River City Ransom — BARF! and Brawl Like an RPG

River City Ransom came out in Japan on 25 April 1989 and reached North America in January 1990. It quietly invented something special: a beat-’em-up crossed with an RPG. You roam an open city, pummel gangs, pick up the coins they drop, and spend them at shops on food and books that permanently raise your stats.

Eat, get stronger. Read a book, learn the Stone Hands technique. Two players can roam together. And when an enemy goes down, he shouts a line of text at you, with “BARF” the famous one and “BIFF” another.

From Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari to River City

In Japan the game was Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari, a Famicom release from Technos Japan. It was the third Kunio-kun game on the NES, after Renegade and Super Dodge Ball, and the first one built specifically for the NES. Mitsuhiro Yoshida and Hiroyuki Sekimoto directed it, and Kazuo Sawa composed the music.

North America got it through American Technos, the company’s US subsidiary, and it was the first console game that subsidiary published. The title became River City Ransom. In PAL regions it was Street Gangs, published by Infogrames, and the sources disagree on the year: one says 1991 and another says 1992.

Localization went well past the title. Background art was made more western, and the rooftop tiling and mailboxes changed. Location names were updated. Character sprites were redrawn and renamed. The Japanese student gangs became greaser-style toughs in jeans and T-shirts. The setup stayed the same: high school students Alex and Ryan fight through River City to rescue Ryan’s girlfriend Cyndi from a kid called Slick.

How the RPG half works

The map is non-linear and the whole city is open from the start. The NES version has nine gangs, and each has a boss, its own T-shirt colors and its own attack patterns. Bosses can be fought more than once, and most areas can be bypassed, though they do not end until you clear the enemies in them.

The fighting resembles Double Dragon. You punch, kick, jump, block, and pick up whatever lies around, from brass knuckles and steel pipes to trash cans, and you can throw them. Defeated enemies drop coins. Malls and shopping centers act as safe areas where coins buy food, and food raises or restores stats. Spa treatments and saunas raise other stats, and some of that growth is permanent. Stats are split into nine categories, including agility, defense, strength and stamina.

Books are the big-ticket item. A bookstore sells techniques such as Grand Slam, Stone Hands and Dragon Feet at a high coin cost, and how well each technique works depends on your stats. One reviewer’s complaint is fair: the game does not explain what items do, so a FAQ helps.

Saving works through passwords that store your stats, skills, possessions, money and the bosses you have beaten. They are long and slow to write down, and one review notes you can use the system to grant yourself high stats or items.

Two players, one city

Two-player play is the draw. In co-op, a downed player gets revived when the other player moves into the next area. In solo play a knockout sends you back to a checkpoint. One reviewer called the humor, the gameplay loop and the multiplayer the best parts, and the RPG elements the part that slows the pace. Nintendo Life’s 2015 review of the Wii U release scored it 7 out of 10, recommended the 3DS version for solo play and the Wii U version for couch co-op, and noted that two Pro Controllers are needed for two players.

Reception and what came after

Reviews were mixed at release. Famitsu scored it 28 out of 40, Player One gave it 93 percent, and GamesMaster gave it 32 percent. Later critics were kinder. IGN gave it 9 out of 10 in 2008, and GameRankings lists 78 percent for both the NES and Game Boy Advance versions. IGN ranked it the 15th best NES game in 2009. Retro Gamer put it in a top ten in 2021. Nintendo Life and Eurogamer both scored the retrospective reviews at 8 out of 10.

Ports and rereleases came steadily:

• X68000, April 1990, by SPS and published by Sharp, with an expanded world, a dojo and ten save slots.
• PC Engine Super CD-ROM2, 24 December 1993, from Naxat Soft, with an arranged soundtrack and fully voiced characters.
• Game Boy Advance, River City Ransom EX, Japan 5 March 2004 and North America 26 May 2004, published by Atlus. It swapped passwords for battery saves, dropped true co-op for AI partners, and let you save up to 12 characters.
• Wii Virtual Console, North America 21 April 2008. The 3DS followed on 14 November 2013, and Nintendo Classics added it on 18 September 2018.

The Kunio-kun line carried on into River City Girls in 2019, and Kunio and Riki appear as spirits in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari 2 came to WiiWare in Japan in 2011. A separate fan-backed game, River City Ransom: Underground, raised $217,643 on Kickstarter and reached Steam on 27 February 2017.