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ALSO this Review includes SPOILERS for River City Girls.

The archetypal Saturday Morning did not exist for me. Cartoons aired late in the day, always after school affairs. Roughly the time I stopped caring about outside, our household was firmly a family of anime watchers.
Anime took over Saturday tv-watching in turn, first with Sailor Moon. Still the term “Saturday Morning Cartoon” conjures a specific image of carefree, plot-light shows filled with action and melodrama.

“BEATEMUP” Is another word that also conjures up a specific image. One person (or two!) standing beneath the dim lights of a city, in front of them an army of violent punks willing to do anything to stop them from getting where they’re going. A concept that truly had to evolve with time. These days, the BEATEMUP has so changed from its original incarnations that if you’re playing one that resembles them it is only ever an intentional homage. The BEATEMUP cannot really exist without being locked in the past.

RIVER CITY GIRLS is WayForwards latest homage to a classic series. Traversing basically the same ground they did much earlier with DOUBLE DRAGON NEON (and including a helping of references to it) it is a sequel to the 1989 NES game River City Ransom. Or, it’s a western made sequel to the Japanese series that game was a translation of, Kunio Kun. A series that stuck around long after the American translations of it did.

Like Double Dragon Neon was, River City Girls is light and breezy – the perfect Saturday Morning videogame. In it, you play as two girls who’s boyfriends – the protagonists of River City Ransom get kidnapped. Much like their boyfriends had done previously, of course they set out to rescue them.

Misako and Kyoko are our two protagonists that absolutely overflow with personality. From the way one of them will take a selfie as her parry move, to the way Misako will stomp on Kyoko’s head to force her spirit back inside her body if one player dies. WayForward understands that the charm in a lot of BEATEMUPS came just as much from the character of the world and not just from pummeling badguys in rapid succession.

There is never a shortage of people’s asses to kick. I would even conjecture that in the time of the game, you can kick the whole ass of downtown River City. The multi-plane brawls of classic beatemups once again return, but I was actually surprised by how long River City Girls held my interest. There’s dozens of moves to uncover and combat seems to hinge not on unlocking the strongest combo you can, but by making them. Instead of each and every hit packing a screen-shattering weight, everything comes out fast and airy. Enemies even have a fun ‘bounce’ to them when you kick them against the border of the screen. There are always ways to set up interesting juggles, and it’s often the best way to deal high damage.

River City Girls is absolutely meant to be played with two people – as the story of Misako and Kyoko always unfolds in tandem. It’s a delight if you have someone else to share the experience with, as both girls are voice acted with tons of charm that matches the rest of the tone of the game.

River City Girls does not try to be anything more than an extended romp through a Saturday Morning Cartoon world. Every interaction in the story is filled with mid-90’s Anime OVA humor – puns and laughter at just how silly the whole premise is. People running the dozens of stores you’ll buy food items and more from are often references to other BEATEMUPS. Be on the lookout for the Marian from Double Dragon, so tired of being kidnapped she looks more ready to beat the shit out of someone than her ex-boyfriend.

Does it need to be, or even, can it? We’re decades into console generations filled with dozens of games that attempt to bring the BEATEMUP back. Some unsuccessfully and some successfully, but we as players seem always more than happy to indulge our nostalgia cravings. Is there anything wrong with wanting to romp through a city and punch literally everyone you meet in the face?

I don’t think so. River City Girls won’t entirely re-define the wheel: it is yet another nostalgic throwback to the BEATEMUPS of yore. I think the thing I love about it the most is that it can exist in the same world that we get games like The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa. A note-similar game that takes a very similar premise and uses it to meditate on being young.

For what it’s worth, River City Girls also contains the absolute best meta-joke in one of these throwback revivals of an older franchise. By the time you actually do save your boyfriends, they have no clue who Kyoko or Misako are. While it could read as an extended joke about both of them being losers – it’s also a joke at the expense of us. Of course they have no idea who Kyoko and Misako are, because River City Girls is a sequel to River City Ransom, a game where both Kunio and Riki had entirely different love interests.

That’s not enough really to play the game on, but hell, whatever.