River City: Rival Showdown

Genre: Arcade Brawler / Action-RPG / Fighting Game

Players: 1-2 Competitive / Co-Op (Local Wireless), Download Play Supported

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Review:

River City: Rival Showdown is an Arcade Brawler with some Action-RPG elements released on Nintendo 3DS in 2017. This game is the third and final Nintendo 3DS game in the long-running Kunio-Kun series to be released in the West. This entry in the series follows a gameplay formula similar to what was set down decades ago in River City Ransom, but with a few new elements, such as a new 3-day system, and a new Double Dragon Duel minigame.

In many ways, Rival Showdown is a refinement of the series, and that’s something you can easily see in the presentation. While the game retains the same style based on the classic 8-bit look of its characters and world, Rival Showdown adds numerous subtle elements to modernize that design, such as more subtle expressions for its pixel art characters, more detailed backgrounds, and subtle effects that border on the sort of stuff we’d see years later in Square Enix’s “HD 2D” games like Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy (though nowhere near that intricate and pretty). This is backed by a simple soundtrack that’s repetitive and a tad annoying. In spite of that, this game is at least visually striking in a way that goes well beyond prior games in the series.

Once again, the gameplay here takes on many of the same qualities we saw in the classic River City Ransom – this is still an Arcade Brawler with RPG mechanics and an interconnected world. However, there are a few new additions to that formula.

As mentioned above, everything in this game is structured in a three day system, with an in-game clock counting down the minutes as you get into fights and explore River City, talk with its people, and peruse wares in shops. The premise here is that everything is leading up to a big showdown at the end of those three days, and it’s up to players how to spend that time – they can grind out in battles and improve their character in that way, buy better equipment and skill-teaching books in shops, or they can investigate their rivals in story events scattered through the city. Players are given the freedom to go about this however they want, with the game trusting that they’ll put their time to good use to be ready for the oncoming battle.

To assist players with this freedom to tackle its three-day challenge, this game features an improved map to better navigate the game’s interconnected world. One of my biggest complaints with this series is its limited map, and this game thankfully addresses this issue, though I feel it could have done more, such as by allowing you to tap on locations to see their names and any associated tasks you need to do there.

Having said that, there are a few problems here too. There doesn’t seem any rhyme or reason to the thugs you fight in this game’s battles. One battle could see you easily mopping the floor with your opponents, while the next will have you so outclasses that all of your attacks only do one point of damage. There’s no indication beforehand when you’re getting in over your head, so you unfortunately just have to learn the hard way.

Another issue here is that the game’s usual system of fighting to get money and spending that money on upgrades is kinda’ ruined by how extremely stingy the game is in handing out that money. Just buying one technique-teaching book or stat-improving gear can set you back $3000-$6000, yet after a half an hour of fighting and completing tasks, I had barely scraped together $500. Maybe there’s some trick to earning money that I don’t know about here, but unless I’m missing something, this issue kinda’ breaks the game.

At the very least, this game has some good multiplayer support. If players have a friend who owns the game, that friend can join them in the campaign in co-op play. However, even friends without the game can use Download Play to partake in this game’s minigame, Double Dragon Duel. This is a surprisingly good simple Fighting Game that uses similar mechanics to the main game in a 1-on-1 battle.

Despite its severe flaws, I think River City: Rival Showdown is overall a step forward for the series, and while this game is stingy with handing out money and has absurd difficulty spikes, it’s still overall a good step forward for the series, fixing long-standing flaws and adding in a fun Fighting Game minigame. Fans of the Kunio-Kun series should definitely give this game a look. For everyone else, it may be worth a try, but know that you’re in for a game with some rough edges.

tl;dr – River City: Rival Showdown is an Arcade Brawler with some Action-RPG elements. This game features similar gameplay to the classic game River City Ransom, but with an in-game three day time limit, a modernized map system, and a fun new simple Fighting Game minigame, Double Dragon Duel. This game still suffers from nasty difficulty spikes and it’s far too stingy handing out in-game currency, but overall this is a step forward for the series.

Grade: C

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