#Nekketsu High games

[z2z-gaming-and-random-art-ai]

Console Sports Games of 1993 - Kunio Kun no Nekketsu Soccer League

Another release in 1993 from the Kunio / Nekketsu High games / River City series of video games, this time with a football (Soccer) game that is a sequel to the 1990s release Nintendo World Cup. 

This sequel would however be a Japanese release exclusive, like its predecessor Kunio Kun no Nekketsu Soccer League would released on the NES in April of 1993. 

In 2020 the game received a re-release via download on the Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch, again these were exclusive to Japan. 

1. Intro 00:00 

2. Gameplay 00:15 

3. Outro 06:46 

Twitter (Gaming & AI Art) 

https://twitter.com/zero2zedGaming

Instagram (AI Art) 

https://www.instagram.com/random_art_ai/

For more sports game videos check out the playlists below 

Console Sports Games of 1993 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJOZYl1h1CEhIf6hohng9T2IPLCpzn7o

[lex-2002]

Kunio-kun's infamous rival that all River City Series fans will recognize, The head of the Reiho High School Big Four: Kobayashi gets his own game!! A short while after the events of "Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari"... Reiho High School, where the battle took place, has these Big Four, who are feared by all the others schools around.

And at the top of the Big Four, reigns only one man: Masao Kobayashi. Here's one of his stories. Back in middle school, a mysterious event led him to meet a boy named Mizoguchi, who was actually a Time Regulator, going after an evil organization that has disrupted the time-space equilibrium.

[rosesinmaii]

Nintendo Fun Club News, 1:3 [1987]

The third edition of the Nintendo Fun Club, run by Howard Phillips and Gail Tilden, was released in the autumn of 1987. The magazine was a free-to-join subscription to explain tips and tricks in games, as well as sneak peeks at upcoming games, and reader columns to talk about high scores. The magazine came with coupons at times for discounts and free merchandise/games. There were only seven issues before it was obliterated to create the (paid for) Nintendo Power Magazine. Images have been used only for demonstration, and are sourced directly from the magazine unless otherwise stated (in which a full link/reference will be provided). The third issue was twenty-four pages long, a notable increase from the previous two issues, with a clear increase in budget to match (partly due to the length, partly due to the use of colour images)

Page 1 is simply a piece of cover-art, with Link from the Legend of Zelda, as shown below.

Page 2 is an advertisement from the Taito Corporation, a licensed company that produced NES games and ports. They depict four games covers on this page- Elevator Action [1983], The Legend of Kage [1985], Arkanoid [1986] and Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun/Renegade [1986]- all in a pop-art style.

Page 3 features a contents list, plus a message from Howard Phillips thanking readers for their support, as well as explaining password-locks and the NES Advantage Joystick, and noting several features within the article.

Page 4 features an article on Metroid [1986]- with a brief explanation of the lore, it describes several items and weapons available to Samus including "Maru Mari," "Varia," and "Screw Attack." It also describes the map-making system in the game, with a drawing of Samus in her suit in the corner. The bottom right describes the "Password Pak" system of saving, and the bottom left an advertisement for three Data East games- Karate Do/Karate Champ [1984], Tag Team [1983], and Hamburger/Burger Time [1982].

Page 5 displays seven screenshots from Metroid, as well as a coloured drawing of Samus at the bottom. The right half of the page shows more Data East games including the three from page 4, Karnov [1987], BreakThru [1986], Kaiketsu Yanchamaru/Kid Niki [1986] and King of Boxer/Ring King [1985].

Page 6 has a feature on Kid Icarus [1986], with a description of the lore and general gameplay loop accompanied by six screenshots of the game. The lower half is taken up by an advertisement for Sqoon [1986], shown below.

Page 7 - Continuation of the feature on Kid Icarus from the previous page, with an explanation of special weapons from the game and how to use the Credit Card item. On the left is a drawing of Pit from Kid Icarus. The lower section of the page explains Impa's role in The Legend of Zelda, and requests readers that have beaten him twice to call in, alongside a drawing of Link and Impa. Finally, on the right is a small feature on Super Pitfall [1986]- describing the levelling system, goal, and gameplay.

Page 8 - Pro's Corner- focusing first on The Legend of Zelda, mentioning gold from the graveyard, resetting the game with UP + A, the use of bombs for a cheaper shield, and tips on navigating the Underworld. Metroid tips include building energy, escaping Metroids by leaving areas, the use of bombs to jump walls, escaping lava pits, climbing using falling rocks, walldoors, and password saving. Further button codes are mentioned for various games, with no explanation of result; A+START in Super Mario Bros.; UP+A+B > START in Solomon's Key; UP+START in Trojan; DOWN>UP>BABABABA>START in Gradius; and ABBA > START in Ikrai Warriors after the last man dies. The bottom left corner has an advertisement for Mighty Bomb Jack [1986], highlighting the games' multiple endings.

Page 9 - Member's Tips, tips submitted by Fun Club Members for extra points and out of bounds advice in various games. The bottom right corner has an advert for Solomon's Key [1986] and a guidebook, including a map.

Page 10 - Sneak-Peeks, with two games featured. The top half has Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! [1987] (later titled simply Punch-Out), describing the gameplay loop and listing available opponents in the game. There's a rather heavy emphasis on it being named for Mike Tyson, with the man himself pictured alongside the passage. The lower half has Highway Star/Rad Racer [1987]- for which the main selling point is the use of 3-D glasses in playing the game. There are several race cars and courses from the games mentioned. This is continued on Page 19, with three screenshots of the game and elaboration of the 3-D glasses that come with the game.

Page 11 - Small advertisements for the billiard's game Lunar Pool [1985], a sci-fi shooter named Zanac [1986], and at the bottom a vehicular combat game inspired by James Bond named Spy Hunter [1984].

Page 12-13 - A double spread, featuring a screen-by-screen map for the Legend of Zelda, both the Underworld and Overworld, with symbols to imply where objects/items/particular enemies are located. It also mentions the three swords in the game, and how to receive the first two.

Page 14 - An advertisement for a NES accessory, the Family Fun Fitness Mat. It's sort of like a DDR board but very obviously from the 1980s, and was designed for use in sports games- a little like the Wii Balance Board to be released years down the line.

Page 15 - A continuation of the Sneak Peeks section. The top half announces the upcoming release of The Adventure of Link [1987], highlighting it as a sequel and direct continuation of The Legend of Zelda, implying him to be the prior character as an adult. It notes the developed character interactions, new POV, and the faster pace of the game. The lower left corner is a brief paragraph on Pro-Am Racing [1988], describing it as a re-invented racing game. The bottom right corner has adverts for Ring King, Kid Niki, Breakthru and Karnov, all to be released before Christmas 1987.

Page 16 - The High Score Contest results- six from Super Mario Bros., with 9,999,950 being the highest score. There are two for Excitebike, the fastest time being 55.64 seconds for the first track, one for Hogan's Alley at 317,200, one for Slalom at the time of 1:01, and two for Pro-Wrestling, with one reader defeating an opponent in 24 seconds and the other defeating the game. The bulk of the page requests readers to write in scores for those games, as well as The Legend of Zelda, Kid Icarus and Metroid. On the far right is a congratulatory message to the first ten gamers to call into the office for having defeated Ganon in The Legend of Zelda, as requested in the prior issue. There remains a request open for anyone who had beaten Ganon twice.

Page 17 - The mail page, expanded to eight letters and responses. The topics include requesting tips for various games, asking about subscription renewal, suggestions for articles, and personal questions for Howard Philips. At the bottom is a section describing several reports of Local Clubs formed because of the magazine, as well as advertising a new Fun Club Kit to encourage kids to make their own, available through mail order.

Page 18 - Brief interviews with various members of staff at Nintendo's help desk, and why they enjoy the job. Along the side is a small drawing of Link from the Legend of Zelda, and an image of Howard Phillips in New Orleans.

Page 19 - A continuation of the Sneak-Peek into Rad Racer from Page 10. On the right is an advertisement for Solomon's Key, Rygar, Mighty Bomb Jack, and Capcom Game Packs including Captain Commando.

Page 20 - Fun Club merchandise page, with the same shirts and sweatshirts and guides from the previous volume. Added in is the Fun Club binder.

Page 21 - An article on the NES Advantage joystick, mentioned for the first time in the previous volume. This article details the purpose of the controller's design, speed knobs to adjust action speed in game, and slow motion options. The bottom right has an advert for SkyKid [1985], a shooter being ported to the NES.

Page 22 - Sub-articles advertising a Costume Competition for Halloween (for which readers had to photograph their Nintendo costumes for Halloween, and send them in the mail) and a call for readers to write in with game reviews. The majority of the page is a word search, with names of popular NES games. Images on the page represent Oktoroks, as well as Mario about to hammer a Goomba.

Page 23 - A full page advertisement for 3-D WorldRunner, a shooter-action game playable in 2-D, or with 3-D glasses. There are brief mentions of other games from Acclaim at the bottom- Star Voyager, Winter Games by Epyx, and Tiger-Hell. A form is present in the bottom right corner for a 3-D WorldRunner poster for free.

Page 24 - The final page of this volume has an advert for the Top Gun video game, a shooter to be released in November 1987. Alongside it is the opportunity to win a paid vacation to New York and $5,000.

[randomthefox]

River City Girls incorporated a lot of Double Dragon stuff into it tbh. Kunio-Kun is actually pretty reasonably grounded. All things considered. Relatively speaking.

The first game was Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun aka Hot Blooded Kunio-Kun. It was sorta the grandfather of all side scrolling beat 'em ups. The story such as it was was that PUNKS kept beating up Kunio's little school friend Hiroshi, so Kunio has to go beat them up. This included Riki (who becomes Kunio's friend after their altercation) Misuzu, and ultimately Sabo who is a Yakuza boss. Yeah Hiroshi is kind of a bully magnet. Hiroshi Riki Misuzu and Sabo('s daughter) are all in River City Girls obviously.

This game actually got an expensive remake that gave it more of a story in the form of Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-Kun Special. It is unfortunately Japan exclusive and even more unfortunately 3DS exclusive.

Anyway the next game in the series was SUPER DODGEBALL!!!!

Yeah Super Dodgeball is actually a Kunio game! A crapton of these games are sports games. There's a soccer one which features the first appearance of Misako. And a hockey one which is where the NPC Kaori orginates

After Super Dodgeball the next Kunio game was a pretty major one. It was Downtown Nekketsu Story. Localized as the one the only River City Ransom.

This game had Kunio and Riki teaming up to rescue Riki's girlfriend, Mami, after she is kidnapped by Reiho Academy which is the school that Hasabe attends. Godai is also from this game. And the final boss is Yamada. The backstory of Yamada and Kunio both having crushes on Hasabe was made up by River City Girls, but the three of them all originally going to the same middle school is accurate. He also does totally have psychic powers.

River City Ransom is probably the most significant game in the series and is the backbone of inspiration for River City Girls. If you liked River City Girls I HIGHLY recommend River City Rival Showdown, which is an expensive remake of River City Ransom. It massively expands the story and shows the majority of the characters you'll know from RCG in the context of their original canon. It is available on all modern consoles and Steam.

The last Kunio game that's relevant for River City Girls purposes is Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-tachi no Banka. Which has actually been localized as River City Girls Zero, because it was the game that served as the primary inspiration for WayForward when creating River City Girls.

It's more of a traditional side scrolling beat em up ala Double Dragon. This is the game Kyoko made her debut in, and she and Misako are both playable characters alongside their boyfriends. Because for some reason Misako and Kyoko are Kunio and Riki's girlfriends in this game. No mention of Mami is ever made. It's honestly kind of weird, the story starts with Kunio and Riki being thrown in jail and Nekketsu High School is destroyed in an earthquake. The true final boss of RCG even makes reference to how obscure this game is.

Hilarious.

Anyway that's all the Kunio lore that's relevant to River City Girls. Almost every single NPC in this game is from a Kunio or Double Dragon game. WayForward really did their homework. Personally I think River City Girls 2 is less appealing because it strikes away from the Kunio franchise and gets even deeper into the Double Dragon reeds and does a lot more of its own thing. But RCG feels like a real love letter to Kunio Kun and I'm glad it's still serving as a gateway for this series.

Hi I finished playing River City Girls today, can a Kunio-Kun fan explain to me Kunio-Kun lore real quick?

[everygame]

Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club (Nintendo Switch)

Developed/Published by: Technos Japan / Arc System Works Released: 20/02/2020 Completed: 07/08/2020 Completion: Beat it on easy because might as well start there? Trophies / Achievements: n/a

Aye that’s me still playing through the Double Dragon & Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle in order if you’re wondering, which is still a fantastic retro collection worth every penny.

Now, I’ve actually played a dodgeball title before--I had a cart-only copy of the GBA one for a while and actually might still have it kicking about somewhere--but let me say… I don’t really get this game design. Maybe it gets more interesting if you’re playing it on harder difficulties (watch this space for when I play through Super Dodgeball, I guess!) but it does mostly seem like a game where you 1) try and catch the ball when the enemy throws it at you (because dodging it means the enemy at the back will get it) and 2) run forward and try and time your throw to get a special throw.

I mean, that’s it really. There’s some chance to intercept passes when some (annoying) enemy teams pass a lot I guess, but it’s really hard (not least because of the brawler viewpoint makes lining up near-impossible). I looked it up and there’s actually tons of depth in terms of differing health, super moves, etc. etc. etc. but none of it seems to really be apparent when you’re playing as long as you stick to doing 1 and 2.

I’m certain saying that will make a bunch of Super Dodgeball fans to climb out of the woodwork and attack me… well it would, if enough people read these for it to reach a Super Dodgeball fan. I’m willing to believe the depth is explored more deeply in later versions! Unless it’s just that dodgeball isn’t that interesting a sport? Which I’m not going to say definitively in case any fans of the non-super version of dodgeball are reading this.

Will I ever play it again? I’ll play the US version on medium difficulty, how does that sound. I’m not a hater!

Final Thought: Maybe I shouldn’t be allowed to review this because I don’t think I’ve ever played the “real” version of Dodgeball. I’m pretty sure we just played the version where one person starts with the ball and if they bean anyone they join the throwing team. Which is super fun to be fair and (at this point) makes more sense to me...

[scotts-takes]

Best of Ensemble Stars 2022

Number 1 - Seishun Emergency - Knights x Ryuseitai

This is something I had to admit to myself at some point- despite loving Ryuseitai, I have never actually loved any of their songs. Ryusei Hanabi was the closest I had come for a number of years, and even then that would have been a middle-of-the-road song for any other unit in the game. Nekketsu Ryusei Ninpouchou was fun, but I'm bias because I love Shinobu almost as much as life itself, so it's hard for me to tell if I actually like that song.

As the Fusion series of songs was coming to a close, it seemed obvious that we were going to get a Ryuseitai x 2wink or Crazy:B fusion, because that would have made the most sense. The game had never done 10 idols on screen, after all! But then the announcement came, and we got the big 10 man collab, and an update to the game that raised the minimum specs required to play the game due to changes they had made to accommodate it. With the target audience of Enstars being pre-teen and teenage girls, I was a little surprised by this- Enstars is a pretty meaty app requirement-wise, and teens tend to play on whatever they have- be it a handed-down older phone, a 4 year old tablet with a cracked screen, etc. I am sure there are people who had to quit the game over this, and it sucks, but that is the price we pay for having a cutting edge game even all these years post release....

When I first heard the song, I immediately watched it a second time, to make sure I had seen and heard everything right. I was like "I have HEARD this song before". And maybe 10 minutes later, it finally hit me- it sounded exactly like the Yugioh GX theme song!

And it wasn't just the Yugioh GX theme song, it sounded like a Disney Channel song from the late 2000s/early 2010s, like you would hear this and expect Zach and Cody to step out from behind the curtain.

In the Hamutaro song post, I made mention that "Ryuseitai is for the children", and it struck me by how this style of song fit. While Hamutaro was a song that you might have heard as a 6 year old, This was a song that evoked the shows you were watching as a pre-teen/teenager if you are around 25-32 years old now, which is, quite simply, something that we really don't get anymore. It was ultra nostalgic, and the theme of the song- which is about middle/high school romance- probably fits the same things you were thinking about when you were watching these show

This is a wildly high energy song- the literal first seconds of both the in-game version and the full version of the song is 10 people fist pumping and screaming about taking chances and fighting! When you watch the MV, you are struck by how...uncordinated the dancing is between the 10 characters. They sort of all have their shit down for the chorus, but everything in between just feels like they are improvising and they just found out that day they would be preforming together and hadn't rehearsed- it adds to the theme of a "youthful emergency"- you didn't have time to practice, you just gotta go out and get it done!

There is a point towards the end of the song where it seems like no one on stage has any idea what they are supposed to be doing! Everyone is just doing their own thing, before they get it together for the synchronized dancing at the end. To a degree, I could have excused a simple video like the year one songs- after all, this was the first time they had to have 10 characters going at once, they weren't going to be able to do a Finder Girl or Believe 4 Leaves with this. But even though its a very simple concept, there is so much personality and fun injected into this video. Just because you aren't telling a multi-step story with multiple settings doesn't mean you aren't telling a story- and Seishun Emergency manages to get across all 10 characters personalities in it's 2 minute runtime.

And in case it didn't come across earlier, this song absolutely BANGS. The high energy and freneticism combined with 10 voices focused on what is a truly meaningless topic to an adult- High School romance- becomes the first time that Ryuseitai actually has an awesome song to their names. These are hero's of justice, they are for the children- but as Chiaki has said before, he really does just want a cute girlfriend to make him lunches everyday. And Knights fits in as the prototypical "top of the class that all the girls want"- showing that they aren't immune to stupid teenage immaturity and hormones. You could have made a Knights x Ryuseitai song about a group of heroic rangers and a group of valient knights coming together to vanquish some great evil, but no- instead, we are just witnessing them all be stupid teenagers instead.

For being a song that was released so early in the year, it is a true testiment that at the end of it, there was zero question about what number 1 on this list was going to be. A lot of the other songs I chose, I had to think about where to put them- but this was instantly my favorite song when I heard it, and nothing has changed since then to make me re-consider. I'm just so happy that as a fan of characters like Shinobu and Tetora, I no longer have to tell people "I, uh, like the characters but not the music" when discussing Enstars with them- I can happily point to this song and just go "watch THIS".

While I have moved to Engstars as my primary game since it's launch, I still keep up (and had to do multiple events...) with JP, so my hope is that 2023 will continue to bring us new and exciting songs!

[ssjrodimus]

Sharp Twin Famicom console system (AN-500B) [JPN] - Sharp / Nintendo

9x Nintendo Famicom Disk System games

85x Nintendo Famicom game cartridges 

FDS... Kinnikuman, Legend of Zelda 2, Moero TwinBee, SD Gundam World: Gachapon Senshi Scramble Wars, Idol Hotline: Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School, Pro Wrestling, Exciting Baseball, Super Mario Bros 2, Mahjong Kazoku.

Carts... ???, ???, Ultima: Kyoufu no Exodus, Lunar Ball, Mezase Pachi Pro, Dr. Mario, Mario Open Golf, Yoshi’s Egg, Yoshi’s Cookie, Balloon Fight, Major League, Soccer, Pinball, Mah-Jong, Golf, Devil World, Tennis, 4-nin Uchi Mahjong, Tetris, Tetris 2 + BomBliss, Dragon Quest II, Dragon Quest III, Dragon Quest IV, Thexder, Transformers: Convoy no Nazo, Hino Tori, Top Gun, Yie Ar Kung-Fu, Booby Kids, Pooyan, Lode Runner, Ninja Hattori-kun, Star Force, Shin Jinrui, Klax, Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star), Hokuto no Ken 2, Legend of Kage, Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun, Nekketsu Koukou Dodgeball-bu, LaSalle Ishii no Childs Quest, Family Circuit, Galaga, Star Wars (Namco), Family Jockey, Fighting Golf, Paris-Dakar Rally Special, SD Hero Soukessen – Taose! Aku no Gundan, SD Gundam – Gachapon Senshi 2 – Capsule Senki, Mobile Suit Z Gundam: Hot Scramble, Kamen Rider Club, Dragon Ball: Shenron no Nazo, Formation Z, Ninja-kun: Majou no Bouken, Ninja Jajamaru-kun, Jajamaru no Daibouken, Tokoro-san no Mamoru mo Semeru mo, Dengeki Big Bang!, Hiryuu no Ken: Ougi no Sho, Zombie Hunter, Ganbare Pennant Race, Derby Stallion.

[mishkakagehishka]

I'm back again~~ Top 5/10 A3! songs? (i didn't even know there were songs from A3! so :o )

HDBSNSJSJ yea ! Asides from theme songs, there's also character songs, troupe themes and every play gets its own song! :D i'm gonna go for top 10, but with honourable mentions bc this is such a comfort game to me that it passes onto the songs <3

MANKAI☆Kaika Sengen - the game's main theme <3

Rakuen Oasis - Summer troupe 1st play, Water Me! . This one is this high purely bc of the "This is a tale of my lies / [slightly muffled as if Tenma stepped away from the mic] what did you just say? / ara? / huh? It's FAKE?!" kings of comedy

Circle of Seasons - anime opening. There's this part where they sing ab the seasons, but every line starts with the first kanji of the respective leader's given name :') makes me cry every time. They just wanna act, bro

Konton ALL RIGHT! - Summer troupe 5th play, SHI★NO★BI Misadventures. I have a theory that says "If a song is energetic and has yelling 'NIN! NIN!' adlibs, it's a banger" and my proof is this song and Nekketsu☆Ryusei Ninpouchou

Susume! Pirates - Summer troupe 3rd play, Captain Sky Pirates. Misumi's voice!?!!??!!??!?!?!?

Clockwork of Memory - Spring troupe 3rd play, The Clockwork Heartbeat. Steampunk my beloved. Valkyrie should cover this one

BUZAMA - Autumn troupe 3rd play, Tales of Chivalry: Ginji the Wanderer. I spent all my gems on the gacha for this one when it was running bc I wanted the Juza SSR. Didn't get him. Still keep the grudge <3

Shoutai - Winter troupe 3rd play, Nocturnality. AZUMA YUKISHIRO [bites and doesn't let go]

Growing Pain - Mixed troupe 1st play, I Come with the Night. I also liked this play, it was very wholesome :)

Just For Myself - Autumn troupe 2nd play, Stranger

Honourable mentions <3

Act! Addict! Actors! - another opening of the anime :>

Es no Yuutsu - Winter troupe 2nd play, The Master Likes a Mystery

Wonderland A Go Go!! - Spring troupe 2nd play, Boy Alice in Wonderland. It's cute <3

Also, the album art for the mixed troupe plays is so funny to me, please look at it lmao

[sulan1809]

Rival Schools - Pancadaria ao melhor estilo High School Brawler

Rival Schools, também conhecido como Justice Academy(ジャスティス学園) no Japão, é uma série de games de luta ao melhor estilo High School Brawler, desenvolvida pela Capcom, mas que hoje em dia está no esquecimento. Representando Rival Schools, Akira Kazama adentrou o elenco de Street Fighter 5, mas até hoje os fãs de Rival Schools imploram à Capcom por um Rival Schools 3...

Rival Schools: United by Fate(私立ジャスティス学園 LEGION OF HEROES) foi lançado em 1997 para arcades, e em 1998 para o PlayStation. Rival Schools apresenta a narrativa de escolas rivais que batalham entre si por justiça na cidade de Aoharu, acerca de casos envolvendo sequestros e outros crimes. Rival Schools United by Fate pode ser melhor descrito como um clone de Marvel VS. Capcom, no entanto os personagens são poligonais, em outras palavras, o game utiliza o sistema de quatro comandos(duas variações para soco e chute, a marca registrada da SNK, produtora de The King of Fighters), em oposição ao sistema de seis comandos de Street Fighter. Jogadores escolhem uma dupla e lutam contra outra dupla. Apesar disso, as lutas são de apenas um contra um, com o personagem principal invocando apenas o parceiro se tiver com o medidor de “Vigor” cheio o suficiente para executar um “Team Attack” com os comandos de soco e chute do mesmo grau. Depois do término do primeiro round, jogadores podem trocar de personagem para o segundo round, independentemente se perderam ou não o round anterior, ou continuar com o mesmo personagem. Rival Schools também teve a participação de Sakura Kasugano, que representa a Tamagawa Minami High School. Tendo amizade com Hinata Wakaba(Taiyo High School) e Natsu Ayuhara(Gorin High School), Sakura ajuda a investigar os ataques nas escolas. Nekketsu Seisyun Nikki 2(私立ジャスティス学園 熱血青春日記２) é a atualização de Rival Schools United By Fate, que foi lançada em 1999 apenas no Japão. O “2″ no título causou muita estranheza nos fãs, induzindo-os a erroneamente acreditar que aquele game era uma continuação do primeiro. 

Project Justice(燃えろ!ジャスティス学園), intitulado como Project Justice: Rival Schools 2 na Europa, foi lançado no ano de 2000 para arcades e em 2001 para Dreamcast, e é a verdadeira continuação de Rival Schools: United by Fate. O sistema de luta de Project Justice é o mesmo de Rival Schools: United by Fate, mas agora as equipes de dividem em trios. Com isso, os personagens podem executar um “Trio Team Attack”, que faz com que os três personagens iniciem uma ofensiva ao oponente. Project Justice, assim como o antecessor, apresentou um sistema de criação de personagens, que poderiam ser utilizados em todas as modalidades, exceto o modo Single Player. No entanto, ao que tudo indica, o modo de criação de personagens consistia de uma representação na forma de um jogo de tabuleiro, que se passava durante um festival interescolar, ao invés de simulação de personagem como em Rival Schools. Como o modo School Life no primeiro Rival Schools, este modo de gameplay não está disponível nas versões ocidentais, pois a Capcom alegava que levaria muito tempo pra fazer a localização do modo de gameplay de tabuleiro. Ao invés disso, diversos sub-personagens desbloqueáveis foram inclusos nessas versões, construídos a partir do esquema de criação de personagem da versão japonesa.  

[iamvoid0]

How these two female characters took the Beat-Em-Up Genre to new heights – River City Girls

This article was originally published on Void0Media’s official blog here.

I originally began writing this review in 2019 when I first played River City Girls. I absolutely adored this game. It was a standout game for me personally back in 2019, and it continues to deliver great fun almost three years later. Stunning pixel art, fun, engaging combat mechanics, distinct locations, unique bosses, and a sense of humor to match.

This review is an amalgamation of my original thoughts that I never completed and the updates to the game since.

I will walk you through the plot, game mechanics, music, and art that I think make River City Girls a standout game. One that can easily hold its own against any other in its genre.

2. What Is River City Girls?

River City Girls is a 2D side-scrolling beat-em-up game created by WayForward and published by Arc System Works. The game was initially released in September 2019.

River City Girls is a spin-off game in the Kunio-Kun franchise. A long-running franchise started all the way back on the NES in 1986 with the release of “Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-Kun.” River City Girls, however, is billed as a canonical game in the franchise.

River City Girls follows the story of Kyoko and Misako. Initially, the girlfriends of the franchise’s main guys, Rikki and Kunio — for one game, mind you — as they battle through hordes of enemies to save their boyfriends from their captors.

3. The Story of River City Girls

River City Girls has an exciting story. There was a clear decision to separate the continuity of the story from its source material. You are hit with what I can only describe as a back-handed slap by the time the game ends.

That’s coming from someone who didn’t even know about the source material. Let’s look at the original Version 1 story, followed by the updated narrative.

3.a Version 1 — The original

River City Girls openings with a fantastic cut scene and a heart-pounding soundtrack. We are introduced to our primary characters, Misako & Kyōko. The girls were sent to detention. It’s here that we also learn that Kyōko doesn’t even go here.

Kyōko receives a text message from an unknown number stating that their boyfriends, Riki & Kunio, have been kidnapped. Misako becomes enraged, insults her teacher, and literally performs a WWE chair attack. This triggers the game to begin.

Misako & Kyōko then proceeds to literally break out of school so they can go and save their boyfriends. This opening tutorial sequence also gives us a deeper look into the characters of Kyōko & Misako and how they generally banter with each other. We learn a couple tidbits here and there that provides us with an idea of their friendship and respective personalities.

We soon come across Hasabe & Mami. They serve as the arch-nemesis for Misako & Kyōko. The girls banter with each other, but it’s here that we learn that Hasebe & Mami are acting suspiciously.

Hasebe & Mami implies that they are the ones who are dating Kunio & Rikki. Upon hearing this, Kyōko becomes angry, and Misako tries to calm her down.

The principal announces over the PA system that the student body should stop Misako & Kyōko from continuing along their journey.

We then arrive at the gym, where we encounter Misuzu. We learn she’s part-time security who has been in high school for seven years. After defeating Misuzu, she points the girls to Crosstown, where she noticed their boyfriends with someone creepy.

She then, and I kid you not, body shames Kyōko & Misako. They leave school, and Kyōko immediately forgets why they left school in the first place. They then proceed to Crosstown.

The game then guides you throughout the city as you battle various enemies, explore multiple parts of the city, and have several battles with the game’s bosses.

The first time you reach the end of the game, you are presented with Sabuko, the daughter of Sabu. She is the current leader of the ‘group of people who don’t do illegal activities what-so-ever’. She is an exciting boss battle, but it was quite a shock to learn that we are presented with a New Game+ Option upon defeating her, and it is not the actual ending of the game.

Once you complete the game the second time, you will encounter Hasebe & Mami as the game’s true final boss. This only happens if you receive the charms associated with the characters.

Once you win, you are granted with the origin of Kyoko & Misako. We learn about when Kyoko & Misako dated Kunio & Rikki in a ‘16-bit game that never made it to the US’. We also find out that they dated only for that one game, and Rikki & Kunio doesn’t even know, nor do they care who Kyoko & Misako are.

Kyoko kicks Hasebe & Mami out the window, and then we get the same ending as before. Kyoko receives a message on her phone, potentially indicating a sequel.

3.b Version 1.1 — The Updated Ending

In the updated version, Version 1.1, the game sees a new ending that brings it in-line across multiple regions and provides new artwork and dialogue.

In this version of the ending, the girls land in the spa, encounter Rikki & Kunio, and the boys indicate that they were not kidnapped. They then decide to go on a date to get burgers.

That’s it. That’s the updated ending.

3.c What…?

Here is a raw draft of how I felt after completing the game for the second time to receive the Version 1 ending.

The updated version 1.1, both English and Japanese, makes the boys less of assholes. The revised ending also makes the main characters seem less terrible.

This time around, I don’t really feel that bad, the ending is acceptable, not what I expected, but it was still okay, nevertheless.

I am still annoyed that I needed to do the game twice, but New Game+ makes the second play-through worthwhile. Typically, New Game+ is just for doing things you didn’t get to during the main play and maybe unlocking a few secrets here and there. In this regard, the game makes New Game+ much more appealing.

Throughout the game it is implied that Misako & Kyoko are their girlfriends. It isn’t actually true and a bit disappointing. This is a shame since the rest of the game is far above average for these games.

The first version makes the girls seem desperate and outright foolish for going after someone else’s relationship with such violence. The updated version also doesn’t really help.

4. Gameplay

River City Girls is a side-scrolling beat-em-up brawler game inspired by those who came before it. You initially take control of one of two characters, and you play through the game with that character. When you complete the game for the first time, two additional characters are unlocked for you to mess around with.

Each character has a light attack, a heavy attack, a button for jump, and one for a power move. The game allows you to perform different actions based on the location of the enemy. Using a Heavy attack facing the enemy will cause the enemy to be thrown while using a light attack from behind will perform a knockdown attack.

Characters can also pick up various objects to use as weapons. These weapons can break after a predetermined number of uses or be thrown for ranged damage.

4.a.i Kyoko

Kyoko is an agile character. It makes sense given that most of her power moves surround the use of her feet, an explicit call-back to Chun-Li’s thousand kicks, and a tornado/drill kick. She also has a few other neat power moves, including bashing her enemies with her feet.

She also has a dab move that acts as a deflect. Which objectively is cool. She also has an action to use her enemies as a springboard. She has a tornado kick which allows her to cover up the entire screen at times.

Overall, she feels floaty, but it matches well with her personality and the way you intended to use her in-game. That floaty nature accents her speed quite nicely.

I used Kyoko on my first play-through because I rather the mobility and agility she offered over the raw power output of Misako. When Kyoko performs the thousand kick move, the little embellishments make all the difference. It makes a move set even more satisfying to pull off.

Kyoko was my personal favourite throughout the game. She is a fun, loud, brash character who constantly see-saws between quirky and murder.

4.a.ii Misako

I enjoyed playing Misako. She is a brawler-style character who values pure power over all else. While I’m sure both characters’ movement logic was similar or the same behind the scenes, Misako’s move set was more about hard-hitting and pummeling her enemies.

I didn’t use Misako much, other than just trying the character for the sake of testing the character.

4.a.iii The Boys (TM)

Once you complete the game, you gain access to Riki and Kunio. Both characters play much like their counterparts in Kyoko and Misako.

I only played these characters to test what they were capable of, but I didn’t use them during my play-through. They certainly feel more heft in the way they move and the way hits land, but for the most part, they resemble Kyoko & Misako.

4.b Game Mechanics

The game employs several tactics lifted from the original games and some new tricks to keep the player engaged and active.

Every time you defeat an enemy, the enemy drops money and provides experience points. Each of your characters has a level 30 cap. You will need to level up individually if you want all the characters to be the same level. The money you gain can be used to purchase items from vending machines and stores littered through the map.

These shops offer items and moves that you spend money on. Different shops unlock additional activities and items.

Among these are the ability to equip each character with specialized items that help the player plan their fight style. From increasing damages, making power and health bars fill up faster, and some items affect item drops from enemies and vending machines. There are many unique items that you get, either from buying them in stores or getting them as a boss reward.

The game’s combo system starts you off simple with a three-button combo that can be extended as you level up and gain access to new moves.

The combos can be extended by using directional inputs with either light or heavy attacks to chain combos together.

Each character has its own specific actions and must be purchased separately at dojos and as that character.

4.b.i Items

This has got to be one of the more unusual parts about this game; only holding two items at a time seems pretty limited given how specific the bonuses are. At least until you get to the part where you can find a hidden shop and basically get a massive boost. Although those items are $5000 apiece, I wish I had known as it was easier to amass that amount of money during the play-through and not have to grind for the $10,000 that you would need for both items, which make you a tank.

The items can be swapped at any point, even during boss battles, from your pause menu screen. Once you acquire an item, it is automatically added, so you can simply browse through the items to pick and choose what you’d like without any form of inventory management.

Several items drop throughout gameplay, and these items can be used as weapons, from baseball bats to guitars, to items in the environment such as chairs and large wooden boxes.

The items in the game are interesting. They give small bonuses. I’m sure I’ve felt the rewards working. The game lets you swap these items on the fly, so I imagine the developers intended for you to constantly switch between boss battles or just battles in general. Although in my play-through, these didn’t seem as intuitive as they wanted. I often forgot about it during my time playing. Once I was in that new game plus mode and grinding away for currency and levels, I found myself constantly swapping items to make the grind less noticeable.

The food items in this game held an exciting mechanic. Eating them for the first time would provide a stat boost to one of your stats. I assume you were supposed to get enough money from the play-through to purchase all of them and use it, so you would get the stat boost in addition to the ones you would gain from leveling up. This did make the game a bit easier, or at the very least noticeable. I didn’t notice this on my first play-through and was almost at the end when I realized that, hey — When I eat food, I get stat bonuses. Either way, it was an interesting mechanic.

4.b.ii Combos

You get accustomed to the game’s combo system quickly, and it allows you to chain together enormous sequences for maximum damage. It is also choreographed to you well enough to know when to stop your combo to either throw, grab, or do something else entirely.

The best part of this game was the very comprehensive combo system. If you really got deep into it, you could generate some insane sequences that not only look satisfying to pull off but looks damn good while it does it.

Each character has their own move sets, which change how their combos play out. Each combo also carries embellishments that train you to keep doing it just because.

4.b.iii Grinding

Holy shit, I didn’t expect this game to be this grindy. I wanted to complete this game as best as I could, secrets included, but the share amount of grinding required was staggering. At the time, I didn’t have the time to complete the game to 100%.

I ultimately just decided to stick with Kiyoko, as she was my pick in the game’s first run. She was max level by the time I decided I wanted the secret items.

The game scales the enemies every time you defeat a new boss or enter a new area. The non-boss battles were easy enough to get through, and I never found myself frustrated when fighting the enemies. I did enjoy wailing on the enemies as Kyoko. However, when it was time to find all the secret statues and other unlockable, the game really slowed down for me personally.

I couldn’t care to level up the fellas, as I simply didn’t care.

4.b.iv Leveling

This game is capped off at Level 30 for each character. At first, you level up quickly, and then it tapers off. By the time you are level 20–25, it becomes more of a slug through, but then by that time, you would have ended up in New Game + mode, and now you have more than enough time to get to Level 30. If you played with the same character, you would probably get to lv30 quickly. However, if you picked another character, get ready to do it more and longer.

4.b.v Quests

This game has a form of quests too. Once you begin playing the game, you will come across Godai. A neighbor and childhood friend to Kyoko & Misako. He regularly gives you quests throughout the game. He may have you perform fetch quests for him or go and randomly beat up some yakuza members.

Once these quests are completed, you will be awarded experience points and money.

4.b.vi Friends

Upon beating an enemy hard enough throughout your play-through, you can recruit the enemy to play for you. They will be activated by a button press. They will usually jump into the screen and perform an attack of some kind, which could work as a screen clear or an area of effect.

You can recruit almost every single common enemy. It would have been cool if you defeated the bosses under certain conditions, they could be recruited too. In the New Game+, that would have been a great feature.

As the system is now, it lets you pick from various enemies, each with their own unique attack, while it would be nice if you could keep the ones you wanted for as long as you like. The characters you recruit have a 3 hit maximum. If they get hit 3 times, they will die, and you’ll have to recruit a new one.

4.c. World Mechanics

Despite being a 2D side-scrolling game, River City Girls employs a great deal of exploration. The developers crafted a well-thought-out world. Each map is interconnected very seamlessly. It really does feel like an entire town. The game also includes buses to really incorporate the notion that you’re traveling to a far-off part of the city.

However, this comes at a price. The massive 2D world has you backtracking several times throughout the game’s run.

4.c.i Exploration

I do commend the exploration in this game. While it takes you to most of the map as you do your first play-through, it’s in your second play-through that you will be visiting all of the locations on the map.

Your map is always accessible when you open the pause menu. It’s integrated into the phone UI of the menu, which makes the map stand out. The map is coloured differently depending on where you’ve been and where you’ve yet to go is a great touch that makes exploration much more manageable.

You’ll end up in a sprawling nightlife part of the city, places where the downtrodden exist, a ship, and quite a lot more. The game keeps the exploration fresh by having multiple locations that really pop and has so much charm and individuality that feels great to walk around in.

Whenever you come across a new part of the map, the girls would often quip about it, giving you a sense of the world that you’re supposed to be inhabiting. Sometimes it’s something simple other times, it tells you that you shouldn’t be in this place.

Other parts of the map also might be a different time of day. Some streets are available at night, the school and the main town are typically daytime, and others like the areas leading up to the beach and the pier are often in the dusk. This is a great way to keep the game visually interesting, and I enjoyed seeing the different pixel art styles in the backgrounds.

4.c.ii Backtracking

There is a significant amount of backtracking in this game. It isn’t overwhelming, but the fact that you end up having to redo the entire game — I would count as backtracking. Whether it’s doing quests for Godai or just trying to get to your next objective, you’ll end up having to walk through several areas you’ve already been in.

This isn’t too bad, as the game keeps the action up. Backtracking also allows you to find new areas that you might have missed before. It takes you to the location of a Sabu statute that is needed to acquire the true ending.

4.d Boss Battles

What is a beat-em-game without some challenging bosses to beat you down? River City Girls excel in this department, as each of their bosses is unique and challenging in multiple ways. There is one boss who I despise, but I’ll get to him soon.

Each boss has its own gimmick that informs how you will defeat them. It isn’t any different from any other game that has you, fight bosses. Here, however, the game makes it a point and purpose not only to give each boss their own personality but also to ensure each boss mechanic is wholly different from what you’ve seen before.

The game ramps up the difficulty of bosses a bit inconsistently, but it evens out by the mid-game. Each boss (except for one) was mechanically sound and fun to play. Every boss was so unique in their style and presentation that they all made a fun experience.

4.d.i Misuzu

Misuzu is the first boss you encounter in the game. She is the ‘guard’ of the school, and she is a decent introduction to how the boss battles work in River City Girls.

She isn’t all too difficult, and once you get a handle on her abilities. Truthfully there isn’t much to say about the Misuzu fight.

4.d.ii Yamada

Who the fuck designed Yamada? Even on normal difficulty and on my second play-through, Yamada was an absolute nightmare to fight. I had less trouble with the final boss than I had with Yamada.

He has a large hitbox and multiple unblockable hit combos. There was too much randomization of his abilities. None of which choreograph well, and to top it all off, his stage has an actual hazard that costs you a significant % of your health. Yamada has several attacks where the hitboxes are these big boxes that even extend to his back.

The only way I could beat him was by banging my head against the wall until I got lucky. No other bosses in the game had this much luck in defeating them. It felt downright unfair. When I lost to other bosses, I knew I messed up. Either I didn’t have enough items, or I mistimed my combos.

Yamada was just downright unfair, and I absolutely hate him and his pathetic backstory, seriously. Fuck that dude.

4.d.iii Hibari

Hibari is a fashion designer in River City Girls.

Hibari’s Boss Battle was exciting, an unusual cross between a Megaman-style boss and a bullet hell boss. Hibari would often shoot hundreds of purple charged balls towards your character as your attempt to dodge it and put her back in her own path, which she then hurts herself. You then get to lay damage onto her.

She would also shoot out a sword you can guide via trajectory to hit her. Hibari was a fair boss. Everything had a pattern to it. It was satisfying memorizing the patterns and then dodging it was fun. This was a great boss battle, not too unfair, the right amount of randomization, and when I failed, it was my fault, no doubt. Also, this battle theme gave me some real Touhou vibes. I loved it.

Hibari’s 3 phases were interesting, fun, and engaging.

4.d.iv Abobo

Abobo is a guest character from the Double Dragon series.

He wasn’t too hard, but he wasn’t too interesting. Usual stuff. His hitboxes were a tad bit annoying, though. It took me a few tries to beat him in normal, and then a couple tries as Misako in Normal+. All in all, it was a bit uneventful.

4.d.v Noize

Noize was hinted at various points from the beginning of the game, much like Abobo. However, Noize is way more relaxed than I expected. Her character design, and backstory, while a trope — still fantastic, and the fact that Nozie’s music is a part of the game’s soundtrack is incredible.

As for her boss battle, she had some annoying patterns. One of her battle phases is a guitar hero-style sequence where you dodge the notes as they descend from the top of the dance floor. In another phase, her ‘fans’ jump the security barriers and attempt to kill you because you’re fighting Noize.

The boss battle was fun, though it took quite a lot since the guitar hero section took me out way too many times.

4.d.vi Sabuko

Sabuko was amazing. Her design, her skill set, her difficulty. All fits well with her characterization of the top Yakuza in the city. She is a fantastic ending boss for the first play-through. With a vast array of dazzling moves and unlike the other bosses, she has one more phase rather than the standard three. Also, Sabuko’s anime-style introduction is fantastic.

Saburo has several move sets, such as teleportation. She also uses a sword. Multiple times during the fight, she would call her grunts to help her burst down your health. You’ll have to contend with her several times using these different medallions/charms found in the background. Which she uses to accent her base move set, making the fight more challenging.

When you kill Sabuko for the first time, when she loses her 3 bars of health, the game slows down, and she recovers and entire health bar. What a rush. Her move set increases, she has more aggressive attacks and heightened damages.

Ultimately, while hard on your first play-through, the battle was fun and engaging, with a thunderous soundtrack that really kept you going.

4.d.vii Hasebe & Mami

The only way to access the game’s final true boss is by breaking all the Sabu statues and then equipping the Hasabe & Mami charms in your inventory slots. Once you’ve done that and walk into the game’s final boss battle, you’ll get an introduction for Hasabe & Mami. Misako & Kyoko makes a quip about Subuko being the final boss and them kicking her through the window. Hasabe & Mami insults the girls, and the fight begins.

This was underwhelming. Having spent the entire game bashing my head against annoying boss battles, creepy boss battles, super cool boss battles, metal boss battles, and even the best fake ending boss battle in the game.

Hasabe and Mami were woefully underwhelming. I know I’m not one to criticize, but I can’t help but feel far emptier at this game’s ending than when I started. I guess the developers wanted you to just win as quickly as possible since you did slug through the game twice at this point. Looking at every nook and cranny trying to find the Sabu statures to actually end up at the game’s real ending.

With a max-level Kyoko and a bunch of items, I was able to take down Hasabe and Mami in one battle. No restarts, nothing. I just played the boss battle the first time and crushed them. Again, this is probably more of you’ve been slogging through the game, so here’s a win. We ended up with the same ending, which left a bad taste in my mouth.

Overall, the boss battle was fun. There were some interesting ideas here, and even if I only played through this battle once, I probably haven’t seen all their moves. It was decent. A few cool things happened here and there. The banter between the characters was pleasant. The synergy between Hasabe and Mami was great. However, I wished they offered more of a challenge, seeing as the final true boss. Still, it was fine, given the circumstances, I understand.

5. Aesthetic

River City Girls is stunning. Constantly barraging you with a variety of colours, intricate and expressive pixel art, and just exudes charm from every aspect. The sound, art, and aesthetics combine to form a unique, intriguing experience that makes the game stand out from its contemporaries.

There’s a lot to talk about in the overall design of River City Girls. Still, I’ll be focusing on what I think are some core elements that often push it over the edge.

5.a. Music

Overall, the music and sound design are so masterfully put together that it’s hard not to get hyped from the moment you start the game. A thundering opening theme song sets the pace for the game, and it never stops. Every aspect of the game’s sound design leans into the overall old-school aesthetic that blends the 8-bit, chiptune style with more modern grandiose productions.

5.a.i Sound Design & FX

I’m calling out the Sound Design & FX because behind the multiple densely layered music soundtracks, each sound fx pops. You push the pause button or enter a new area from the moment you press the pause button. It’s not just that the game reduces the volume of the music. Still, it accentuates the background music while also being distinct from it, ensuring that you won’t miss the call-out that you need to hear.

The menu clicks, the item pickups, the select screen. All wonderfully immersive. I can’t help but feel like I’m playing a beat-em-up from long ago — but better.

5.a.ii Background Music

As you explore various stages enter boss battles, the game quickly changes up the background music to more match the environment you are in. There are times when you’re in a mall, and the music reflects a more pop, happy-go-lucky style, while at other points, the game features a dull dragging soundtrack that helps keep tensions up.

Several times, the background music has vocals in it, and it often added to the lure of the world around it. Particularly in the night-time street sections, the background music made it seem like you were walking through a late-night lively street.

5.a.iii Boss Battles

This is where the game’s music really stands out to me. Every single boss has its own unique boss theme track. The music of each boss battle complements the nature of the boss battles.

Hibari’s boss music is very fast-paced. She often reminds me of old bullet hell games, which is fitting since her boss battle devolves a few times into a bullet hell game.

Noize is another excellent example of this. She is a rockstar in-universe. Her boss battle music features her vocals, with clear influences from punk rock laced throughout the soundtrack that really sells the image of Noize being a rockstar. The mini guitar solos which play alongside also help a ton since her weapon of choice is her guitar.

Sabuko’s battle music is pure boss music. The song’s entirety is laced with this strenuous, constantly building synth that keeps climbing, carrying the tension of the battle with it. It’s a tension that can be felt even when listening to the song without playing the game.

5.a.iv Main Game Theme

I’m surprised this isn’t more popular. It beautifully explains the game’s premise without feeling like an exposition dump — even though it is. The punk rock-inspired soundtrack gets your blood pumping right from the get-go. It keeps the vocal melody in the soundtrack background as the vocals end and continues to carry it forward.

It’s not often that we get a whole punk rock as the central theme of video games. Or any rock/metal — despite DOOM 2016’s success, most video games opt for EDM or orchestral as their main themes. The song perfectly matches the aesthetic of River City Girls and the girls’ general punk rock attitude that carries with them throughout the game.

5.b. Art

The art in River City Girls is a vibrant display. Every single choice of the colour palette in this game just makes every single character pop and stand out no matter where they were in the game. Every enemy was detailed and unique — though you end up fighting the same group of enemies in the region.

Each boss character was unique in every way. Their designs were easily recognizable and genuinely outstanding. Even their stages were designed so that they obviously complemented the way you were supposed to battle them.

Each character was able to stand out in front of the diverse backgrounds, all of which were so meticulously constructed. From the school of the opening stage all the way to dark neon-clad streets.

This is an absolute testament to the artist working on this game. Each background was always so vibrant and rich in detail that it was fun just running around and exploring the scene. There was always something going on in the background.

I can sit here and spend hours talking about how beautifully crafted this world is. The care put into the world design seamlessly transitioned between sections, making moving from area to area so smooth and fluid.The game features a colourful cast of background characters that consistently provide a sense of living in this small world.

6. What’s Next for River City Girls?

River City Girls 2. It got announced at the Tokyo Game Show 2021. A small gameplay trailer showed off what seems to be the same engine running a new, more polished world with potentially Riki and Kunio playable from the start. Either way, I’m looking forward to this playing the sequel.

7. Conclusion

River City Girls is simultaneously a love letter to old school beat-em-ups and the franchise which spawned it. And quickly becoming one of the best modern 2d beat-em-ups around. The game’s fluid fight mechanics, gorgeous pixel art, and thumping soundtrack make River City Girls a titan in its field.

Anyone who values their 2d side-scrolling beat-em-ups needs to play River City Girls.

💖 Enjoy this think piece?

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Our next post will be about the Narrative Of Cyberpunk 2077. You can follow on here, or subscribe on Void0Media homepage to have it sent directly to your email.

Thanks for reading!

The Void Calls, Will You Answer?

[z2z-gaming-and-random-art-ai]

Console Sports Games of 1993 Court and Street Part 20🏀⚽🏈⚾🎿⛳

Console sports games released in 1993, this twentieth part features two titles both of which are Basketball titles, the first is NBA Showdown for the SNES. Alongside this is another entry in the Kunio/Nekketsu High series with Nekketsu Street Basket Ganbare Dunk Heroes which released on the NES. 

For the Full Length Videos of these games see the following playlist https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJOZYl1h1CEhIf6hohng9T2IPLCpzn7o&si=4np9poA3Zg9wbaWR

For other Gaming related shorts check out this playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJOZYl1h1CF5oVPNNxPlLJPambfM5BIj

[sonichedgeblog]

Update time!

Our blogs are @GameArtArchive , @OldGameMags, @Sonic_Hedgeblog, @nintendometro & @Sega_City, please follow them all! Join us on Discord at discord.gg/qYzH3E6, & support us on Patreon at patreon.com/Rlan

For Game Art Archive I work hard to extract the art at the best quality, and bringing all sorts of weird, rare artwork to the limelight.

This month we’ve got some great games - including:

Diddy Kong Racing DS (DS)

Franky Joe & Dirk On The Tiles (Game Boy)

Nekketsu Kakutō Densetsu (NES)

Super Drakkhen (SNES)

Advance Wars DS (DS)

How to Draw Gex (Book)

Sonic's Gameworld (PICO)

Commando (NES)

Over on Old Game Mags, we rummage through all the great 80’s and 90’s magazines to find fascinating articles, cover artwork and advertisements for the games of yesteryear, posting several times a day!

We’ll be going through:

SEGA Force, Winter 1992

The Super Famicom Vol 4, #1, Jan 1993 -

Famitsu #288, June 1994

SEGA Saturn Magazine #14, December 96

Sega Power #68, July 95

Sonic The Hedgeblog has post posts about long lost artwork, GIFs, secrets and more from the blue rodent.

Sega City and Nintendo Metro are a mixture of them all - reblogging magazine ads and artwork from either platforms, with a mixture of new GIFs, videos or secrets thrown in for good measure.

All blogs are maintained by me - Ryan Langley, aka Rlan . It’s a lot of work maintaining, extracting and posting everything. If you like what I’m doing, you can support us on Patreon , where you can get updates on both blogs, as well as the original high resolution extracted art from VGAA! Every dollar helps!

Join the Patreon and Help me do even more!

[tinycartridge]

I cannot believe the Kunio-kun collection is real ⊟

I don’t think the Double Dragon & Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle is going to create a new generation of Kunio fans. Despite the inclusion of the three very popular NES Double Dragon games, I fear the chibi brawling and rude sports of the Kunio franchise may be a “you had to be there” type deal. Either you picked up River City Ransom and/or Super Dodge Ball and learned their charms years ago, or they may seem simplistic compared to all the modern games they inspired.

But for those who already love Kunio and who have been following the series through its recent renaissance, through River City Girls and Arc’s slightly more RPG-elementy 3DS games, or those who still replay River City Ransom on the regular, the Retro Brawler Bundle is a miracle that defies belief.

Reader, Arc System Works localized the old Famicom Kunio-kun games. All of them.

That means a new set of weird sports games in the style of Super Dodge Ball -- like a basketball game with super-tall, triple-decker hoops, and a hockey game in which the hockey club plays against other sports teams. Finally, the thrill of playing hockey against kendo practitioners. It also means a four-player fighting game, kind of similar to the one in Code Shifter.

If you’re like me, you remember reading, wide-eyed, articles on the early Internet about the never-localized samurai Kunio game, like River City Ransom set in Edo Japan. If you’re exactly me, you remember buying a copy on Famicom during your first trip in Japan, then finding it just incomprehensible enough to be out of reach. Now it’s in English. Even the original Japanese version of River City Ransom is there, in English. I can choose whether I want to play as Alex fighting the Generic Dudes, or Kunio-kun facing off against Hanazono High. This is thrilling to me. The translations seem pretty straightforward, but they function well enough.

Renegade is also there, the very first Kunio-kun game, historically interesting as the first Technos brawler. It controls like Double Dragon but introduces the Kunio-kun cast of delinquents. It also isn’t as good as any of the games that came after, so it’s nice to have as an extra curiosity in a collection that also includes good games, and not as a standalone NES cartridge someone had to pay full price for.

Honestly, it would have been enough to give me easy access to these games in Japanese. I never expected an official translation. I also never expected them to be updated with optional performance/framerate enhancements or, in a few cases, difficulty tweaks. Many of these games still suffer from choppy animation -- I was surprised to return to the genuine classic Super Dodge Ball and remember how rough the framerate has always been -- but they’re definitely improved. Renegade is weirdly smooth now.

As long as collections like this keep happening, I’m never going to stop talking at length about how wonderful this generation is for old games. This is on both Switch and PS4, both of which now offer collections of games both popular and unknown, offering either tons of games or a few well-curated games with extra historical material. And, like many recent collections, this one offers online play for all its games (which I have yet to try). Maybe I need the other Kunio people out there to let me know if they get it so we can play Nekketsu Fighting Legend together. This collection is exactly for me, but it’s probably not only for me.

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[namenayo]

𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑺𝑯𝑬𝑬𝑻.

Repost, don’t reblog.

BASICS.

full name. kunio fuunji nickname. kunio-kun gender. male height. 175 cm /  5′7′‘ age. 18 zodiac. sagittarius, fire tiger.  spoken languages. japanese, english

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

hair color. amber brown-- a rare natural tone for being japanese-born, and he refused to dye it black. eye color. amber skin tone. medium accent. none, though tends to speak in a harsher manner  voice. his only english va, and a solid one at that, is greg chun, so no issues there. a fair couple of people have done him in jp (including Ragna’s seiyuu ironically) but, even though it was in the worst game, I’d take Satoru Murakami’s portrayal. dominant hand. right-handed. but do not underestimate the southpaw. posture. has a slight slouch, as he tends to be at rest with his hands in his pockets, or having his dukes up. scars. a single one on the side of his cheek, which he perpetually keeps concealed by a bandage. tattoos. none. birthmarks. none. most noticeable feature(s). nothing stationary, but he tends to carry himself with an unmistakable intense and intimidating facial expression.

CHILDHOOD.

place of birth.  tokyo prefacture, japan

birth weight. ?? birth height. ??

manner of birth.  hospital maternity ward first words. NAMEN’NAYO siblings. n/a parents. absent, of unknown status parental involvement. uncertain. though kunio was raised by them in an early life, at some point he transferred to nekketsu high school entirely alone.

ADULT LIFE.

occupation. freelance / unemployed  current residence. fibonacchi ward close friends. hiroshi (first friend at nekketsu & protectee), riki (longtime rival & partner)  relationship status. single by default financial status. damn near broke at any given time. kunio’s never had any sort of proper employment; he’s kept himself afloat by taking an endless slew of day jobs, as well as picking up whatever cash is dropped by the thugs he beats down on the daily. it’s been a...surprisingly sustainable model for him, if not exactly lucrative. driver’s license. believe it or not? guy’s got a motorcycle license, and a sweet bike to go with it. criminal record. oboy oboy oboy, the police are not fans of kunio-kun. this lad has got so many counts of truancy, property damage, and a record of assault and battery that numbers so high they just stopped counting altogether. once arrested on a hit-and-run charge, though that was a framejob arranged by sabu, so the charge has been cleared. vices. gluttony, wrath. you got any idea how many calories it takes to do the shizuo-grade nonsense he does on the daily? all of them. every calorie. five million calories. and they’re all devoted to the express purpose of kicking somebody’s ass.

SEX & ROMANCE.

sexual orientation. heterosexual romantic orientation. greyromantic preferred emotional role. submissive  |  dominant | switch preferred sexual role. submissive  |  dominant |  switch libido. kunio has a healthy enough sex drive. he knows what he’s about and he’s not ashamed of it, but he also isn’t overtly open about it either. if speaking of practice, he canonically is known to have purveyed certain types of magazines in the past; that’s all I’ll say. turn on’s. fiestiness, athleticism, a body with definition, confidence in looks/sexuality turn off’s. conceit/arrogance, meekness, ugliness, laziness  love language. being so rough and abrasive everywhere else, a gentle approach is how you know kunio’s fond of you. a regular immediate closeness is to be expected-- if walking around town, he’ll probably have his arm over your shoulders. this is also a bit territorial on his part; he’s not paranoid or overprotective, but the moment a boundary is remotely crossed he’ll retaliate with maximum prejudice.  relationship tendencies. kunio is very much reserved in contribution. he’s not the romantic type, he doesn’t know if he can trust a girl enough to get serious with, and he also just doesn’t think he’s suited to it. as such, he usually won’t be doing the leading when it comes to dates and other occasions, but he’s very open-minded in turn. 

MISCELLANEOUS.

character’s theme song. downtown nekketsu monogatari / river city ransom alternative / non-source alternative: the hero ~ jam project hobbies to pass time. riding his motorcycle, playing dodgeball, hanging out downtown, b u r g mental illnesses. none physical illnesses. none fears. getting others too involved in his business. he used to not have this, nor any particular fear to speak of, but after misako and kyoko were nearly-fatally shot by sabu when kunio and riki were attempting to clear their names, the reality that someone could be killed just for associating with him hit kunio hard. if he isn’t certain you’re not as risk and shit’s about to go down, you are not coming with him. self-confidence level. absolute. kunio genuinely hasn’t the slightest care for the law or societal norms, operating entirely on his own code of belief and values-- it’s just lucky that those things entail protecting his turf and viciously punishing abusers of all kinds. this also applies recreationally, as he tends to dominate any sport he involved himself in. vulnerabilities. kunio’s aforementioned values actually put his own well-being very low on the totem pole, beneath his ideals and those he cares for-- he’s prepared to die for either, not that he’d ever play the martyr. as also previously mentioned, kunio has hangups with intimacy. getting him to allow himself to show weakness or rely on someone is exceptionally hard, and if a relationship should fall through he’ll take it even harder.

tagged by: @brackenprincess​ tagging: @magicmusket​, @muzuikashii​, @suplex51​, and if you haven’t done this but want to consider this an honorary tagging--

[satoshi-mochida]

Arc System Works will release Double Dragon & Kunio-kun Retro Brawler Bundle, which originally launched in Japan as Kunio-kun: The World Collection, for PlayStation 4 and Switch on February 20 in the west, the company announced.

The Xbox One and PC versions released in Japan were not announced for the west.

Double Dragon & Kunio-kun Retro Brawler Bundle includes a total of 18 titles, including seven classic Double Dragon and Kunio-kun games from the 1980s and 1990s, and all 11 Kunio-kun classic titles released for the Family Computer Disk System in Japan localized for the first time.

The full list of games includes:

Double Dragon Series

Double Dragon (1987)

Double Dragon II: The Revenge (1988)

Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones (1990)

Kunio-kun Series

Renegade (1986)

Super Dodge Ball (1988)

River City Ransom (1989)

Crash’n the Boys Street Challenge (1992)

Kunio-kun Series (Published only in Japan, first time localized in NA)

Nekketsu Renegade Kunio-kun

Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club

Downtown Nekketsu Story

Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club – Soccer Story

Downtown Nekketsu March Super-Awesome Field Day!

Downtown Special Kunio-kun’s Historical Period Drama!

Go-Go! Nekketsu Hockey Club Slip-and-Slide Madness

Surprise! Nekketsu New Records! The Distant Gold Medal

Nekketsu Fighting Legend

Kunio-kun’s Nekketsu Soccer League

Nekketsu! Street Basketball All-Out Dunk Heroes

Watch a set of gameplay videos below. View a set of screenshots at the gallery.

Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club

Downtown Nekketsu Story

Downtown Special Kunio-kun’s Historial Period Drama

Go Go! Nekketsu Hockey Club Slip-and-Slide Madness

[papirouge]

I went through your anime tag and I’m mindblown at some of the information that was mentioned. I don’t pay too much attention to anime because I was aware that most of it contained a lot of sexual themes and blasphemous material towards Christians so I don’t look at it’s content too well, just small things here and there ( for example, I only like one character from BHNA which is todoroki and that’s it. I don’t even know what’s going on in the show besides the usual violence nor do I sit and watch it on my own time to understand. ) But after looking at your tag, discernment is going to be on high for everything.

I didn’t know who Watsuki was nor did I know he made that Kenshin ( ? ) anime and movie. I wish I knew this sooner, because now it’s going to make me start doing more detailed research on anything I decide to watch. And to find out how openly blatant CP is normalized within Japanese law and society is making me want to side eye that country more. I always wanted to visit for the scenery, food, and cultural aspects and thought of living there because of natural fascination. But Idk after finding out about this stuff.

Honestly thank you for being super informative and discussing this. This anime / manga content is — for lack of words bleh. Definitely making sure I have research on hand before I check anything out.

( Also, if you find ANY suspect information on the Japanese games Lost Judgement & Ghost of Tsushima as well as the creators, please let me know. Those are the only things I play once in a blue moon and I find them entertaining, but to an extent )

Thank you so much for you message. i am glad that my work pays and that people are starting to open their eyes. I remember when I came out as Christian on tumblr I quickly started to attack anime culture, and I got a lot of backlash from my (now former) newfound Christian friends lol But I always knew I was telling the truth, ad that a few people would eventually get my point.

The whole nekketsu genre (of which BNHA belongs it) is a cesspool of glorified sins. You talk about a few things here and there, but the whole concept of kids with superpowers fighting each other is deranged. The whole nekketsu genre relies on violence, boastfulness, aggressiveness and rebellion ; what type of fulfillment would it bring to Christians?

Oh and at some point people need to grow up and stop reading material whose main characters are like half (if not 1/3) their age, that's embarrassing.... "b-but in Japan they read manga at every age!!" Go in Japan and see how women are supposed to act like brainless children to sound attractive, and where a concerning amount of grown men use this material as an escapist cope to put up with their bleak existence & social unfulfillment. Western people didn't need it to begin with ; but interestingly enough we are now festering the same symptoms by the consumption of such media ; a downward spiral. Anime culture isn't supposed to thrive in a well-balanced society. Kids don't wake up one day and decide to dress & impersonate fictional characters. This is objectively lunacy.

And yes, Watsuki is "Rurouni Kenshin" mangaka. This dude got back to business after retiring for a few weeks and paying a 2000€ fine for possession of child porn.....FYI he got supported by some of the biggest names of the manga industry (Masahi Kishimoto "Naruto", Eichiiro Oda 'One Piece" -who's also Watsuki's former assistant-, Tite Kubo "Bleach", Takeshi Obata, illustrator of "Death Note") so that he could get his career back on track ...God knows what skeletons these scrotes have in their closets to defend a predator that hard.... His eventually resumed his manga shortly after the sentence got ruled, a movie adaptation of his manga got released and everyone forgot about it....

Did you know that the whole lolicon/shotacon trope boosted k*ddie porn consumption in Japan? Anime simp can keep acting like this is just fictional, but the truth is here

"Cuteness means a generally more infantile character. Maybe the character is 20 years old, but maybe from your point of view, the character's 15 years old. It's very difficult," she said. Ken Akamatsu, who lobbies lawmakers on behalf of the Japan Cartoonists Association, said a total ban on explicit content would damage the entire industry, making creators too scared to put pen to paper in case they risked breaking the rules.He said the characters were imaginary, so unlike real child porn, no one was hurt."Actual children suffering and crying is not acceptable. But manga doesn't involve actual children. So there are no actual victims," he said. Child welfare advocates disagree.Shihoko Fujiwara runs Lighthouse, a nonprofit for exploited children. She told CNN she once worked on a case where a predator used a cartoon to convince a child that sex abuse was normal. "So the pedophiles might bring the animation and say 'this is how you practice with adults,'" she said.

I am not surprised the slightest to see anime culture depravity being fought nail & tooth by rightoid weebs bc it appears like the last wall of resistance against Western pc culture (which isn't very true as Japan is much more enforcing social conformity than in the West - unless when it comes to sexuality, which is of course convenient for rightoid scrotes) and bc tHat's JaPaNEseE cUltuRe, but isn't it funny to see them bring the cultural relativism card when they are the very same people to be so up in arms when the left does it when it comes to Islam or damaging cultural practices oversea? (I knew a person who was dissing non stop delinquency in her country....yet raved about "Tokyo Avengers" which is a manga glorifying Tokyo gangs/yakuza culture.....). This is nothing but double standards, because this whole generation idolizes entertainment and fiction.

When you come to Christ, you are supposed to be a new creature ; your entire perspectives on things change. We are supposed to be Holy and live a Holy life. We are compelled to sort things out and diss sinful activities. And yet you have Christians who will call out Hollywood for spreading an anti Christian narrative, but will draw the line at cancelling their Disney+/Netflix subscription, both pushing a very sinful and anti Christian agenda.... How does any of that makes sense? Christianism is RADICAL - we cannot afford being wishy-washy about things - either you refuse to watch anything against Christian values (=witchcraft, violence, fornication, etc) either or you don't. But you can't be like "yeah this show is sinful but I'll skip a few episodes and that will be ok" as if the "spirit" behind this content wasn't widespread into the WHOLE show. Jesus said to cut the whole arm if it drove us to sin... Accepting Jesus is supposed to ask for SACRIFICES, but barely anyone is willing to make them. But people called me a pharisee for stating this blanket statement ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Ironically enough, the brand of Christian will see no issue to expect homosexual to sacrifice their lifestyle to come to Christ ; so YOU AGREE?? YOU HAVE TO MAKE CHANGES IN YOUR LIFESTYLE TO OBEY GOD? smh

IDK if you ever felt that, but sometimes I stopped watching/listening to something, SEEMINGLY innocuous because I felt (i.e the Holy Spirit in me) felt something inside this piece of entertainment was off. God literally shown me in a dream to stop listening to a specific artist (Kyary Pamyu Pamyu) because the spirit behind her music was demonic. Every Christian should feel this way with openly demonic show, but somehow they don't, and it makes me really wonder if they truly have the Holy Spirit.

And sorry I don't know any of the games you mentioned. I think the Ghost of Tsushima is a Historic kind of game, which can be quite harmless (as hIstory is informative) but beware of the oriental mysticism propaganda.

If you're interested, LED studio pulled a very interesting and insightful documentary about the sinful agenda of anime culture here