River City Girls 2 Review (Claymorb)
I only post reviews to games I feel really strongly about. That, alone, says volumes about how good RCG2 is. Your TL:DR comes right at the top: I'm writing a review therefore this game is a real phenom.
I do have more specific thoughts.
Pros:
- Beautiful spite art. All the characters look absolutely great. The backgrounds are busy, but in a good way. The game oozes style at every opportunity and a large amount of that comes from the expressive sprite art. Even the random background characters often have fun little animations when they are punched accidentally mid-combat. Heck, there's a spite of a girl with a coffee who, as far as I can tell, appears only once in the game at the school. This shows a dedication to presentation they didn't necessarily HAVE to do but chose to. You see this all throughout the game.
- Music! Megan McDuffee knocks it out of the park. Immediately "Better than you" "Get off my lawn" and "River City Girls 2" were added to my playlist as soon as I heard them. Particularly the boss fight BGM tends to hit so much harder than the rest.
- Combat. This game is fully about combat and it feels so good. Each character has a unique feel. Kunio ended up being a particular favorite as I really liked his charge-based moveset. I especially appreciated that pretty much every character had tools that suited specific needs mid-combat. Need space? Forward + Triangle would typically knock enemies away. Wanna do some air combos? Down + Triangle or Up + Triangle would typically launch. However, each character seemed to have their own specialties. Kyoko felt much more of a high-flyer than, say, Marianne. Also, while each character had their bread-and-butter combos (ground string, launcher, jump, air combo, follow up with circle is a strong go to for just about anyone) there are reasons and situations to use other moves. In the corner? Use the forward launcher that is harder to follow up in the air for most characters but does a good wall-bounce and then follow up on the ground for extra damage!
Anyway, it always feels good!
Attitude: I would say this deserves its own category. The game has a sense of humor about itself that is, perhaps taste-dependent, but I found to be funny. Kyoko and Misako being pretty much objectively terrible, self-centered girls yet somehow saving the city from the Yakuza or rescuing cats for the worst pet owner to ever exist due to various circumstances (almost) never ceases to be entertaining. Similarly, this game's attitude is well presented while exploring the world and running into the weird different shop owners and side-quest givers. These characters are truly characters!
Mixed:
- Bosses. The bosses are extremely hit or miss. (Potential SPOILERS BELOW)
Ken, Blaire and Primo are standouts that are fun to fight or at least tech you lessons about how future boss fights will go. Once you get your mindset wrapped around the expectation that bosses will challenge your movement and pattern recognition skills rather than button mashing. But then you compare them to fights like Tsuiko and the Helicopter and it hard to believe they were designed by the same team. Tsuiko doesn't have obvious openings to exploit and eventually the screen is filled by absolute garbage. Turns out you're expected to hit her BETWEEN her attack cycles while she's walking around, which is more difficult than it sounds for certain characters and is dependent largely on whether or not there are things in your way to stop you from fighting. Anyway, the takeaway is that bosses are very very hit or miss.
Cons:
- Late game. Honestly this is what caused me to want to write a review. Unfortunately this game feels like it really loses steam approx. halfway though. Pretty much post-Primo it seems like the game has told what it wants to tell and the rest of the time is spent checking boxes until the end. The music has less omph than earlier in the game. The bosses become more frustrating and boring. I mean the helicopter boss fight might as well just be a static floating .jpeg ffs. I think they really slipped up with Sabu. I feel like the best way to handle a game with the kind of emphasis on humor is to really lean into it hard at the end OR escalate the stakes so that the final boss can be a serious threat and live up to that promise. Sabu does neither. He is made the butt of a joke but it's not particularly funny, but he also appears so little in the story that he has no addition presence beyond "I'm the big bad yakuza! I'm gonna get you!" and then you beat him. End of story.
Despite the above, I really think this game is extremely fun. It's a great example of the beat-em-up genre and is a great game to play with friends. I never wanted to stop beating up folks as the spawned in while running around town as it was just so FUN to do. Absolutely worth your time and attention.... just be prepared for a little of the momentum to slow by the end.