River City Girls (Switch, 2019)

 

On the 7th Day of Christmas, it's time for some Season's Beatings. I've always wanted to play a beat 'em up type game where instead of rescuing the princesses, the princesses grab some brass knuckles and just beat the hell out of everybody. Now we have that game! It's on a few systems, but I played it on Switch.

Our heroes, Kyoko and Misako. Kyoko oversleeps, while Misako has a black cat.

Misako wears a tie, while Kyoko has succulent red hair.

Their boyfriends are these two losers. Not sure why they got kidnapped. This harkens back to the NES days, when we never really knew why anybody got kidnapped.

The kidnappers/villains of the game seem to be these two, who may or may not be lovers. I mean the hand thing is a bit ambiguous. Maybe they're trying to get rid of the boyfriends so they can convert Kyoko and Misako to their Gay Agenda.

Kyoko's weapon of choice is a bat, while Misako swings a heart-shaped bag. No relation to a Heart Shaped Box.

Misako also has William Regal's Brass Knuckles. They're two violent ladies.

Our heroes get the news of the kidnapping while in class. Enough of this learning bullshit, time to rescue their boyfriends!

I take a moment to TERRORIZE THE TEACHER while all these high schoolers just sorta leap out of their chairs and attack.

Matter of fact, like 75% of the school is just attacking our heroes on sight for no apparent reason.

As with most fighting games, jump kicks are my friend. Enemies are very aggressive and durable in this game so far; it isn't easy at all.

Destroying statues of ECW Superstar Sabu gets you something, but I don't know what. Probably a blistering rant from a headset-wearing Paul Heyman about how THE NETWORK isn't promoting them.

Hey, these two look like the hot villains. Well, we don't know who they are yet so they're just kinda standing here.

KILLER CHEERLEADERS are on the attack. Literally everybody hates our heroes.

Misako runs into the first boss, the giant 'roided-out hall monitor.

"TURDS!" she says.

Alrighty then.

Whoa, bosses have a full-on versus screen.

Annnd I get crushed after a good initial showing. She has a near-unavoidable Kintaro Stomp that I have no answer for. I get her to about 40% and then I lose, every time.

River City Girls has beaten me, one stage in.

There we go, now I've brought an accomplice. I like how the fonts of the two leads are different. Kyoko's evokes a teenage girl with lots of love for everyone and a bubbly personality. Misako's evokes a slightly darker teenage girl, one who enjoys horror movies and shops at Hot Topic.

Yeah, this is much MUCH easier with two players. I still don't know how to avoid her Kintaro Stomp, but we're winning.

Man, this was a relief. Now we can play the game! And much like Bloodborne or Dragon Quest V, the first big boss is the toughest one for a while.

From here it's smooth sailing as we escape the school and start beating down everyone in our path with trash cans. ECDub! ECDub!

It's worth noting that every food item in this game gives you a permanent stat bonus the first time you get it. So don't buy the same food over and over, get one of each at every store instead.

It's also worth noting that when girls lean over anything for any reason, it's pretty hot.

...yeah, as I was saying

Apparently two of these shops have Billy and Jimmy Lee as shopkeepers, and I never even noticed it or got a screenshot of it because my eyeballs were somewhere else I guess.

Here's the single biggest challenge in the game outside of the first and third boss fights. You have to get across this room without touching the floor (which is covered in squeaky toys) and waking up that guy. Why is his floor covered in squeaky toys?

This took SO MANY TRIES because we both had to jump across the room and the jump controls aren't the easiest in a brawler like this.

Here's a hot shopkeeper. Put on some pants, lady!

The second stage boss is this guy. I totally whiffed on getting any more shots of him. He can sling spells. For some reason. This is starting to feel like Scott Pilgrim Vs The World because THERE ARE NO RULES.

The next area has what appears to be some sort of cocaine-production facility.

This leads to a long stairwell where we get ambushed by more killer cheerleaders.

At the bottom of the stairs is a hidden shop, run by Skullmageddon. The bad guy from Double Dragon Neon. How'd they do all this without getting sued by the Double Dragon Estate?

This is the other particularly tough boss fight.

First we get this cutscene with a stirring tribute to Aerith.

Then she rains all kinds of magical death on the field.

This gives us a rare loss, even as a duo. Winning is a matter of getting her projectile attacks to ricochet back at her and knock her out of the air. It's a rough one.

The next stage has these clearly Schwarzenegger-inspired enemies...that even make the same sounds he's known for making. Tremendous.

Trash compactor fight with zombies! Sure, why not.

Have to win quickly, or you become the compacted.

All of that was just to get this one quest done. Dammit.

Fourth boss: Alright, now they're definitely just blatantly cribbing Double Dragon.

Our heroes try to reason with Abobo.

OHHHHHHHH

The actual fight is a full-on brawl, and by this point I was running solo again.

Nice view, as a bunch of tireless Salarypeople furiously try to climb a rock. You can't just be idle for any length of time in this.

Now our heroes need to get onto a boat. Except...

This guy isn't letting anyone in.

Is Kyoko...suggesting something?

Burnov has no interest in a three-way with jailbait. Get outta here!

In our search for VIP Passes, Kyoko goes all Jeff Jarrett on some random fools. 

The bathroom can be a place of solitude and quiet, away from the noise and excitement of a party or event.

NOT IN THIS GAME THOUGH. Kyoko grabs a trash can to fight off prostitutes and furries.

Swinging a giant fish is another good way to defeat your foes.

Whoa, who's this hottie? Can I play as her?

In any case, talking to her and a couple other NPCs gets us the VIP Passes we need.

For some reason we got a pair of scissors from all of that. Scissor me timbers!

Speaking of scissoring, the best way to get fully healed at this point is for our heroes to saunter about in the sauna.

Once on the boat, we encounter some sort of concert.

They think this rocker chick might have stolen the boyfriends. Man, they're just running around accusing everybody!

We get some flashbacks showing that Kyoko was actually friends with the rocker once upon a time.

Looks like there's no avoiding a brawl though.

This fight consists of long durations of jumping over Guitar Hero spots until she jumps down.

She gives us the location of the final level of the game, the Tower.

This level is full of more goons with way too much HP. The only thing I'm not crazy about with this game is the massive HP on enemies. Also I'm flying solo for the last stage, but hopefully I'm good enough now to make it.

Late in the final level, we get this one ill-advised section with platforming. The game only makes you do stuff like this a couple times and it's never good. ...kinda like Double Dragon. I think this is part of the homage.

We finally arrive at the office of evil overlord Sabu...and it turns out his hot daughter Sabuko is now in charge. Step on me, Sabuko!

So what happened to Sabu? Did he get caught smoking weed and fired from WWE as a result?

Sabuko... has got it going on. She could be the toughest boss in the game in terms of attack power and so on, but I found her easier than a couple of the earlier bosses.

She does something new, and gets a SUDDEN LIFE BAR EXTENSION when you think the fight is over. Me taking her on single-player is also making this a lot rougher than it would be. Still, bring some food for heals and you're good.

Our heroes proceed to give her the boot right out of the tower! My God!

And here's the ending. Turns out these guys aren't their boyfriends, and don't even remember their names.

Wait, what? This must be the bad ending, right? Maybe Sabuko gave them amnesia, or maybe she was so unbelievably good in bed that they forgot other women existed. Thanks for ruining sex for everyone, Sabuko.

Running around smashing all 25 Sabu statues in the game unlocks a new final boss, so I go do that. Unfortunately...I don't know if the game glitched or what. The last one I got was here in the Money Laundering Room, but it only says 24/25. Considering I followed a guide and checked every Sabu statue location, I don't know how the 25th one is only the 24th. Not gonna go check all 25 spots again because I don't think I missed any, I think one didn't count for some reason. To Youtube for the rest!

As I suspected, these two are the REAL culprits in kidnapping the boyfriends. Who knows what they've been doing with them.

"Oh nooooooo, anything but thaaat" say the boyfriends when reached for comment.

This is the final secret uberboss challenge. It's a tougher fight than Sabuko, considering there are two of them. It's probably designed for two players to fight, which was my plan until the statue issue. Defeat them, and...

...it's the same ending. What gives? Did the devs run out of time or something? Super weird that the game ends like this. You get the two dudes as playable characters, but what you see here is the end of the story. Weird and doesn't make sense, but at least the game was a lot of fun. Particularly in 2-player. I need to do more beat 'em ups in 2-player on here. Could Brawler Week II be on the way in 2023? Yeah.