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River City Ransom
By Cheezmonky X

When Ryan's girlfriend, Cindy, is kidnapped by Slick, who is also planning to take over the city (somehow, I don't know), he and his friend, Alex, go out to rescue Cindy and save the city! It's...River City Ransom!!!!!

*main theme starts playing*

It's part beat-em-up, part RPG, and all fun! Let's check it out, shall we? And while we're at it, we'll catch that thieving magpie who stole my peanuts.

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Design Elements
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Visuals
The foreground of the visuals is quite impressive. In the battleground, the ground is usually the same: There's a long road of gray, with an alternate gray sidewalk. Our heroes, Alex and Ryan, look similar. Alex's eyes look a bit more slanted than Ryan's, making him look a bit angrier (even though it was Ryan's girlfriend who got nabbed), and he wears a white shirt and blue jeans. Ryan is basically the same, but instead a blue shirt and his hair looks bizarrely shiny. There are ten normal enemy face designs. There's one that wears glasses, one that wears sunglasses (and looks incredibly similar to Tom Cruise in Risky Business), one with spiky 80s style hair, one that looks like Matt Dillon, one that has an angry look on his face, one that has small eyes, one that has big eyes, and three other undistinctive ones that are basic variations of the seven I mentioned. Each 'gang' has different color shirts, from blue to red, but the same faces.

The colorful details and stores make the foreground so impressive looking, though. While few of the stores/restaurants are actually marked, the colors that make up the decoration around them make them look good. There are many colors that tops are, and windows are blue with a white shine glowing off of it. Outside of the windows of some stores you can see red and blue newsstands!

The walls are variously colored, depending on the area you are in. You start off outside of CrossTown High School (which means that the game doesn't take place in River City, so it's actually CrossTown Ransom. Eh...what?), where the wall surrounding it is orange. The cracks in the ground of wall are very detailed. Instead of being the same exact wall pattern over and over again, cracks are placed differently from wall to wall. Impressive, most impressive, but are the visuals like a Jedi's yet? You betcha. There are also pipes on the ground, bricks on walls, and trash cans (which you can pick up and beat enemies over the head with, but we'll get to that later), each with that detail.

The game is presented in a letterbox type format. The top line carries your life bar, and the bottom line gives you enemy dialogue. You'll most likely only see any dialogue when they die, but what they say is incredibly entertaining! For example: BARF! Yes, a majority of the enemies say BARF! when they die. Of course, the Mob enemies say Wham! when they die, which is quite funny.
Rating: 9 Excellent

Music/Sound
The first songs you'll hear in the game immediately make it out to be an action-packed, exciting game, which it is! From there, there are very few songs during the gameplay, and they're good, but they're repeated over and over and over. My favorite tune was the exciting boss tune, and it's not played nearly enough. POWER TO THE BOSSES!!!!!!

There's lots of thumps and smashes in the sound effects of River City Ransom. When a coin is bouncing on the ground, it makes a clinging noise each time it hits the ground, as do metal bars when they are thrown at the ground. Crates and wooden bars make a distinctive *THUD* when they hit the ground.
Rating: 7 Good

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Gameplay Elements
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Gameplay
I mentioned earlier in the review that River City Ransom is a beat em up RPG. If you haven't read any other reviews, or haven't played the game, you're probably thinking ''What the heck is that supposed to mean?''. Well, that's exactly what I'm going to tell you, because if I wasn't reading this review would be an utter waste of time (as it probably all ready is, but I'm going on anyway!)!

In River City Ransom, your main mission is to rescue Cindy, Ryan's girlfriend, and save the city! Something unnoticeable, but a bit strange anyway, is that Ryan is Player 2 by default. Oh, well. POWER TO THE RUTHLESS ONE PLAYER!!!!! This game can be played one player or two player simultaneously. I'm afraid I haven't played two player yet, but once I do, I'll update you on how that works.

Your game is saved via three line password, three lines for each character. You always start the game as a new game, but then you pause during gameplay to enter your password (or learn your new one).

You play in battle areas, which aren't really levels, but small battling areas where you beat up enemies along the way. There are many of these areas, and they pretty much make up the city, and the amount of them make the city quite large, if not to incredible lengths. You start outside of CrossTown High School, battling foes along the way. When you first enter an area, you will be informed of what gang runs it. You can also tell which gang you're fighting from the color of their shirts. There are about ten enemies in each battling zone, and four if there's a boss in the area. Some enemies are stronger than others, some weaker than others. Depending on their strength, you'll get more or less amount of money. This money goes toward shops in 'malls', which appear every few battle areas and are a complete safety zone. You buy items that increase your statistics, which include your Punch, Kick, Strength, Weapon, Defense, Will Power (possibility of getting back up when your energy is knocked out), Stamina (energy)

You kick with the B button, punch with A, and jump with B+A. You move up, down, left, and right on a 2D screen. You can pick up weapons with the B or A buttons, attack with them with A, and throw them with B. Weapons include trash cans, metal bars, wooden crates, chains, and soda cans. The damage weapons cause is raised by increasing Weapon power, which a surprisingly large amount of items can raise.

So basically River City Ransom in a nutshell is beating up enemies, buying things to raise your power, beating up more enemies, and maybe taking on a boss or two every once in a while. Then why the heck is it so fun? I'll tell you why! There are some games, especially these days, that pull a beat em up off terribly, but in the good old days, most of them were pulled off superbly when they were filled with originality and an actual sense to keep playing. RCR mixed RPG elements, an easy control system, a large exploration area, and loads of enemies. And River City Ransom is the king of them all.
Rating: 9 Excellent

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Final Rating
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The Good
+Colorful visuals
+Good sound effects
+RPG Elements
+Pretty big game
+BARF!
+Wham!

The Bad
-It's not the best game ever made. Trivial complaint, but it's all I could manage to dig out.

*chases after man with peanuts*
THOSE ARE MY PEANUTS!!!!!!! HE STOLE MY PEANUTS!!!!!! COME BACK HERE, PEANUT THIEF MAN GUY!!!!
*man trips*
HA! I've caught you now!
Peanut Thief Man Guy: No!
Don't worry, I'm not going to give you the Clockwork Orange beating. I've learned too much today with this review.
Peanut Thief Man Guy: Phew.
But I will give you the RIVER CITY RANSOM BEATING!!!!!!
*hits him over the head with a wooden crate*
Peanut Thief Man Guy: BARF!

Final Rating: 9 Excellent

Please note that if you do give anyone the Clockwork Orange or River City Ransom ''beating'', you will serve 25 years to Life, and possibly get the death sentence. If you do it where CJayC lives, you'll be fed to rabid dogs who will slowly eat your flesh.

Thank you for your courtesy.

My Score: 9/10

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