River City Ransom is one the best games on the NES. It is scrolling brawler, a genre even at its best has always felt somewhat flat, but River City Ransom combined that with a little bit of a Metroid like open world and some light RPG elements, along with a healthy dose of humor, to create one of the most memorable and endlessly replayable NES games. Thanks to consistently inconsistent localization choices, the greater series that River City Ransom was part of never really became a thing and it largely disappeared from western shores after the NES faded until a recent resurgence on the DS and 3DS.

That resurgence has been both welcome and somewhat disappointing. Last year gave us River City: Tokyo Rumble, which I enjoyed. However, it was more like Ransom’s predecessor Renegade than the game it gets its title from. It was fun, but it was not that River City Ransom experience that I was craving. Earlier this year we got River City: Knights of Justice, which replaced the usual Tokyo setting with a fantasy one, but bafflingly removed many of the rpg elements from the game. I have yet to finish it, but I’ve found it to be a great disappointment. While I was still excited to play the game, I was worried that it be another shadow of the game I really wanted to play. Thankfully, with Rival Showdown they have finally gotten things right.

The game is more of a reimagining of the NES classic, not a simple remake. It takes the same basic set up, that someone has set the ruffians of all the high schools against Kunio and kidnapped Riki’s girlfriend, and turns it into a time limited open world adventure. It takes the original game and adds in a dash of Majora’s Mask as well as some alternate endings, making the replayability of it a central part of the experience.

It starts with a few events to set up the game, then let’s the player loose for the rest of the three days in game to do whatever they want. There is a right path, one that leads to the actual showdown with the guy responsible, there is more than enough stuff to keep the player busy even if they ignore all the main story stuff. On my first path I missed a few plotlines entirely. Most of the events are reimaginings of events from the first game, only played out multiple times with increasing difficulty, like the repeated run ins with Benny & Clyde.

One of my favorite moments in any video game is when my cousin and I first got to the top of the school in the original River City Ransom and faced the Dragon twins. It was a hard fought battle. First, they knocked me down to one sliver of health on my health bar. So I moved away from the fight, taking quick shots and running away. Left fighting a two on one, my cousin didn’t last long. By the time I rushed back in, they had already knocked him out. That left me versus both Dragon twins, that epic Double Dragon music, with almost no health. Somehow, though grit and luck and a small amount of skill, I pulled through. I took out both of them, leaving us free to take on the last boss. It was amazing. River City Rival Showdown gave me a few a of those moments. The best one was when an army of delinquents attacks Kunio’s school and must stand alone to stop them. They don’t stop coming for almost ten real world minutes. It is epic and exhausting. I loved it.

I don’t know that I like Rival Showdown as much as River City Ransom, but for the first time one of its follow ups feels like it attempts to improve on the stuff I liked about River City Ransom. Most of them lose things like the rpg character building stuff or the free roaming elements. That delicate mix is what made the original game work so well and this is the first follow that really captures it.

Beaten

River City Rival Showdown — I burned through this game in a few days and have a post coming up for it. It is everything I wanted from it.

Ongoing

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild — With Xenoblade Chronicles 2 out, I felt the desire to go back to Xenoblade Chronicles X and finish up a lot of late game stuff, but apparently my nephew deleted my save at some point. Instead, I fired up Breath of the Wild again and completed a few shrines. I love the game so much, I could play it forever. I think I might try to clear out all of the shrines if I have the time.

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time — I’ve been told that this game is the black sheep of the Mario & Luigi series, but through the first half or so of the game it is closer to the peak of the series rather than the bottom. I like the M&L series, but the only weakness of this entry so far is that it lacks the joy of the great villains like Fawful or Bowser. Otherwise, it has been a blast.

Upcoming

Final Fantasy XV — I got this for Christmas and am eager to get to it.

Monster Hunter World — I’ve missed out on the beta demos for this game, but I couldn’t be more excited for a full console Monster Hunter game. Don’t get me wrong, I greatly enjoy the 3DS Monster Hunter games, but I first fell in love with the series with the WiiU version of Monster Hunter 3. I hope this is good.

Mario — I still intend to get to the rest of the series and finish this playthrough before starting a new series playthrough, like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest of Suikoden.

Beaten

Kindle Picross games – I’ve been playing some picross games on my Kindle before I go to bed and I’ve all but run out of free puzzles. They are fine.

Ongoing

Yakuza 0 – I did a handful of side stories with Majima, and played a ton of Outrun. I love this game, but I haven’t had the time to play it.

Terranigma – Small progress, see my consistent complaints about free time.

Etrian Odyssey V – This game has me stymied. It should be my wind down, spending twenty minutes exploring before I go to bed, but I can’t get through the end of the first stratum, where traditionally the increased options with the characters eases things up enough to be enjoyable rather than frustrating.

Upcoming

Mario – I am getting back to this, though there may be a couple holes in my series replay. I don’t know if I have a working Gamecube or Wii to play Mario Sunshine. I also don’t have ready access to a good copy of New Super Mario Bros Wii. The rest, though, are ready to do and I will get to them as soon as possible. And maybe by the time I’m done I will have access to Super Mario Odyssey.

River City Rival Showdown – This came out in November, but my package didn’t arrive in time for me to start. Once finals end, I am going to lay on my couch and play this straight through, so long as it lives up to its predecessor.

Beaten

Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionares’ Conspiracy – review here.

Chrono Trigger – read some ramblings here.

Ongoing

Yakuza 0 – When The Last Guardian didn’t grab me, I turned to the game for which I bought my PS4. That is an exaggeration, but this game, along with the remake Yakuza Kiwami and the upcoming Yakuza 6, were big factors in me finally moving to this generation of consoles. I am roughly a third of the way through this game and it is just as good as the previous game in the series, which was one of my favorites. It has condensed things down to just two playable characters, but it has kept the variety by giving each character multiple fighting styles. I love this series, and I am loving this game.

Etrian Odyssey V – I am in the tank for this series, and there is a lot of new stuff that I like, but I am in that early game section, about floor 4 to 5, when I still don’t know what my team is and the game feels like kind of a slog. I has the same problem with the first game, so much that I sold it back to gamestop, a move I would quickly regret. I know better now, but I haven’t yet broken through with this one and figured out what my team is and how it works. The game is great, though.

Terranigma – I am still in the introductory area, but I think I am going to like this. I loved Illusion of Gaia when I played that, and this is like that game with more solid mechanics.

Upcoming

River City Rival Showdown – With my limited time, it seems unlikely that I will even get to this game, but I can’t not get a remake of River City Ransom. Maybe if I am still being as stymied by Etrian Odyssey V when this game hits as I am now.

This should feel bigger.  Metroid had been gone a long time. From 2007’s Metroid Prime 3, all we saw from the series was the widely disliked (I only played the first hour or so before my Wii quit reading the disc and I’ve just never found my way back to it) Metroid: Other M in 2010 and last year’s ignored spin-off Federation Force.  That is essentially one real Metroid game, since Federation Force is a Samus-less spin-off, in a decade and that was easily the least liked game in the series.  Metroid: Samus Returns should feel like a bigger deal. It is a remake instead of an entirely new game, but it is a pretty extensive remake.  There are a few critical flaws, but for the most part this is the Metroid game that most people say they want.

If you are familiar with the series, not a lot of Samus Returns come as a surprise.  Samus sets down on a big empty planet and starts exploring. This time her mission is to eliminate all the Metroids on the planet, like a space exterminator.  You collect power ups and ammo or health expansions as you freely explore the landscape.  It is a metroidvania game.  For the most part, it is a really solid one.

The biggest problem I had with the game is its biggest new feature: the combat mechanics.  Samus Returns adds a counter system to its fighting and it is the worst.  Enemies charge and the player must counter and stun them, which makes them vulnerable.  This turns early game encounters with just about every enemy into waiting for it to charge, countering and then shooting.  It slows the pace to a crawl any time you encounter enemies.  Eventually your firepower increases enough that it is not necessary, but by that point the frustration is great.  The idea works in boss battles, though it mostly unlocks essentially QTEs where you can deal big damage.  It is just a bad mechanic that doesn’t really fit into the game.  Otherwise, Samus Returns is about as good a game as could be made out of the bones of the Gameboy original.

One thing I’ve always found underrated about the early Metroid games is how they actually tell a continuing story.  Most games, of the era and even now, do not do this well.  Mario is the same thing over and again, which is perfectly fine.  Resident Evil’s between game changes make no sense.  Final Fantasy changes its setting every game.  Metroid, Metroid II and Super Metroid tell one continuing tale.  In Metroid, Samus faces down the Space Pirates and encounters the metroids they were experimenting one.  After defeating the Space Pirates there, her next mission takes her to the metroid’s home planet to exterminate them, which leaves on surviving baby metroid, which she leaves at a research station.  That station is attacked by the Space Pirates and Samus is again called up to stop them.  Later games try to fit in between these games and are inessential.  Maybe Fusion fits better as an actual sequel than I’ve given it credit for, but three tell a complete story.

I didn’t love Samus Returns.  Those combat problems turned the early going into a slog before things finally opened up.  But I liked it well enough and I a damn glad to have Metroid back.  Hopefully next year’s Metroid Prime 4 is at least this good.

Beaten

Persona 5 – post coming soon

Metroid: Samus Returns – post coming soon, probably.  I don’t know how much I have to say.  This is pretty good.  I think the counter system is really fiddly and fighting in general in this game is tedious, but exploring alien worlds never gets old.

Mighty Gunvolt Burst –

I kind of bounced over to this as I finished Metroid and blew through the parts I had left, which was most of the game, in two nights.  This is the game that I think people wanted Mighty No 9 to be.  It is a very solidly made Mega Man clone.  It is also nothing more than a Mega Man clone. It does have the somewhat interesting customizable weapons, but the mechanics of it seem to exist only to force players to continually replay levels.  That isn’t really a bad thing, but it makes for some front loaded difficulty.  But other than that one wrinkle, it is just Mega Man.  Again, that really isn’t a bad thing; the NES Mega Man games are all excellent.  But I felt that Mighty No 9, flaws aside, was trying to be something a little more.  Just a little.  It was an evolution of Mega Man, while Mighty Gunvolt Burst is a bit of a reversion.  That doesn’t change the fact that Burst is a more enjoyable game to play.  It is well worth the price of admission.

 

 

Ongoing

The Last Guardian – I played this for about 10 minutes. I have nothing to say yet, but I expect to finish it before too long.

Legend of Legacy –

This is a blip, but the announcement that The Alliance Alive would be making it stateside prompted me to allow myself to be convinced to give this another go. I abandoned it two years ago because the game is inscrutable.  It is still inscrutable.  Level ups happen at random.  Skills are learned at random. It is all random.  The game goes out of its way to not tell how things work. I might stick it out, see if at some point it clicks, but so far it is just a neat experiment in negative space bullshit; that instead of filling a game with bullshit, it creates bullshit by absence of anything else.  At least it looks and sounds nice.

Upcoming

Yakuza 0 – I promised my brother I would get through The Last Guardian as fast as possible, so I started that back up after finishing Persona 5.  As soon as it is done, this goes back in.

Terranigma – I didn’t start this in September.  Honestly, other than spending one weekend getting through the rest of Persona 5 and about half an hour before bed each night playing Metroid I barely played any games.  I’ve got a fall break coming in October and will likely have some time to get to a game or two, with Terranigma near the top of my list.

Etrian Odyssey V – Its coming.  The demo was great, every preceding game was great. This will likely be my obsession for the rest of the year.

Lady Layton – I hope I can beat this in the 10 or so days between its release and EO5.  I’ve never not got right on a Layton game, this will be the same. But I really don’t have the time these days.