Quick Look: River City Ransom: Underground

Tha Block Is HOT

Now I get that Scott Pilgrim game.

My favourite game of this type. Jeff didn't care for it.

I knew Drew would never leave us!

I'm guessing this will be the last video with Drew's byline. T_T

It looks really good, but I don't think I can enjoy this type of game anymore. I was really excited for the Scott Pilgrim game, but after I played it for a few stages, I just didn't feel like playing it anymore. And I loved the original River City Ransom.

Glad to see that this came out, though. I was a little iffy on it when they first announced the kickstarter, and I didn't support it. I hope it does well.

Having a hard time keeping track of the main character when watching this.

I've heard mixed things about this game. Interested to hear Jeff's thoughts on it.

I Kickstarted this game, and it's probably the most disappointed I've been... and I Kickstarted Mighty Number 9.

Surprising lack of interest in exploring Lucha from Jeff...

@thejayofspade: It's not remotely as bad as Mighty No. 9 though, but I can see they still need to tweak a few things (which they are apparently in the process of patching). It does seem they went a little too far into outright retro territory instead of making stuff clearer at certain points.

Street Gangs is back!

I think this looks awesome.

I got this game release day because it was on sale. I've been having fun with it. I will caution all those that play it, remember what it was like playing the Nintendo game. Pro-tips, the world map in the pause screen does tell you your objectives. Honestly, if they support this game and continue expanding on it, I have a feeling it will be one of my fav's this year. However, if you don't want to play an old school Nintendo game with a lot of new game sprite polish, it's probably best to pass.

Also I think the quicklook did the game justice. I wish Jeff had bought moves instead of cats but he probably still made the right choice.

Just my two cents.

From what I have seen of this game now I think it needs a bit more work so I am holding off, but I think soon it could be really great with some patching.

I get paying tribute to the series's NES roots, but some of the game design choices make this game mad unappealing to me. I suppose it's made for the true retronauts, not us back-in-the-day NES owners.

I like how 2 knights from Castle Crashers, the lion from Rivals of Aether and the dude from Hyper Light Drifter are all chilling out together.

In case people were wondering why there were so many cops there, it's because Jeff had a GTA-like wanted level in the top right, that you get for hitting innocent people or stealing money. I think you can clear it by hiding in the dumpster.

They could have done so much more and this music would drive me crazy. I've heard how so many strange design decisions need to be fixed. I think the aliens vs predator arcade beat em up was real good. In my opinion is think beat em up games were the best type of arcade game besides something obvious like mortal kombat.

Some parts of this game has the quality of Big Rigs, and I don't mean it as a "so bad its fun" kind of way, unfortunatly.

Some things about the game are infuriating since this game requires way to much grinding and the actually fun parts are beyond that. You're basically drained of any kind of fun before the game starts becomming actually OK or even good like in the trailer.

Listen to the advice that others already said and skip it for now since unlike Big Rigs, a lot of things are actually easy to change for the better because most problems are either balance issues or just useless grinding, a quick fix would be to not make purchasing moves level dependant.

EDIT: Yes I've compared this game to Big Rigs I'VE WENT THERE.

Those 2 dudes near the end must have been watching the latest Beast in the East.

Brad 'cheap cat' Shoemaker.

I'm a massive RCR fan... no seriously. I made a fan animation series using edited sprite sets back in college on Newgrounds in 2005. This game knocks it out of the park in visual style and animation... HOWEVER, it falls short almost everywhere else.

Outside of the bugs like multiplayer deleting saves and collision geometry being permanently spawned in certain areas (arcade boss has an invisible box he leaves behind after appearing one time regardless if you defeat him or not), there were some ASININE design decisions made regarding the addition of a half-assed police mechanic (the police show up immediately if even one NPC wanders into an item you threw or you get knocked into one and they can't be dismissed unless there's a dumpster nearby AND you've killed them all... Also they ONLY attack you; not any of the other gang members, even if they attack NPC city folk) and "chase sequences" and a "milk delivery" style escort mission that make me think they REALLY should have done some more player testing. By the way, when you get to that milk mission, use this short video guide to beat it. You will thank me later.

Also some straight up confusing decisions where no explanation is given, like when you have to fight some military dudes being dropped from a helicopter. After you defeat one, you get dog tags. So I then went to the military base nearby, figuring that's where I needed to use them... but NO... you need SIX of them. You have to just figure out that you have to fight 5 other military dudes on random screens surrounding the area to get the 5 other tags before going on base. There's no explanation or clarification on the task. Also they take up your item slots but have no use so you can't put as many healing items in your inventory... but after the fight they randomly become consumables that give a couple of stat points.

Honestly I hope they patch a lot of this bug stuff, but it seems like they didn't really nail some key design concepts. They need to revamp the chase sequences, the police mechanics, add more "safe zones" reduce complexity and number of enemies that show up at the beginning of the game after the initial tutorial sequence, clarify some mission task explanations, improve balance to moves (example - why should punching do more damage than a weapon?), make it so you don't have a situation at the beginning of the game where you can grapple an enemy BUT YOU HAVE NO MOVES so you just stand there like an idiot, or how if you do ANY move more than 2 times in a row the enemy can automatically block the attack no matter what enemy it is, and make the map more utilitarian, and not so focused on being a nice piece of pixel-art.

Ugh just watching this video makes me notice even more bad design decisions. Why would they make the very first shop you can access give you a trophy item that doesn't improve stats and only gives you something for your hideout (AND not make that clear)?!

Then Brad and Jeff weren't able to figure out that the dumpster is what removes police aggro because the devs didn't make that clear either...

I really hope the devs are watching videos of users playing the game like this and using it for improving the gameplay design... not just fixing bugs.

Even the map layout led to the player being confused. They went to the right, and the very first mission (find the BEE boss) led them to a wall.

Another discovery I made only after almost getting to the end of the game:

There are more moves that you could learn than just the ones on the initial list at any dojo... That's right...

You can scroll down to see more moves to learn at each of the dojos...

...even though it looks like there's an empty slot at the bottom of the lists at all the dojos, making it look like there are only like 4 moves to learn at any dojo rather than like the 8 that each one has.

Again, weird design decision. Why make it look like a list with an empty slot at the bottom when there are more list items when you scroll down???

I remember getting stuck at the school gates in RCR and never being able to figure out what to do. Probably played the game a thousand times and never got past it...

Sounds like I might be better off going back and trying RCR again instead of getting this? Looks cool though.

@ethanielrain: The reason the gates would be shut was because you missed at least one of the bosses in some area. Certain bosses would only appear in certain areas AFTER you defeated other ones.

Here's a quick boss location and order guide if you want to go back and beat it. It really is a great game.

Once you beat all the bosses up to Ivan, the gates will open.

@ethanielrain: Also this isn't the only "sequel" to RCR ever made. There was a Gameboy Advance game, too, called River City Ransom EX.

However, it was more a "deluxe remake" of the original (and didn't have the western 1950s clothing style sprite edits the original RCR had when it was brought stateside). In addition to giving the visuals an overhaul, they also expanded the weapon sets, move sets, and had some other cool extras.

It's a cool game! I didn't know about the influences, but I've enjoyed that game on many occasions. I found it was fun going through it once with just me and then introduce another person/group to it and play until they grew tired of it.

I have an Xbox One at work, I hope this is out on it.

This game is a bit of an uphill grind. Most of the characters seem a bit flat until you get enough money to buy food and new moves. I'm surprised Jeff was able to mash the same attack over and over so successfully. Towards the end of the beta they implemented this thing where if you use the same attack repeatedly enemies will shrug off the attack, I guess to prevent button mashing and encourage attack variation. It makes weapons feel a bit underpowered though. I'd like to see if they can get four players for this on a UPF segment just to see what it looks like.

As many misses as this game makes... at least it does what it set out to do better than Double Dragon 4.

Posted by Drew Scanlon!

Glad Jeff got the cat instead of buying upgrades like most people would. I wanted to know what would happen, which is nothing apparently.

@jdp83: yea I definitely fell you on some of those grips, I've probably played through the first game about 20times and still when I go back to it I get stuck wandering around trying to remember where the next boss spawns so I feel like that aspect for better or worse has always been in it.. the combat in the old game was mindless but fun, once you get moves the combat in this one is actually really good I agree you should start with a bit more.. a running punch and kick and attacks for front and back grabs, grabs also maybe should have a better recovery when you miss as often its you missing a pick up or trying to pick up a guy that just died. I have yet to beat it but as much as the first is a classic to just bulldoze through I think even with its faults this game is better and I expect it to get patch and improve over the coming months. the police thing only happens if someone reports you I think as you can punch the parking meters with no one around and just get money with no risk, it is annoying that you can't just run for a bit to avoid the police but it usually takes me punching a civilian about 3 times before I get in trouble.

Meh

This looks like a decent follow up to the NES original. If a sequel came out back then, I wouldn't be surprised if it looked like this. Much better job than Double Dragon 4.

"Posted by Drew Scanlon"

???

@mayor_mccheese:
Actually the cats show up at one of our hideouts. The purpose is that it unlocks a weapon at the hideout called the "Yarnsword" which is a huge sword covered in yarn.

I really love this game and found it really fun, but yeah there are improvements to be made in the way it explains it's mechanics. Also they played this before it got patched, cause the bug with the dumpster is present. Since then they've patched it three times and the dumpsters work fine now.

The idea is that if the police are on you, you can clear the screen and hide in the dumpster for a few seconds to lose your wanted status. You can also instantly lose wanted status by going into a hideout.

This seems kind of alright, but the ways it's a bit janky just kind of make me want to go play the Scott Pilgrim game instead.

EDIT: It turns out that the SPvTW:TG was taken down from XBLA and PSN because of licencing issues, so now the only way to get it seems to be through grey-market PSN key re-sellers.

Wait. What was that indie game that looked like this that came out two or three years ago? I think it had more of an over world thing though.

There is an amazing game hidden beneath layers of bugs and some terrible design decisions.

I really like this game, but it has some issues.

Provie's my main, once you get your special, and a bit of stamina upgrade, shes unbeatable. It kinda breaks the game, she'll do her breakdancing kick and wipe out groups of enemies which is fine, but I feel the stamina refills too fast, as it refills when the move is active, you can do it indefinitely and the enemies don't have a chance to recover. Perhaps when the move is active, maybe the stamina bar shouldn't refill to make it more balanced?

Drew lives!

Drew :(

Hopefully it'll come back at some point.

You're thinking of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. It's been mentioned about a dozen times in this very comments section in relation to this game! It was very fun, but it sure was unabashed in ripping off mechanics from the original RCR, and this game seem unabashed in its ripping off SPvTW's entire aesthetic.

@jroa: People say that it's design is incredibly retro and obtuse, but it's really just bad. Like I played the original RCR after playing this game, and the way that game starts out is so much more clear and understandable. (I'm not knocking Underground for having a tutorial, I'm just saying that even without a tutorial the original game sets up a much more understandable and fun intro for the game). It's not technically a worse game than Mighty Number 9, but for me it was far more disappointing.

No it was not a Scott Pilgrim game. It wasn't a side scrolling beat-em-up like this. Maybe more of an open world beat-em-up.

Is it me, or is this video not working?