They’re back again and causing even more trouble! WayForward and Arc System Works have released the latest chapter in the River City Girls series where we find that the Sabu family has, once again, let loose their Yakuza thugs to take over the town. This time, they flooded River City with these thugs and they are everywhere!

River City Girls 2 gives us a bit more of the same while giving a fresh new experience at the same time. From guest star characters and multiple side quests to pile on top of the main questline, there is a lot to do in this game. What I’m really here to answer is whether or not it is a fun experience worth going through all the trouble for, let alone spending some of your hard-earned money on it. So, let’s dive in!

Story

After getting kicked out of school for questionable reasons, Misako, Kyoko, Kunio, and Riki all enjoy the impromptu vacation and have been lounging around, playing video games. Thanks to Kyoko’s mom, they are reminded that a new game they have been waiting for has been released and they rush off to go pick it up. Unfortunately, it seems their vacation may have been relaxing for them, but they were unaware of the state River City has fallen in.

Crime lord Sabu has escaped from prison to avenge his daughter Sabuko's humiliating defeat at the hands of Misako and Kyoko. Trusting his son Ken to lead their army of Yakuza in a direction that fits today’s world of modernized crime, the group finds themselves in a much bigger mess than usual. The gang has taken up so much of the city that they aren’t even able to pick up their new game!

Not taking this thug activity lightly, the group heads out to take care of the source and clean River City up once more! It’s a good thing too because the reach the Yakuza have on the city has gone further than it has before and the truth behind the activities makes the task more and more important as they continue to learn more about the situation.

Gameplay

Just as the other games in this series, it is designed to be played either solo or as a shared screen cooperative game. Starting out you can pick from one of the four main characters, but as you complete more of the game you will unlock some other characters to fight as. The good news is that a second player can join you at any time without having to reset or start a new file. Just set up the controller, pick a character, and get in the action! If they are ever done, they can just unplug or turn off their controller and it will kick their character out. Please note that if you are on PC, you can not run a cooperative game with just one controller as the game doesn’t register the difference between using the mouse and keyboard setup over the controller and will just switch back and forth; you will need two controllers.

A neat thing this game offers to those that find themselves playing solo is that you can actually hire a hand to fight with you. Even if you don’t have someone to play the game with you at all times, you can hire a few different characters (after you meet and unlock them) to take the roll of player 2. Also, while fighting some of the enemies, they may plea for forgiveness which gives you the opportunity to recruit them. Recruiting enemies makes them available to do assist attacks for you on your call and they can be swapped out in any safehouse.

Every fight you are in leads to your character earning experience. Of course, this means the character you use will level up much faster than the rest of the characters, but the good news is that all characters - even the unused ones - will level up slowly as you progress as the experience earned after a boss fight or big chapter completion moment is given to all characters. The same goes for the money that is earned, which means that a new character can be pulled out of a safe house and then buy everything they need.

When it comes to buying stuff, you will want to stop by every shop that you see because every time you eat a new item for the first time, you will get a stat boost. It does show you what stat(s) will be boosted for eating that item, but after the first time, you won’t get the stat boost. The only reason you would have more than one of the items is that they are how you can heal yourself in the game. Don’t worry though, if you die in a fight it just loads you back to the start of the last area you walked in, so progress loss is always very minimal.

Combat itself is pretty interesting as it continues to evolve as you unlock more moves. Starting out, you just have your basics, but as you level up you will be able to pull off new moves and new combos. Better yet, some moves can even be learned in a dojo, for a fee, and you unlock more dojo move options as you level up as well. If the fighting ever starts to feel repetitive in the game, you can simply check your move list to change up the options you are working with or change your character because they each feature their own fighting styles and move sets, meaning they have their own combos. I personally enjoyed using Kunio the most as you can pull off a sweet juggling setup if you space and time it right with the finishing blow being a kick slam to the ground!

Other than the little thugs around town, which will continue to expand into a larger variety of enemies getting harder and more challenging to face off against as you level up, there are boss fights and locked fights to face. When you are completing a quest, you will often find that key rooms you have to either pass through or stop in will have a locked fight which means that the screen won’t move and you can’t escape until you finish beating all the enemies. As for the boss fights, these are definitely the most interesting moments of the game as each boss fight is different. Ranging from straightforward combat and weapons to using spells and special abilities to throw you off and knock you down. If you are handling any of these two aspects of the game with a friend in cooperative play, it will actually be a little bit harder as extra attacks and thugs are thrown into the fray.

As far as completing quests and keeping track of your tasks, they provide a map and an app on your phone menu screen. The app is called ‘Honkr’ and it is used to list the different quests you have picked up in different areas of the game. Also, when you look at the map you will see different icons on the different areas you’ve been in. A blue-shaded area is completed, a red-shaded area has an item or person you can interact with, a question mark means there’s something to find, a shirt icon means you can buy apparel items (which give some sort of ability boost), a shopping cart icon means you can find a shop, and an exclamation point means that is where you need to go for your quest. Of course, if you have a bunch of side quests open then you will see a bunch of exclamation points, so make sure you somewhat keep track of what you are doing yourself.

Audio and Visual

If you are a fan of meta-humor then you are going to love this game! From the music to the dialogue, there is a bunch of meta-humor used throughout the game. The theme song when you open the game has lyrics like “That’s right we’re back again. Last time was not the end.” and the credits song literally says “Thank you for playing” while calling you a couch potato. The voice acting in the game is well done and the music is set up per area in the game which never really dulls out. All-in-all, the sound design of this game is just very well done.

As for the graphical aspects of this game, it can sometimes be hard to tell when you are lined up right with enemies and items. Aside from that frustration, the cartoon art style keeps this constantly violent beat ‘em up, which includes chain whips, bullets, and grenades, as light-hearted and friendly appealing as possible. Given how the series has always looked before, it is a fighting art style that does well for the series continuation.

Replayability

As far as playing the main game over again, I only see people doing this to play it in full with a friend. Otherwise, there is a ton of side quest and activities to find around the city. I completed a handful of side quests along with the main game and it still said I was only 58% done with the game! 10 hours in and I still had so much left to do? While it may not have replayability as a solo play, it definitely is packed full of content and things to do. Plus, there is always the pull of playing the game with a friend.

What It Could Have Done Better

Some of the shops should have been marked differently. When I was trying to restock my health rations, I found myself jumping around the city on the bus line to where I thought the nearest shops were and kept running into side stuff like the sauna or toy shop. It would have been nice to know those were different shops than the food places to save a little bit of time.

A PC-specific issue, but there really should be a way to play two players with one player on the keyboard and mouse while the other uses a controller. It was lucky I had more than one controller, but I know there are plenty of PC players out there that only have one controller because they mostly use the keyboard and mouse setup.

Verdict

River City Girls 2 kicks butt in the beat ‘em up genre! This game is a truly fun experience, whether you are playing with a friend or solo. I played through most of the game solo, but a few chapters were handled with a friend on the other side. The ease between having them jump in and out of the game was definitely a good aspect and I like that they were able to use a character that wasn’t starting from level 1 as well. The meta humor this series brings is refreshing and in good taste too. This game simply brings entertainment to fans of the beat ‘em up genre in both a challenging and humorous way. This is definitely a title I strongly recommend to anybody looking for a new fighting, RPG-style beat ‘em up, whether to play with a friend or run solo.

River City Girls 2 is available now on PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.