River City Girls 2 Review
“Taking ‘em down in river city.” Written by: Hunter (ReaperHunter23)
River City Girls 2 was announced near the end of 2021 during a December edition of Nintendo’s Indie World showcase. I had been interested in trying the first game out for a while at that point so I decided that the sequel was worth keeping an eye on. And then a couple months before the release of River City Girls 2, I ended up playing and loving the first game, and so naturally my passing interest in the sequel evolved into full blown anticipation. Let’s take a look to see if River City Girls 2 was able to meet my expectations.
Image Credit: Wayforward
I feel like straight away one thing I should specify is that I played River City Girls 2 on my own. That doesn’t change much in any kind of drastic sense, but the 2D beat ‘em genre is one that typically encourages couch co-op so I figured that I should clarify where I am coming from.
With that out of the way, I had a great time playing this game solo. It feels how you would expect if you played the first game. Your moveset consists of a pool of light heavy and special attacks that all gain additions as you level up and buy more moves at the dojo. This time there are six total playable characters with the four returning protagonists being unlocked straight away. Its sort amusing. Kunio and Riki are fully voiced but if you play as them at the start, the dialogue was still clearly written with Misako and Kyoko in mind. Aside from new characters to play as, one of the additions to the combat I really enjoyed was the launch move. This move causes your character to follow your adversary after you smack them airborne. I feel like this was a very solid addition once I unlocked it, I felt as if the combo potential at my disposal was game changing.
The game does a good job at making each of the characters feel distinct from one another when you are playing. Which is impressive since you largely control them all the same way, it just feels like some are better at certain things than others. For example, Kunio felt like his moveset combo’d together really nicely, Kyoko felt better in the air, and Marian felt like she had special moves that were better for crowd control the the others. That being said, each character's base stats all seem to be the same if they are at the same level so it may just be the illusion of difference rather than anything tangible but it if it was just visual flair, it was still really well done visual flair.
Image Credit: Wayforward
River City Girls 2 is a much denser game than the first RGC. There are new areas to go and visit. And the areas that are revisited from the first game felt like I got to see much more of them this time around as well. The level design moment to moment also feels like there’s more going on. More spots to jump up to, and substantially more environmental hazards to make use of. There were even more side missions to partake in that for the most part, managed to be interesting enough to entice me to do them. Though I could have done with maybe one fewer, game wide scavenger hunt quest.
Overall I’d say the way that River City Girls 2 plays is an improvement from the first game. That being said though, when I finished the first game, I had made note of a few things that I thought would be slam dunks for a sequel to improve that weren’t present. For example, I found the double tapping of the D-pad for running to be cumbersome and thought it would be better served as a button to press or hold. The other thing was, for as much as I liked mixing up who I was playing as, the fact that the inactive characters only got a residual piece of the money and experience that the active character was obtaining discouraged me from changing up who I was using later in the game when I had settled on a favorite. I realize that’s probably to encourage you to change it up when you play through the game the next time, but personally I think it would have been cool if the switch between characters was something a bit more seamless. Even something like what River City Girls Zero did, where you could change you active fighter on the fly could have been rather neat.
None of this stuff ruined my experience by any means, in fact I was having such a good time throughout my playthrough that I made peace with these nitpicks pretty quickly. It just serves as maybe something to keep in mind for a third game.
Image Credit: Wayforward, nintendolife
River City Girls 2 picks up pretty much immediately after the end of the first game. Long time Kunio series villain, Sabu breaks out of prison and his yakuza syndicate begins running amok all over town. This pretty succinctly ups the ante from the wild goose chase story of the first game. The story of the game is by no means a narrative masterpiece, but it is really good at what its supposed to do. That is to say: It engineers fun and wacky situations for the endearing cast to get into .
The presentation of River City Girls 2 is probably the strongest thing about it. Everything from the artstyle and character designs, to the music, to voice performances are all absolutely top notch.
Starting with the art, the character designs in this game are exceptionally striking. Everyone looks good whether its as the pixel art sprite, dialogue portrait, or in the manga scenes. The environments new and old all looked good, and did a great job at making River City feel like a much more lived in place this time around.
The voice performances bringing the population of River City to life also go a long way in making this menagerie of denizens memorable. Kayli Mils and Kira Buckland return as Misako and Kyoko respectively, with their chemistry as a duo being as amusing as ever. Erica Harlatcher and Destiny Parker do a lovely job at portraying the two new playable characters, Marian and Provie. Todd Haberkorn does a great job at portraying Ken’s very punchable smarminess, all of the other boss characters are portrayed with a similar level of quality. And then even down to the more ancillary such as Kaori, Satome, or Snap all had portrayals that I find memorable or endearing.
The music in River City Girls 2 is nothing short of excellent. Composer Megan Mcduffee knocked the score out of the park. There's such a wide variety of cool sounds. From energetic, electronic synthy fight music, to more ominous and dark sounding area themes. Even the the hideout music was amusingly bouncy when paired with the visual of seeing an army of the recruits chilling out in Kyoko’s house while her mom just dances around. Songs from the first game also make a return from and are arguably used better in this game in some cases. Getting to hear Unseen for more than two screens was rather pleasing. The new vocal songs in this game serve as a nice contrast to the ones from the first game. Where songs like Unseen and If You Dare served more as broody and ominous area music, the vocal tracks in this game perfectly capture the energy of the given area’s boss. Songs such as Better Than You, Your Like, and Feel The Heat are all boastful and over the top in a manner that is distinct as the characters they are describing.
Image Credit: Wayforward, nintendolife
Summary
I think the nicest thing I can say about River City Girls 2 is that it has raised my general interest in other games like it. Before I had only really dabbled or played all the way through a few 2D beat em games, but now I’m far more interested in trying out some of the others, be it the classics of years previous or some of the other newer throwback titles to come out more recently. And that’s all because this game and its predecessor won me over. River City Girls 2 is a fun and wacky ride that earns my recommendation with style. The larger map and improvements on the combat are elevated that much more by the game leaning into the personality and presentation that makes the world of River City so enticing.