Beat-em-up with levelling? Epic!
River Ciuty Ransom has always been one of the best ''open-world''
beat-em-up, of the 80s. The characters will rank up their stats as they progress through the adventure, and can buy weapons and items for their quest throught the Streets where they must tear through legions of bullies.
Final Fight would have benefited from this mechanic in its heyday,
though we can see a somewhat similar progression system in the Kick Master NES lost classic.
River City Ransom is a lost gem in the Tecmo collection,
only second to the legendary 'Hit the Ice' NES Game,
no, not the Hiut the Ice which was on SNES and featured a kind of NHL Open Ice style of battle.
No! Hit the Ice was exactly like River City Ransom in its fighting system and had the kind of graphics Tecmo World Cup Soccer would have had if ported to a hockey game.
But in america, you can normally find only the River City Ransom game which thus stands as the #1 ''easily available'' beat-em-up of the 8bit era.
Mighty Final Fight is too pricey (200$+) and Hit the Ice is nowhere to be found.
Reviewed by: ThroughtonsHeir from Quebec on 6/13/2015
5