This is an ongoing list where I attempt to do the following: Play, Complete, and Rank every video game in the known universe in order to finally answer the age old question "What is the greatest game of all time?" For previous entries look through other blog entries, or for a quick overview use the link at the bottom.

How did I do?

I was lucky to live literally two houses away from my best friend growing up. Now that is probably not unique as when you are little proximity plays a big role in who your friends are. The same friend who now humors me by joining in during my quest to find the greatest game of all time.

One of our favorite games growing up was "River City Ransom." A side-scrolling beat-em up where you collect money off of your fallen enemies to then redeem at shopping centers littered around the game. What I realized after we completed our playthrough of the game, is that I have never beaten the game solo. It was just a game that always stuck in my head as something to play partnered up, but not one that I should, nor could, play on my own. Obviously, I had to rectify that.

River City Ransom is a side scrolling beat-em up game much like games like "Double Dragon", "Battletoads", and "Streets of Rage." You take control of either hero Alex or Ryan in an attempt to save Ryan's girlfriend who was kidnapped by our mysterious villain. You set off on a journey to find where the bad guys are keeping her and rescue her, all while making your way through gangs of thugs who are trying to rough you up.

What I think is incredibly interesting is that despite you (the player) having the choice to pick a main character, the big bad only captures one of your girlfriends not both, so besides being a good friend, if you pick Alex, you really don't have much at stake here. Perhaps this prevents the trope in early beat-em up games where the heroes have to duke it out at the end in order to win the love of the damsel in distress. Besides getting some story from bosses you beat, there really isn't much to read into here.. Save the girl, save the world.

One of the truly unique things that RCR does, is that there are no distinct levels that you are progressing through. The world flows from left to right, but you can backtrack and go where you want. The structure of the game is setup in that you have to fight bosses throughout the map, but they really only appear in a certain order, so at some point you do have to backtrack to see if a boss spawned on a screen you might have already explored. This backtracking can seem like a double-edged sword, in general no one wants to go back over areas they have "beaten," but this does allow you to go back to earlier towns and purchase items you might not have had the cash for the first time through. The world is small enough that I think it ends up being a positive aspect of the game as it makes it feel like the world is connected, and you never feel like you are very far away from where you got to.

For me, a welcome change from the beat-em up styles of other games is how the towns and purchasable upgrades worked. Gone are the apples and chickens found in barrels littered across the street, but instead each enemy drops some spare change that can be used to purchase things at town. For instance you can buy books that might potentially teach your character new moves, such as Stone Hands (makes you punch faster) or Acro Circus (which adds flair to your jump and damage should it hit an enemy), you can buy food for health reasons, or equipment. Outside of a few items noted in the instruction manual, you don't really know what an item is going to do until you buy it. This can be incredibly frustrating if your only goal is to look for unique moves, or health fills, but if you engage with the game can give you a reason to buy things you might not normally purchase, because....

Now this game does not have a level-up system you would expect in an old school RPG, but it does have stats that mimic the feeling. Nearly every item you buy will increase your stats which can help you make a decision in how you want to play your character. Perhaps you were looking to fill up your health, but you found an item that added 20 points to your kick skill, meaning you now would be better off doing damage with kicks rather then punches or weapons. I would encourage you to not look up what each item does, because simply min-maxing your character translates to buying the same item 20-30 times just because its cheap, or offers the most bang for the buck. The excitement is in trying a random Cd, or buying a sushi roll and seeing what it does for you. No matter what I purchased, there was rarely a time where I regretted buying what I bought.

There is a risk-reward factor, because for the most part enemy thugs drop less than $.50 per one defeated, so if you are saving up for something expensive you could be hoarding money for awhile. At any point should you die, your money is cut in half and you respawn at the last town you were at. While any loss of money can be painful, this really only rears its head when you try to get items that are $50-$60 dollars or more. Do you dare fight bosses over and over again because they drop more money, but might kill you faster, or do you fight the drones because its safer, but might take longer?

Playing with a buddy can actually hamper this levelling feature, because A) if you are on good terms, you are splitting the money and B) There is friendly fire which can result in some mistakes that cost one of you a lot of money. Again, this is where the push and pull come into place as to how you want to approach the game. Playing with a buddy can make fighting some bosses a breeze as you can employ a tactic where you stand on either side of them and mash the attack button, resulting in the boss barely getting an attack in, however you are more likely to be a lower "leveled" character and spend far more time farming for money then you would playing solo.

One of the biggest adjustments I had playing solo the first time, is actually having an abundance of money and deciding how to spend it. When playing with a friend while growing up, there were basically 4 items we bought and then beat the game, every time. They were always move books (one for hands, one for feet, one for jumping, one for weapons). If we bought anything else it was simply to re-fill life and we didn't care what stats went up. Now with a collection of big dollars, I could try and upgrade stats I felt would make my life easier, and watch as I dispatched bosses quicker, because I utilized the stats I had. I mean don't tell my buddy, but I might have had an easier time, and had more fun playing solo, since the game seemed to just move at a quicker pace.

Now despite my love for this game, it has some flaws. It is a rather short playthrough, and while you could certainly spend hours honing your character to max stats, you would just be self inflating the game. From start to finish, you can beat this game in an afternoon, and while that is nothing new for an NES game, this game has a robust password system (by robust, I mean the passwords are long) so you would naturally expect that the game is long enough to warrant such a system. In addition to that, the "level-up" system is not something you need to be engaged with in order to enjoy and play the game. In fact when we were kids, we were still able to beat the game handedly without ever engaging with it on purpose. Sure we would gain a stat because we bought a pasta to fill up our health, but we weren't seeking out anything particular stat or process to beat the game. The final issue, at least that I have, is that the game is pretty easy. Once you get a feel for how the A.I. works, it isn't hard to breeze through the game using some pretty basic techniques. There might be a boss that gives you trouble here and there, but usually you can counter by bringing a weapon to the fight, or spending some of your money to get a fast attack and then just pin him against the wall until they die.

RCR is a genuinely fun game to pick up and play now (and I think its on switch online), it still plays well and depending on how much you engage with the system can be something that you pump a little extra life into trying to sculpt your perfect character.

Is this game the Greatest game of all time: No

Where does it rank: Before I started this series, I would have said RCR is in my top 3 of NES games, and while it hasn't dropped off a cliff, I am now at least seeing that it isn't the perfect game I thought it was. It may still be one of my favorite beat-em ups, but it will currently reside as the new #12 game on a list of 46 games. It sits below recently reviewed "Mirror's edge Catalyst" at 11 and above "That's You!" at 13.

Up Next: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch)

Anyone looking for it: here is the link to the list and more if you are interested in following along with me (this is not a self promotion). Here

Thanks for listening.

*Voting time* - What should my next game played be (please note this is not the next game reviewed, but what game am I going to start playing through). Most votes by Monday win..

1) Final Fantasy 6 (SNES)

2) Murdered Soul Suspect (PS4)

3) Rainbow Six 3 (OG Xbox)

Disappointing that after our conversation about spoilers yesterday you just come out and spoil the ending to the deep narrative of River City Ransom. What about all the people who haven't quite found the time to finish this game but really wanted to see how it would turn out? It has only been out for 32 years. You need to give people some time before just saying how it ends!

I think that River City Ransom is most interesting as an example of how deeply early console development was influenced by the requirements of the arcade. River City Ransom was developed console first and was able to do a ton of innovative stuff from its RPG-lite mechanics to its password system because of that. So many beat 'em ups were intended as frustrating coin suckers, but RCR being freed from those constraints was able to focus on fun and innovation and was great as a result.

That's also why it has aged so much. It no longer stands alone in that because without arcades most modern beat 'em ups are able to have their difficulty and mechanics tuned for home fun. At the time you were probably happy just to have a game that wasn't designed to make you just miserable enough to put more money into the machine.

It's also why you don't have to fight at the end. That was an arcade design, for a situation where you might be playing alongside a stranger and where you'd paid an entry price so you deserved a chance to be the true winner. RCR was designed for true co-op fun and without that edge.

It's also worth noting that this is part of the Kunio-Kun series and all that implies. It continues to this day and it's quite a legacy.

As for what game you should play next it's obviously FF 6. You knew I would say that.

I played Murdered Soul Suspect last year and it is not the greatest game. It's not quite as bad as its reputation and it even has its moments but it's very much a "well that was much better as a concept than in execution" game.

And it has a pun in the name.

@bigsocrates: i couldnt help myself.. the spoiler of "you dont fight each other at the end" was too enticing to not spoil.

I knew it was part of the kunio-kun series (just like super dodgeball), but i did not know about it being developed strictly for consoles, but it makes sense given its difficulty.

I know that scott pilgrim game borrowed a lot from RCR, but im surprised more games havent borrowed their RPG lite, buy items from the shops for a hidden bonus system. But maybe that becomes modern day blind boxes, so nevermind.

@imunbeatable80: When the game first came out reviews said "worth playing, but only for the amazing twist at the end. Don't get it spoiled, see it for yourself." Too late now!

It's interesting to me that you thought it could have been an arcade game. It has a lot of mechanics that simply would not work in the arcade, such as grinding and the ability to inflate your power almost without limit. So much of early game design was defined by the arcade (even for non arcade games) with things like one way scrolling and time limits designed purely to suck quarters for pockets. The whole reason that early games were so difficult was to MAKE THAT MONEY, BOI! A lot of early console games were locked into that mind set because that's what the designers knew, but games like River City Ransom were ahead of their time and did more interesting things that you couldn't do in the arcade.

Plenty of games borrowed from River City Ransom over the years, but there just weren't that many pure console brawlers being made at the time, and the answer to your inquiry is sort of embedded in that. Games designed for the arcade couldn't copy the structure because it's too easy to play indefinitely without dying when you can backtrack and power up. And even the few brawlers that were made purely as home games were generally copying the conventions of the arcade games people were familiar with.

@bigsocrates: its just my broken brain, that thinks anything can be an arcade game. I would assume it wasnt a straight 1 to 1, like they would get rid of the password section and maybe add something like lives, but anything can be an arcade game if you dream big enough.

@imunbeatable80: Pokemon Go Arcade?

It could have been a Strider/Rygar/Bionic Commando type dealio where the console "port" is just straight up a different game, I guess, but just adding lives and eliminating passwords wouldn't do much because it's still possible to just hang out in one place and grind, and bored kids would do that on a quarter. A timer would fix that, but then you have the issue that the game wants you to explore and backtrack etc...

Sorry this is too nerdy and into the weeds. I just feel like River City Ransom is a prime example of a game that shows how game design is shaped by factors like monetization and platform, and not just some "artistic vision." Though of course that's part of it too.