Don't know how the gameplay will hold up, but the sprite work is astounding. And also how the cutscenes evoke a nes aesthetic but are totally their own crazy thing. This makes Double Dragon IV look like garbage from a butt. Comes out on the 27th.

I think it looks great. I can get a lot from a well done beat em up and think there's plenty of room in the genre (and room for depth too, most games keep it too simple).

I wish it was Japanese themed but this looks ok, hope it turns out well. Were the River City Ransom sports titles popular in the US? Those were the first games I grew up playing + Contra.

BARF!

That looks fantastic. They've done an alright job with Double Dragon IV. I'm enjoying that even if it is retro to a fault.

Oh man that looks sick!

So Kunio and Riki are Alex and Ryan in this one eh? They look older too

@slag: Way back when the first Kunio-kun game came to the NES in the United States and was given the western title River City Ransom, Kunio and Riki were also given the western names Alex and Ryan along with a more Americanized translation in general, dropping the Japanese style school uniforms for a more American T-Shirt and jeans. This basically puts the series in a weird place, because even though they are for most intents and purposes the same game, Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kunand River City Ransom became thematically very different. The western release was no longer about yankii hot blooded Japanese delinquents, but two friends beating up a bunch of thugs to get Ryan's girlfriend back from the biggest gang leader.

River City Ransom: Underground follows the American game, since at the time of the kickstarter there had not been a Kunio-kun game that came to the west since the GBA title River City Ransom EX, which was a remake of the game on NES, and we never got a true sequel to that game. Now however there have been a few titles that have been localized, but they are still following the Japanese Nekketsu story with the name River City slapped onto it.

Basically, no, Kunio and Riki aren't Alex and Ryan, this is Alex and Ryan. And yes, this is set about 25 years after the events of the original River City Ransom. Alex and Ryan are adults now.

Also it's probably for the best that this is a River City Ransom game because it's a Western studio.

Smile: Free!

@johnxuandou: yeah that makes sense.

I guess I'm just surprised they basically didn't reboot with the Kunio storyline since a few of those spinoff games have made it stateside in recent memory.

@slag: Yeah some of the Nekketsu games have been localized but they've mostly been spin-offs and Tokyo Rumble was a remake I'm almost certain. Besides, for many growing up the game was River City and it took place in the US. To unwrite that existence would be lame for all of us who didn't have the benefit of living in Japan. It's like the Ace Attorney games, localizing the game to take place in America was a quick short-sighted decision to make one of the puzzles make more sense to a western audience, but now it creates ridiculous situations where Nick apparently lives in the Little Tokyo district or something because everything in his life is super Japanese. You can't change it now because that weird quirky mix is what the western audience is familiar with. America never played a game starring Kunio until like 2 years ago, before then it was all Alex.

@johnxuandou: I totally get the sentiment. But looking at Ace Attorney, I personally would rather they have rebooted it or something. Whatever it would have taken to allow the more Japanese spinoffs in the series to be localized here.

I guess looking at Kunio-Kun and how low profile it's been stateside for so long now, I'd prefer a reboot. I think gamers today are much open to openly very Japanese games (like Yakuza, Hatsune Miku or Persona) than they were in the 80's. But I'm not a hardcore River City Ransom fan, so I get why you guys would feel differently.

The animations are amazing and this doesn't seem too shy away from having combos unlike more recent beat'em ups who keep it fairly simple.
Also worth noting that the game will have 4 players coop local AND online which is pretty nice. Would love to hear impressions from people who played the beta.

Wow I didn't even realize this was a thing. It looks so good.

That is because Double Dragon 4 is garbage from a butt. A disappointing rushed cash grab with some good ideas and bad execution.

River City Underground has been in development since what feels like River City Ransom came out on NES, and it's made by big fans of the series, so I have high hopes, even if I prefer several other beat em ups to RCR

@slag: At the end of the day it wouldn't be the end of the world if it did get rebooted, but I would still hate to lose that part of history. It was my childhood and I'd be kinda upset to see Alex and Ryan just get retconned because no one wants to continue keeping them around anymore.

I can give you a ton of insight if you're curious. I helped make the combo video from January of last year with another backer Metaphist from the backer forums. As good as it looks in videos, playing the game feels a lot better honestly. The smoothness of combat cannot be overstated. I think it's going to be a bit of a challenge for people at first because a lot of things are very unlike most beat em ups, but it's a change for the better if you ask me. No character in the game is so simple that you can just mash one button and do well, in fact most characters don't even have a full combo on one button unlike most beat em ups where the attack button will do an automated combo sequence for you. It feels a lot like the original River City Ransom at first before you unlock a bunch of moves where you're mostly sticking to a couple hits here and there, but as you start unlocking more stuff you get borderline Tekken chain combos, which I'm afraid might be intimidating for people but I hope they can get past it because that's when the game really starts to open up and make your combat more engaging.

The button layout is almost Double Dragon Neon-esque, making as much use of the controller as possible. The face buttons give you jump, punch, kick, and grab. R1/RB is your special moves button, blocking is on R2/RT. All of this combines to make a sort of mix between Tekken and Street Fighter in a beat em up that will have you doing chains into special cancels into launchers and juggles. That being said none of that is required to play, so if you're not keen on doing combos don't panic. The game basically allows you to go as crazy as you want to get. There are a ton of characters too, you start off with a pretty small selection, but through playing through the game you'll meet more characters and recruit them basically to join your group until the roster expands to a pretty ridiculous point for a game of this type. You're not going to be struggling for choice if you and your friends decide to go in on 4 player coop.

I'm gonna try not to write a 5 page essay on the game so if there's anything you want to know ask me and I'll tell you, and of course I don't want to spoil anything for people. I will say this though, the online for the game is absolutely incredible. One of the best netcodes you'll find in anything ever. Early on I made a push to get the team to implement rollback netcode, and they hired Andrew Russell the madman from Australia (I wonder what his opinion on thongs is?) to join the team and hammer it out and he absolutely knocked it out of the park. If you played Skullgirls or Killer Instinct or even Mortal Kombat X after the XL patch, it is an experience similar to that, but because this isn't a game that requires hyper sensitive frame perfect timing and ridiculous movement options the end result is even better. You will FEEL like you're sitting next to the person you're playing with, it's almost impossible to tell it's online.

@johnxuandou: That all sounds incredible!

@johnxuandou:

Thank you for the preview, it makes it much clearer how the game will play and the online sounds great.

Do you know if it will be possible to play with strangers via some sorts of matchmaking ?

Also do you know how long it would take to complete the game ? Are there sidequests ?

@adulfzen: It's possible besides inviting your friends to start a lobby and search for games, so yes you can play with random people.

I don't want to spoil the length, but I will say it won't be a quick 1-2 hour romp like a lot of beat em ups are, it's a full game with stuff to do.

@johnxuandou: What's the persistence like for character progression, per-save or per-account? Do characters level up independently, or is there some kind of shared growth/experience/money thing going on?

@dogbutter: There are multiple save files and progress is kept per save, so if someone wants to play on your account they can have their own save file. Characters progress individually. Just like the original RCR there are levels, stats, and moves. You earn higher levels by fighting and gaining XP, levelling up raises your -potential- maximum stats, you raise your stats by eating food (which can also heal you and do other things, some food is better than others for healing and other food is better for raising your stats), and of course there are moves you unlock by going into dojos and learning them.

If you want to get every character to max level you do all of this for each of them separately. Chances are however you'll find a character you like and mostly stick with them, but grinding from what I've seen in the beta isn't that bad if you want to go that route. The hard part would be learning what food items do what so you can grind efficiently.

Well, I'm in. I've never played RCR but this looks great.

Just found this on twitter :

February 27th can't come soon enough