Introduction
River city girls 2 is a sequel to the 2019 game River City Girls. WayForward developed River City Girls 2, and Arc System Works published the game. River City Girls is a spin off of the Kunio-Kun series. The series was localized in the US in form of Super Dodgeball, and River City Ransom for the NES.
Overview
River City Girls featured Misako and Kyoko fighting their way to save their boyfriends. The sequel, River City Girls 2 starts where the first left off. Sabuko, the daughter of a Yakuza boss, and is shamed when she is bested by Misako and Kyoko. Now our heroes are back at school, and they are late! To our heroes dismay the school has been infiltrated by the Yakuza.
Gameplay
River City Girls 2 is a beat em up where you get to choose from 4 characters. You can choose between Misako, Kyoko, Kunio, and Riki. All of the characters seem to play very similar to one another. They have different moves, but have the same stats when you start with them. The list of moves you can do can be accessed from your cell phone menu.
You will have to fight your way through town, and you have the ability to explore the town freely. You will come across certainly places that are locked, but they will become accessible as the game progresses. As you explore the town you will come across different items you can use as weapons. My favorite so far is the bike. You pick up the bike and can take down most enemies in a few hits.
Another fighting mechanic is recruiting enemies to be support characters. Occasionally an enemy will beg for mercy and your char has the opportunity to recruit them to your support team. You can assign up to two support characters at a time. This mechanic is useful if you find yourself in a tight spot.
Graphics
This game looks very crisp, and moves very fluidly. It has a great anime/manga aesthetic to it. River City Girls 2 uses this manga aesthetic in the beginning of the game to tell the story of how shame came to Sabuko. The character animations let the characters move smoothly, and they are always moving, and displaying a number of expressions.
Sound
The soundtrack to this game is really good, very catchy. The characters have really fun dialog, and the voice actors convey it very well. The game has lots of humor in it and you will undoubtedly find yourself laughing out loud at some point while playing.
Story
The story in the game is pretty simple, but you will get different objectives as the game progresses. You have to fight your way through a series of panels on a map in order to reach your destination. The voice acting does a superb job of conveying the story.
Controls
The controls in River City Girls 2 are very good. The control scheme makes it very beneficial to utilize the different moves you have equipped. I would go as far to say that you will struggle when first starting out if you just plan to mash buttons. The one mechanic of the game that I still have a hard time with is the parry. During a fight your character can block or parry an incoming attack, having you press the “R” button. This will stun the enemy for a split second. The problem I had was getting the timing right.
Value
I think you can get a lot of playtime out of this game. Each time I go through the area around my hideout, the encounters are slightly different. As a result, you can play through the game using the four different characters so the experience will be different depending on which character you are playing. As of release day this game is retailing for $39.99 USD on the Nintendo eShop. If you were a fan of the last installment, or are just a big fan of beat em up games, this will provide a lot of value for you. If you are on the fence on whether or not to pick this game up, try the first installment, and see how much you enjoy it.
Conclusion
River City Girls 2 is a very well fleshed out beat em up game for the Nintendo Switch. You can purchase it on the Nintendo eShop for $39.99. The game has crisp graphics, great music, lots of humor, and combat will keep you engaged for hours. I would like to thank developer WayForward and publisher Arc System Works for the review code.
