After playing the Streets of Rage series, I decided I needed to try more beat em ups. And whaddya know, Nintendo's crappy online subscription had this for free for a week! A buddy and I played through the game in two sittings, and despite some problems, I rather enjoyed it.

First off, this game is actually non-linear and has a lot of RPG-style elements, which I thought was pretty neat. While the moveset felt a little restrictive at first, it doesn't take long to unlock a wider moveset that keeps things fresh. At the same time, I also had an overabundance of moves near the end of the game. Early on you unlock moves by leveling, but eventually you just have to pay for them at a dojo. This is fine, but dang, there's a lot of them. At the very least, I'm glad that the game eases you into the movesets of the characters as you progress, but I'm still not really sure if half the moves I had are even that different. There's also the fact that due to long stagger times for enemies, the game is extremely easy unless you're swarmed by several opponents, which is most of the time after a certain point, but still. Regardless, comboing enemies was fun, and as I said, I played the game with a friend, which always makes a game a little more fun.

The story is pretty hit and miss, as well as the humour. Either way, the story is a bit repetitive. It's just...

Main characters: 'Uh-oh, our boyfriends have been kidnapped! This boss must know where they are!' beat the boss up

Boss: 'Dang, you're strong. I don't know where your boyfriends are, but maybe the next boss does!'

Main Characters: 'Cool, let's go find said next boss!' leaves

It's fine. I don't expect much out of these games storywise, and this game did the job I guess. Humourwise... I dunno, I didn't hate it as much as many seemed to. Anime-isms annoy me just as much as the next guy, but some of the dialogue is still mildly entertaining. Also, every cutscene can be skipped, which is appreciated in general.

The biggest story complaint I, and seemingly everyone else has is the ending. I used to be fairly tolerant of the whole 'true ending' trend that's been popping up recently, but it's been grating me more and more, and River City Girls is no exception. I shouldn't have to do a whole side quest to get an ending that doesn't suck. Honestly, I would've even been fine with the bad ending if it was developed throughout the story. In this sense, we kind of got the worst of both worlds.

Audiovisually, the game is quite good. My main complaint is that the visual presentation can feel weirdly inconsistent. Some cutscenes are animated while others are manga-styled. Considering this is a gender-bender retro revival, I probably would've preferred to just have the manga cutscenes with either a 90s shounen or shoujo artstyle. Still, the game looks and sounds great either way.

The point is, despite some issues, I did rather enjoy this game. I'll give it a 6/10, but I may make it a 7. If there are other games with a similar structure to this, please tell me. In the meantime, I'm definitely gonna check out the other River City games.