The River City series has been a long time beat-’em-up classic since that late 80’s. The first one with the RC title, River City Ransom, starred two boys who were heading through River City to save their girlfriends. This was the formula for the River City series from here on out, however locations would change, and the enemies would change, but it was always the same two boys making their way through the streets of wherever they were to beat up whoever crossed their paths to save their lady friends. But recently, developers WayForward wanted to flip the switch for the next installment. How? Simple: have the boys be captured instead. And that’ what happens in the new RC title, River City Girls:
In River City Girls, players take on the role (or roles, for local co-op) of Kyoko and Misako who are the girlfriends to the series mainstay protagonists, Kunio and Riki. Why these two? Because Kunio and Riki have recently found themselves detained by the police (no doubt for their many reports of assault, shocking that it’s finally getting some coverage), and to get them out the girls have to take over. By of course, beating up everyone who gets in their way.
Along the way, Kyoko and Misako will gain all sorts of weapons for their arsenal, be able to take on several sidequests (that include some star characters from previous River City titles), earn money and experience points, and go into all sorts of shops to upgrade their gear and unlock new abilities to help them fight through the six areas of River City. And some of these weapons and gear? Are pretty cool, one of them even looks like a Lightsaber in the trailer.
The game is animated in the classic 16-bit style for beat-’em-up games as well as some hand drawn manga-style cutscenes. The sound track is also pop-style that has NateWantsToBattle, Chipzel, Christina Vee, and Megan McDuffee all working on it to keep the energy high and the upper cuts higher.
River City Girls will be available digitally September 5, 2019 on PC, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo witch for $29.99. However, while it will be out digitally then, Limited Run Games will be helping to make a physical copy of the game as well, though the release date is still yet to be determined.