River City Ransom (NES)
Developed by: American Technos Inc.

This was one of my favourite games for the NES.It was somewhat unique because it combined arcade fighting style games like Double Dragon with some elements of the RPG genre. It’s your basic street brawl setting, but throughout the game you interact with characters and stock up on items to help you along the way. Granted, the character interaction is pretty limited, and the items don’t do much more than help you regain your strength. However, your character has attributes that increase as you gain experience, such as Stamina, Defense, Will Power, and Strength. This is something that hadn’t really been done before with a fighting game.

The storyline behind the game is predictable but fun. Alex and Ryan are straight A students, and the one day they decide to cut class, some jackass named Slick took over their high school and kidnapped Ryan’s girlfriend, Cyndi. So obviously the next step is to head over to River City High School, and attempt to rescue Ryan’s chick. Unfortunately, River City is overrun by many gangs, all of whom answer to Slick. To get to River City High, you will first have to defeat these various gangs and their leaders along the way.

Fortunately for you, most of the gangs aren’t all that tough. They’re just poseurs with hip names like The Home Boys and The Frat Guys. (Except for that gang of foreign exchange students called The Internationals. Those guys are tough, and they speak English surprisingly well…)

Each of the gangs are supposed to have different “personalities” and fighting proficiencies, and supposedly certain gangs have grudges against either Alex or Ryan. To be honest I never really noticed much of a difference in the gang behaviour, although certain gangs seem more likely to run away from you than others. The only thing that really changes from gang to gang is the colour of their clothes and the various witty phrases they spout off, depending on whether or not they are getting their asses kicked. Some of the cooler trash talking phrases include “How ’bout this?” and “Biff!”. Personally I always wished Alex and Ryan would do some trash talking of their own during the game, but I guess we all know that heroes aren’t cocky. At least they weren’t back in the 80’s.

The characters in this game were cute and lovable, even though they were supposed to be bad ass thugs and ruffians. The artwork and animation was very cartoony in that Japanese style.There were about 5 or 6 different character templates, and each gang would consist of some combination of these characters, just wearing different coloured shirts and with different names.(American Technos later used the exact same character design and controls for Super Dodgeball, another excellent game.)

There are little details in this game that set itself apart from all the other fighting games out there. For one, they attempted to make every character in the game a unique individual. There are no hordes of nameless thugs in River City Ransom, no sir. Sure they may all look pretty much the same, but the creators of the game spent a lot of time picking out a different name for each of them.

I really liked this game because of the fact that it actually felt like you were in a real city. Unlike most side-scroller fighting games, you could go back to areas you had visited, and at some points in the game, you actually HAVE to go back to these other areas in order to beat some of the bosses.

Of course, perhaps the coolest things about this game was the shopping malls which you come across throughout your trek across the city. In each of the malls there are various stores and restaurants where you can buy food and vitamins to replenish your energy and increase your strength. There is plenty of variety in food; River City has everything from Chinese food to Sushi to Fast Food to French Cuisine. My favourite was always Merv’s Burger Joint, where you get service with a smile.

The shopping malls were cool cause you could even buy strange items like CDs and toys, which, believe it or not, actually increase some of your player’s attributes. Who would have thought that a Soul music cd could increase one’s agility? Buying useless items is always worthwhile for the endearing remarks that the game makes when they are used. For instance, when you use a cd, “hot tunes fill the air”, or when you buy a teddy bear, Alex hugs it when no one is looking. How cute! The Burb Village also offers nice relaxing saunas to our heroes, which is always memorable because you get to see Alex and Ryan’s butts.

So where do you get the money to pay for all this stuff? Well, after wiping the floor with a bunch of strung out gang members, Alex and Ryan always remember to steal their money too. I think the shopkeepers must have been pissed off that Alex and Ryan always paid with handfuls of coins, seeing as that’s all the defeated gang members ever seem to have on them.

Another aspect of RCR’s realism is the variety of weapons that are available in the game, and how they all react with other objects in the game. If you have a tire, and you throw it at someone, it rolls along the ground for a while, before losing momentum and falling on its side. While it is rolling, someone can actually jump up on the tire and ride it as it moves. Also you can kick boxes, garbage cans and other objects so that they slide across the floor. If someone throws a rock at you, you can use a bat or a chain to hit the rock back at the person who threw it. Sometimes when playing a two player game we would set up Alex and Ryan “baseball” games. That got boring really fast, but still, the realism of the game always intrigued me.

I think this is why the game had so much replay value to it. Even after I beat the game, it still remained fun to play. You could be as creative as you wanted because the fighting techniques were so unlimited when compared with the basic punch and kick button tapping games that were common at this time.

It was especially fun to play with two players. In River City Ransom, you can accidentally hit your partner, so sometimes you just get pissed off at each other and Alex and Ryan start duking it out between themselves.

If RCR has a weakness it is probably in the fact that it is a little too easy. If you play long enough and build up a bit of money, you can purchase certain books that teach you some killer techniques, such as Stone Hands, which teaches you punch really fast, or the aptly titled Javelin Man, which allows you to use a fallen enemy as a deadly weapon against his friends. Once you have special skills such as these in your repertoire, you are pretty much unstoppable. Easy games can be kind of disappointing, but on the other hand, they are accessible to a wider variety of gamers, so I guess that’s a good thing.

This game had a unique style all on its own. The realism, and excellent play controls, and the fun little inside jokes make this game tops in my book. Did I mention that the music ruled?River City Ransom was loads of fun and for me it was definitely one of the most memorable games from the 8 bit NES days. I think they made a sequel to the game in Japan, but I don’t know if it ever made its way to North America. If you’ve never played this game, I highly recommend downloading an emulator and finding a copy of the ROM because this is a classic in every sense of the word. — Sean