River City Ransom (NES) review "The main challenge for me when playing River City Ransom was simply surviving the trek between the second and third malls, as you have to travel through many screens and the easier gangs are weeded out in favor of ones that cause a lot more damage when their attacks connect. Lose your rhythm against The Generic Dudes and your life meter will barely notice; do so against The Squids and you'll quickly find yourself sent back to the last mall you reached, but with only half your money (the penalty for falling in battle)."

River City Ransom does something the average brawler tends to avoid like the plague and inserts light RPG elements into the usual kick-n-punch mechanics. On one hand, this adds a certain amount of depth to the game; after all, buying various foods, books and articles of clothing in order to improve your character's stats and make them more powerful isn't the sort of thing you'll see Mike Haggar doing in any of his Final Fight outings. On the other, any legitimate attempt to bulk up your guy will turn this into a boring exercise in domination on at least the Normal difficulty. Making this issue more noticeable is the simple truth that Technos makes it really, really easy for people to smash through everyone quickly — all they need to do is figure out what goods are the best to buy and what locations are the best to camp at until the necessary money has been beaten out of punk kids.

You'll control one of a pair of high school students (Alex and Ryan) who are seeking to rescue Ryan's girlfriend from a teenage gang leader who's set up shop in another high school on the other side of town. In your way stand every single teenage street gang in town, one of which will pop up on virtually every screen of the game. If you walk somewhere and aren't immediately accosted by guys in "The Frat Boys", "The Internationals", "The Cowboys" or one of another half-dozen or so gangs, you're likely taking a break in one of River City's many shopping malls. Here, you can buy all sorts of things with the money collected from fallen gang members. Most items will increase one or more stats, while certain books will give you special techniques to make fighting easier.

You can start to break the game in the very first mall, located after passing through a whopping two screens of enemies. Here, you'll find a bookstore where you can buy books to turn your simple punches and kicks into three-hit combos, capable of felling most regular enemies with one tap of a button. If you're taking damage in combat, a particular food item not only restores health, but adds to your defense stat, making you more likely to absorb attacks without taking damage. As I progressed through the game and my defense improved, I noticed that I was frequently blocking not only melee attacks, but also the various weapons gang members would swing or throw.

If you're like me and prefer the kick to the punch, you'll be glad to know that by buying a certain food item in the second mall, you'll add points to that stat, as well as health. A bit of work in this area will get you to the third mall, where you can buy footwear capable of raising kick to its max, making it child's play to tear through just about everything. The main challenge for me when playing River City Ransom was simply surviving the trek between the second and third malls, as you have to travel through many screens and the easier gangs are weeded out in favor of ones that cause a lot more damage when their attacks connect. Lose your rhythm against The Generic Dudes and your life meter will barely notice; do so against The Squids and you'll quickly find yourself sent back to the last mall you reached, but with only half your money (the penalty for falling in battle).

You also have to fight about three or four bosses during that trek, but those guys don't really add to the difficulty thanks to some shoddy programming. Whenever you encounter one, they will threaten you and until that text leaves the screen, they will not move. This allows you to waltz up to them and blast them with a combo. From here, two things may happen. Either they'll get up and block your next attack, forcing you to actually risk damage while fighting them…or you'll constantly bludgeon them until they admit defeat and add their money to your stash. Even if you wind up in a real fight, things usually aren't too difficult. Screens have depth to them and your foes' strategy tends to get no more advanced than "get in a line with you and start fighting", so all you have to do is move up or down and start pummeling when your victim—I mean opponent—walks into your range. If they get block-happy, just move again and wait for them to force the issue until you've won. It’s as easy as 1-2-3!

Staff review by Rob Hamilton (September 21, 2012) Rob Hamilton is the official drunken master of review writing for Honestgamers.