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When we first heard the news about River City Ransom 2, we were overjoyed.  It was one of those must play games back on the Nintendo NES and the Nintendo Famicom when it was first released.  The game was a tremendous success in the Japan, spawning severla take-offs of the game, but never a truly official sequel.  While it was a tremendous hit in Japan, later getting ported to the X68000 as well as the PC Engine, it never made it as a first class title in the USA.  But it has turned in to one of those cult classics that you just have to play, and you'll be better off for having played it.

The story of the game is actually filled with lots of humor and this humor is what makes the game such a great game to play.  In the game the sotry follows two friends in High School.  Alex and Ryan.  These two friends have to battle through the streets of River City so that they can save Cyndi (who is Ryan's girlfriend) from the evil villian in the games.  Slick (the said evil villain) has Cyndi, and only Alex and Ryan can save her from his grasp.

Saving Cyndi won't be easy though.  The have to battle other gangs of students throughout the mission.  The names of the gangs also put a smile on our faces.  Gangs that go by names like "The Generic Dudes", The Jocks, The Squids, and the Frat guys are just some of them.  And what gang would be complete without a gand leader... As such, when Alex and Ryan fight their way through the underlings in the gang, they then have to fight the Gang Leaders themselves.

River City Ransom had a different name in Japan.  It was actually called Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari.  The game play is similar to other Technos games that were huge hits at the time.  Games like Renegade and Super Dodge Ball.  The game eventually had another version released on the Gameboy Advance.  River City Ransom EX had some updated graphics as well as some other new features, but the basis of the gameplay and the characters are remained the same.  The game was popular and critically loved because it wasn't just an Beat'em up style game, thought it mainly had those elements, but it also had some action role-playing elements too and was a non-linear game, meaning players could explore the games open world, without being set on a path that they had to follow every step of the way.

It looks like the game is set to get an official sequel in the form of River City Ransom 2 and the KickStarter campaign to fund the making of the game was a success, having reached it's initial goal of $200,000.00  What this means for old and new fans alike is an opportunity to play a game the was a must have back in the days of 8-bit home consoles.  

For those of you who have never heard of this game, or were not around back when the 8-bit version was a huge hit, you can always enjoy the game through emulation (though you must own the original cartridge in order to play the digital version of it) on your Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo 3DS XL.  nesDS is the emulator of choice for the very best classic NES gaming, as it has the very best support in terms of full compatibility for virtually any game.  It's available for download in our 3DS homebrew section.

River City Ranson set the stage for a number of site scrolling beat'em ups, both back in the days of the Nintendo NES as well as future games that game since come to pass.

The video below is a teaser for River City Ransom 2, and it looks like their Kickstarter campaign received the funding they needed in order to make this game a reality.