River City: Rival Showdown gives me ’90s retro action I love and ’90s gaming frustration I hate
SHOULD I PLAY RIVER CITY: RIVAL SHOWDOWN?
Give this one a go if you’re a fan of the River City Ransom series, beat ’em ups, or old-school games in general. River City: Rival Showdown is a remaster of the remake of River City Ransom, which was first released for the Famicom in 1989. That lineage might sound confusing, but Rival Showdown offers a great mix of new and classic elements: updated backgrounds, a day/night cycle, an open world to explore, beat ’em up adventure, and RPG elements that will get any fan of the original hooked. It’s not modernized enough to get rid of a lot of the more frustrating parts of classic games, though, so you’ll need a little bit of a masochistic streak to really fall in love with this one.