River City: Rival Showdown Review – Review

River City: Rival Showdown is an overhauled version of River City Ransom, one of my favorite NES titles. It originally came to the 3DS in 2016 and now sees new life on Switch. While it may be advertised as a remaster, there’s actually quite a bit that’s changed in Rival Showdown compared to the original River City Ransom. A day-night cycle, experience points and leveling, and a whole lot more story beats make for an interesting departure for this 2D side-scrolling brawler. It’s a little rough around the edges in some spots, but there’s enough meat on this beat-’em-up bone to make for a fairly satisfying experience.

Rival Showdown stars high school student Kunio, a self-confident but delinquent teenager who’d rather spend his time strolling the streets or sitting at an arcade cabinet than at a school desk. One of the primary narrative threads that you follow involves gangs at rival schools wanting to assert their dominance, which eventually culminates in a massive brawl outside of Kunio’s Nekketsu High School. Across three separate days, you work towards uncovering secrets, plots, and rumors about what’s going on in River City, and on the fourth day it’s basically the Royal Rumble in front of the Nekketsu gates. You can use your map to see which events are happening in which part of the city, but you need to carefully plan your moves and keep your ears to the ground to unlock the game’s true ending. Fortunately, there are a few other endings you can earn as well.

The gameplay loop sees Kunio running around River City as a clock at the top of the screen displays the time. Days are divided into three segments–Day, Evening, and Night–and different events will occur during different segments, sometimes even at specific times. There are dozens of events to encounter across the separate time periods, and it’s likely you won’t see all of them on your first few playthroughs. Listening to what folks about town have to say and checking your map routinely will allow you to find out about most of what’s happening in River City. As you make your way from screen to screen, you’ll encounter a variety of NPCs to talk to and all sorts of gang members dressed in different suits depending on their affiliation. It’s never clear at a glance how powerful your opponents are until the first blows land, and the beginning of a new save file (where you start at Level 0) can offer a rude awakening as most of the foes you encounter have the capacity to clean your clock in no time flat.

Gradually, you’ll start to level up and distribute stat gains to different attributes, like Punch, Kick, and Endurance (whatever suits your playstyle). Equipping different pieces of clothing and accessories can also yield significant boosts to your stats, but you may not find gear right away. If that’s the case, you can use the hard-earned currency you pick up from defeated enemies to purchase consumable food to restore health, specific gear for different body parts, or even books that can teach new skills, such as my River City Ransom staple, Dragon Feet. One of the most helpful aspects of leveling up is that your health and stamina are restored, allowing you to stay in the fight and keep unleashing devastating special moves.

I’m a bit torn in terms of the aesthetics and presentation for Rival Showdown. Visually, the combination of retro-looking sprites against a more detailed background really works well for breathing new life into the game on Switch. The way menus, attacks, and different areas of the city look is really eye-catching. On the flip side, the updated soundtrack is an ineffective facsimile of the NES version. I kept it on for my first couple playthroughs before throwing in the towel and switching to the original, which is a very welcome feature given how well the NES music holds up today.

Rolling credits for the first time unlocks a library of character and skill info, in addition to a sound test. There are also three difficulty options to unlock, coupled with an extra sub-story that tells part of the narrative from a different character’s perspective. I do wish that a medium difficulty was available from the hop, but there is something fun about restarting your save file with all of your experience, stats, and abilities and being a total badass on Day 1. It was also neat to see a playable fighting game called Double Dragon Duel, which is part of the in-game world, as an option from the main menu.

River City: Rival Showdown is an enjoyable departure from the NES title it derives from. It’s received an obvious visual upgrade over the 3DS release, and has added online play, too. It can be frustrating to get stuck with unwinnable event battles, but the penalty of losing an in-game hour isn’t devastating. There’s definitely a bit more of a learning curve for anyone who’s only played River City Ransom, but the overall package is a solid one for Kunio-kun and brawler fans alike, provided you don’t mind a bit of detective work.