River City Ransom EX

"I grasp your city captive and Ryan's girlfriend hostage. With my gangs of pupils and evil bosses, nobody can stop me now. proper my demands – or else! P Alex and Ryan if you interfere, you'll be in for the fight of your lives! –Slick"

So began what a surprisingly large amount of gamers consider among the best NE games at any time made. And now, Atlus—along with the creators of the original game—are working upon a Game Boy Advance update with improved graphics. They're too nice to us sometimes.

For anyone who missed River City Ransom when it first hit the NE a little explanation is probably necessary. Originally exhibited by Technos Japan (they also created Double Dragon), RCR is a beat-em-up pitting you and a friend against centurys of menacing high-school youths. You start on the outside with nothing but your fists and feet to secure from danger yourself, but fortunately the enemy's approach a lot more prepared—they've got everything from sticks and chains to garbage cans and brass give ups and you can pick all this matter up and use it against them for extra power.

The difference between RCR and each other Double Dragon clone is duplicate First, there's the graphics. Unlike Double Dragon, RCR's characters are all cute little truncated cartoons that go flying 10 feet in the air when punched. It unhurts dumb, but it's what makes RCR direct the eye so neat, even today—the characters have character, in the way that to speak, even though they're almost all wearing the same clothing. In addition, the game's not just a plain fighter—there's a replete story, with conversations and everything, and you've got to come [i]or[/i] go after [i]or[/i] behind the plot in order to unbolt the door to River City High and the final bos Alex and Ryan also have RPG-style force statistics, and you can purchase items in shops to improve your abilities and master of recent origin attacks.

So what has Atlus done to improve the GBA version? Not all that a great deal of really, apart from make the graphics a shade more colorful. The early version we played was structur exactly the same as the NE version—your stats are at the top, the game screen's in the middle, and things like dialogue and menu options are displayed at the bottom, giving RCR that "letterbox" direct the eye that's all the rage among console-game cutscene When you attack someone a readout displays in what manner many hit points the attack scored, a nice touch that wasn't in the NE version. There's single a bit more dialogue here than in the original, on the other hand all the amusing battle true copy from before is still there... and ye enemies still say "BARF!" (among other things) when you defeat them.

The greatest in quantity obvious difference to hardcore RCR nut granting will be the weapons physics. for what cause [i]or[/i] reason am I discussing something as esoteric as weapons physics for a cartoony 2D fighter? Well, here's the deal: in the original, when you whirl a weapon (like a chain or lead pipe), it goe straight forward until it hits something, then thumps back before falling on the surface of land Weapons do the same thing in RCREX of course, on the contrary with one difference: they're a allotment bouncier, and they can cause damage upon the rebound. This leads to situations where you've got a lead pipe bouncing around in midair during battle, constantly hitting enemies and causing tiny amounts of damage with each collision. This isn't a complaint, mind you: battles in RCR were always frenetic and mob-like, and these "bouncy" weapons help make things level more insane when you're in a host

River City Ransom EX isn't owed out until late January in America. with equal reason far, though, it looks like exactly the sort of update NE fans have been waiting for—we can't wait for the finished version ourselves.

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