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I completely love River City Ransom. I could make an argument for the original game being my favorite game of all time. It’s a perfect blend of brawler gameplay, exploration, and light RPG advancement mechanics that feels an awful lot like modern game designs in spite of being over thirty years old.
Its sequels have had different degrees of trouble replicating or exceeding the magic of the original. I reviewed some of them during a sadly abandoned week-long feature I was working on during my early days on Medium. The sequels have been, at best, loosely updated versions of the original design, afraid to take risks or push the boundaries of the concept. And when they do try to innovate, they fail to capture the same simple design loop at the core of the original.
None of those problems plague 2019’s River City Girls. It’s easily my favorite sequel to the original NES game, with the same satisfying blend of light open world elements, RPG leveling, and fun brawler combat. Rather than try to update the timeless design, its new elements are some gentle expansions to the original combat formula…
