River City Girls

 Switch
User Score
7.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 77 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 53 out of 77
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 77
  3. Negative: 20 out of 77
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  1. thisisdot
    Sep 29, 2019
    3
    It's insane how much people let this game get away with. I tried playing this game but there's so many bad design elements that ruin the whole experience.

    1. Difficulty- this game is way too easy, enemies are extremely passive, taking forever to even initiate attack, essentially just standing there waiting for you to hit them. And if you do hit them, you're left with two options, doing    It's insane how much people let this game get away with. I tried playing this game but there's so many bad design elements that ruin the whole experience.

    1. Difficulty- this game is way too easy, enemies are extremely passive, taking forever to even initiate attack, essentially just standing there waiting for you to hit them. And if you do hit them, you're left with two options, doing long combos that are only there to make the game flashier, or waiting a million years for enemies to stand back up. Enemies wouldn't be that much of an issue if they either made more them more aggressive, or lowered their health bars so fighting would feel less like a chore, but the latter would never happen since this whole game revolves around the flashiness of their animations. Bosses are the only "difficult" part and it's only because of how unbalanced they made them, the difficulty in fighting them comes from invincibility frames and the fact that they just do more damage. A lot of these issues are exaggerated when you find out a basic combo pattern that essentially serves as an infinite/lock which I discovered way too early.

    2. Design oversights- Why is the regular attack button also the button that does every single action in this game? Enemy spawns near door and you prepare to attack, whoops you entered the next room and have to go in again. Doing a simple combo near a bat, whoops you picked up the item which is detrimental to comboing. Small stuff like this hamper the whole experience and make things more annoying to deal with. Why do shops not tell you what stats are affected when you use an item for the first time? The original Kunio game on the NES 30 years ago knew to tell you that stuff, it's kinda ridiculous.

    3. Story stuff- This story is awful, not even in a "haha it's so bad way" it's just awful to listen to. WayForward from what I know about them, gets a lot of praise typically for how great their dialogue is and I never really got that from their other games, and it's way worse here than it's ever been. There's so many "haha look at how self aware we are" types of jokes that aren't even handled well, either from how the joke is written or how it's delivered by the voice actors. The story is insulting at times with it's humor falling back on weeb humor, stuff that feels like crap that we made fun of back in 2007 like "i watch naruto, haha I'm such a weeb XD" types of jokes, and a lot of the humor is very based on weeaboo type crap, Kyoko makes a jojo reference by going ORAORAORA during one of her attacks but since they have to make weeb jokes she also does a "WHAT'S A MANGA?!?!?!?!?!?!" joke when some kid talks about comics. It's annoying crap like that which plague every aspect of the humor of this game, there are flash animations on newgrounds from 2005 that do a better job making jokes about this type of stuff.

    Presentation- Good sprite animations, but that's really about it. Music isn't bad, but I will say it doesn't fit this type of game at all, it's full of low energy vocal themes and basic beats that aren't bad on their own but when coupled with a beat'em up, it just feels kinda off. UI is fine, but it's kinda stupid since you have high resolution digital art being placed on top of pixel art, kinda jarring. Both elements work on their own but don't when put together, but the UI thing is typical of wayforward games so it's not that big a deal. Voice acting is pretty bad, you have some talented VAs like Cristina Vee, Greg Chun, Patrick Seitz and such, but the delivery of all their lines are just not good. This next part is kind of a personal thing, but I was kinda put off by the fact that so many voice actors in this game are youtubers, people like JackSepticEye, the Game Grumps, Cry, various youtubers voice characters in this game and what kinda bothers me about that is the fact that it comes across as hiring just because they're famous rather than hiring out of merit, I'm sure there are smaller VAs that have had trouble making a name for themselves that would've done a better job here but got pushed to the side because their youtube subscriber count wasn't high enough and that's extremely upsetting to think about.

    Final Thoughts- This game has a lot of issues. I mentioned a very basic overview of my issues with the game. The difficulty is non-existent, the design oversights hinder the whole experience, the writing makes the game annoying to sit through, and the presentation while not bad is just kinda off at times. I gave this game a low score because all these things combined with each other make the game unacceptable, but sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who thinks this seeing that reviews are giving this game 9/10s calling it the best beat'em up ever(though I bet most of them only think this because it's easy or because they like the flashiness), I can't convince anyone to not get the game but I hope whoever reads this thinks before they buy before they're left disappointed    … Expand
  2. MARUYAMA
    Oct 2, 2019
    0
    ウェイフォルワードわウェイフォルワードだ
    As expected, behind the beautiful visuals there's a very poorly made game
  3. WAH
    Sep 14, 2019
    2
    Trash game. I wanted to really like this game since Wayforward has good art design and the game does look great and has a good soundtrack, but that's it. The plot and humor is subjective but it is honestly just so cringeworthy what the characters are saying and doing.

    But that's not the real downside to the game, the gameplay is just so bad. Light attack is also your screen transition    Trash game. I wanted to really like this game since Wayforward has good art design and the game does look great and has a good soundtrack, but that's it. The plot and humor is subjective but it is honestly just so cringeworthy what the characters are saying and doing.

    But that's not the real downside to the game, the gameplay is just so bad. Light attack is also your screen transition and pick up weapon button, which causes a ton of gameplay problems mid combat. The money you earn is so **** low while penalty for dying makes you lose a lot since it is scaling based. The shops all sell overpriced healing items so good luck being able to heal when needed, and all abilities are outrageously overpriced at the rate you earn money. The combos themselves are inconsistent, sometimes they work sometimes they don't work on mobs. The bosses themselves are cheap, they will guard mid one of your combos and the hitboxes are wonky as all ****    … Expand
  4. Mattocaster3
    May 18, 2020
    0
    So much of me wants to like this game, but it has mechanics that are so unfair, heavy stun lock for one, but I could live with that. You need money in the game to get better items to be stronger, but when you die you lose most your money, and the enemies still get stronger, making a hard game harder and harder as you progress, I don't understand why you couldn't lose less money if none atSo much of me wants to like this game, but it has mechanics that are so unfair, heavy stun lock for one, but I could live with that. You need money in the game to get better items to be stronger, but when you die you lose most your money, and the enemies still get stronger, making a hard game harder and harder as you progress, I don't understand why you couldn't lose less money if none at all. Guiding the player, I don't understand, I have to pull out a walkthrough every 5 minutes as the map tends to not display where to go most times (even funny when the walkthrough also gets confused where to go!) Dialogue for the next task is sometimes spoken while in battle,confusing the whole ordeal further.

    Now, the straw that broke the camels back, habari is a boss you fight about halfway into the game, stun lock, and what you would call a bullet sponge, not challenging, frustrating! Like the most unfun part of any game I've played, so unfair and boring I can't see myself playing it again, love the fighting in the game, but the bad aspects over shadow the game so much it just becomes frustrating to play, even in coop    … Expand
  5. Trepadora
    Nov 8, 2019
    4
    The game has a nice soundtrack and pretty looking visuals, but the problem is the gameplay just is not fun. So many mechanics (most mentioned here in other reviews) are just so poorly designed that the game is better served to be looked at than played.
  6. jln81
    Apr 20, 2021
    1
    I thought this looked SO cool as a co-op game, but the gameplay couldn't be more basic. We both lost interest within 10 minutes. What a waste of money.
  7. lorimalron
    Mar 14, 2020
    2
    Other reviews have mentioned the issues in much greater detail than I'm willing to. It feels like an honest regression in a number of aspects to older parts of its own series and the less said about its contemporaries the better (for it). A simple game, not difficult but very cheesy both ways. I rate games based mostly on the game play and it is inferior to very old games.
  8. beeuwu
    Apr 27, 2022
    0
    Controls are really clunky and it can get pretty annoying with how unresponsive game is at times. Got it for the pretty arts, but honestly that's all there is to it, graphics. Can't recommend, glad that I at least got it on sale.

Awards & Rankings

95
#95 Best Switch Game of 2019
69
#69 Most Discussed Switch Game of 2019

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
79

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 12
  3. Negative: 0 out of 12
  1. Nintendo Force Magazine
    Apr 28, 2020
    95
    There's little I would change about the River City Girls. I just hope this isn't their last dance! [Issue #42 – October 2019, p. 22]
  2. IGN Japan
    Oct 8, 2019
    80
    As a combination between the River City and Downtown areas, River City Girls’ town warmly welcomes all fans of the long-running River City Ransom series. For new players, the cute, poppy characters and the over-the-top battles should feel entertaining enough. However, the story is not tightly plotted, and generally not interesting enough for someone not familiar with the genre.
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  3. Vooks
    Sep 17, 2019
    80
    River City Girls could have just been a fun retread of some arcade-style fighting with some good new stuff and some bad new stuff. To a degree, it is - there are bits here like the money system and the co-op that could have been a little less unfriendly to deal with. But with a hearty dose of style and some great writing, it lifts itself up into a great little retro-styled treat for the beat-em-up inclined. Maybe not for everyone, and especially if you’re not up for a challenge, but I sure had some fun.
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