciding yourself what buttons they should be activated on and the likes. For example, once I got Paul's secret move, it almost ruined the character for me as I kept activating it by mistake during my combos. Max Level is Lv 40 yet there's nothing that indicates this until you realize you aren't gaining any more levels. Much the same goes for stat increases except you won't know this until max level. There's no way to get back your health to full, entering a safe house for example will not give you your life back. Instead you're expected to grind cash and hit the Sauna nonstop until max is achieved. This is just stupid. Even the best food in the game requires you to buy almost a full inventory of it just to gobble midbattle to get your health back. You'd think at the very end, you'd have better options. Speaking of the end, you better be damn ready for the end because once you trigger it, only [b]ONE[/b] kind of enemy will drop money anymore and they won't spawn every time. Sure they drop like 20$ but they're surrounded by a bunch of enemies that won't drop anything and is just annoying to fight. This makes it just better to hit the final area where you'll mostly meet these 20$ enemies, and fight as many as you can before you get defeated ( [i]you can easily make around 400$ before you'll run out of health[/i] ), allowing you to keep half of whatever you earned. I read a review of this game on an external webpage that commented on that the story is basically based on the 1979 movie 'The Warriors', so in preperation for this review I had to sit down and watch that movie, and yeah there's some clear parallels between the two. But that brings up another part that RCRU does badly: The enemies you fight at the start of the game, you'll fight, throughout the entire game with little variation. Even though there's suppose to be these gang-turfs, you fight mostly the same enemies all over the place regarding of turfs. This leads to showing just how little variation there really are. The Arena mode is completely pointless addition to the game. I don't care that it lets you play as all other gangs in the game, those should had been allowed in story mode, not a seperate mode that's simply not fun to play in at all. Out of all the characters, Paul the Boxer with the Little Mac ( [i]Punch Out[/i] ) skin was the one that fit me the best. I recon that possibly Wes would be a secondary choice with his Muay Thai style. Paul's Boxing style reminded me heavily of the dead-game Zone 4 Fight District. Most other characters are just plain uninteresting. The Soundtrack was adequate and I must admit to really liking [i]Punch Hungry[/i] and [i]Argyle Skulk[/i] the most out of them all. I played the game in Hard difficulty. I had initially tried to jump in on the Hardest but the enemies were so frustrating that I had to go down a tick. The other issue I had with how the AI handled is their pixel perfect precision at dodging you, and it pissed me off like no other. THey would swarm you, and stand just far away enough to avoid all your attacks, or block them right before you'd hit them. Usually causing me to rage and rapidly punch all over the place to break them. For all these reasons, I cannot recommend this game. [b]It isn't fun.[/b] - [i]It's Average.[/i] Get Streets of Rage 4 instead.