2020 Game of the Year Countdown #5: River City Girls Nintendo Switch (2019)
As my countdown continues, it might start to look like all I play is the Nintendo Switch. I swear that’s not true, it’s just that the games I played on the Switch tended to be better games. This is a classic beat-em-up type of game, which is not a genre I really ever found myself drawn to. In fact, I think the only beat-em-up I ever played was that one Simpsons arcade game where you can play as Marge and she whacks people with a vacuum cleaner.
But, this game is super fun in co-op mode (I found it painfully difficult in single player, although I did end up beating it that way), which is the way it was meant to be played. The story is funny and relatively inane, but it’s more of a premise to get to the gameplay. You play as two girls whose boyfriends get kidnapped, so they have to go save them. That’s it, that’s the story. There is talk of a sequel, and I’m also interested in playing the original series it was based on: River City Ransom.
The gameplay is pretty complex and requires a lot of specific button presses and sequences to pull off certain moves, something that I found difficult since I typically just button mash in these types of games. My favorite moves were just running and jumping on people’s heads like Mario, or rolling into people and making them fall down. I also liked dabbing, which is a legit and powerful attack that Kyoko can pull off.
The soundtrack is also REALLY good, with plenty of 80s-inspired tracks. My favorites include Drive and The Hunt. You can just put the whole soundtrack on repeat, honestly.
