Played Co-op. Not the improvement on the first game I was hoping for. RCG1, while not nearly some kind of original or inventive masterpiece, at least was still charming to me when it first got released. But I still had some issues with it, mostly relating to combat. And with the increased pricetag of RCG2, I was hoping for a much improved game, but that did not end up being the case. The novelty has worn off and I actually had a worse experience with this game than I had with RCG1.

Besides a few balancing adjustments (for example, not losing half your money upon death), there aren't any new additions to the game that added any value to my experience. Mostly it comes down to me that for a beat-em-up, the combat is just not good.

While there is a tiny bit more variety in the enemy AI compared to the first, you still approach and deal with every enemy the exact same way. You can just punch-punch-heavy any enemy and it will knock them down without any risk. Don't face them during their wake-up animation, and just stand below or behind them and do the combo again. Outside of bosses I never changed my playstyle, because this simple combo will just always work.

Bosses are the most significant downgrade compared to the first game. They love wasting your time with overly long attacks/animations where you avoid their attacks and can't hit them. After you've beaten the second boss, the game never gets any more difficult. Even the final boss we beat on our first try, and I was sure another phase was about to happen but instead the credits started scrolling by.

And there are a few more other issues i have, including:
- Basic movement has inertia.
- Throws are useless. You can only do them when enemies are dizzy, and they don't give i-frames.
- Enemies feel like they take much longer to kill compared to most other beat-em-up or belt scroller. And since they aren't really a threat it mostly ends up being boring.
- Enemies will just walk into your attacks, instead of trying to actually break your combo.

I'll keep it at that for the beat-em-up part of my review. They've expanded the RPG side some more. The map feels like it's a lot bigger, and more interconnected. With new sidequests and NPCs that will help you fight in exchange for some money. I ended up never using these much, since they weren't neccisary, but it does add more charm to the game.

The presentation for the game is mostly on par with RCG1. I prefer the OST of the original, but the sprites and other visuals are still pretty nice. Personally I wish the artstyle was more consistent across gameplay and UI, but I understand this is now the 'modern' look people have come to expect from retro-inspired indie games.

The writing is really not my cup of tea. The humor they're trying to go for feels really predictable, cliché and obnoxious. And the main characters feel like they're more settling in their own stereotype than they were in RCG1. Kyoko is now just an complete idiot in this game, and Misako is significantly more hot-headed.


Having said of all that, the new additions like new playable characters, minigames, and some sidequests don't really do it for me. The moment-to-moment experience is just too dull. It's not like if they made RCG3 with more content, and RCG4 with even more content, that eventually I'd give it a 5 star rating. It's not like I'd ever consider some boring Ubisoft sandbox to be a 5/5 because it has a lot of content™. And same here.

Kinda just the first game again but longer. They tried expanding on the gameplay to include more air combos, but I thought they could've gone further with it. The bosses were also kinda worse in this one with some being incredibly annoying. Aside from that though, the stuff that worked from the first game is all still here. Lots of fun presentation with the sprite-work and the music. The combat is also generally pretty fun but does start to get more repetitive due to the longer length. Still ended up enjoying it and Kyoko's room-temperature IQ continues to be a menace.

A really nice beat em up with a lot of different characters that actually feels different.

The ability to both level up and buy new moves makes the gameplay more varied, as the best combos you can make will evolve and sometimes completely change based on what your prefered moves are.

It kind of falls with all the backtracking it forces you to do, which adds 2 or 3 hours of empty gameplay. The enemies are not varied enough to keep it interesting in the streets.

Overall one of the best beat em up I played recently.

I bought River City Girls 2 day 1 but had to wait 6 months for a patch that made it run at the framerate advertised in the trailers without input lag. This unfortunately was foreshadowing for the overall quality of the game as a whole.

Despite its many issues, my friend and I very much enjoyed playing the first River City Girls game together. Its incredible soundtrack and beautiful pixel art really won us over, enough to look past the mediocre writing and repetitive gameplay. Thankfully, the short length kept it mostly fun and rarely tedious, in general making it a delightful cooperative experience.

RCG2 is more of the same, with "more" meaning "2-3 times longer" and "same" meaning "assets reused 1:1." The actual new content is sparse, failing to justify the sequel's increased length and higher pricetag. You will trudge through the exact same environments from RCG1 again with minimal alterations, then once again when you're saddled with several interminable collectathon side quests, then yet again when the devs decide to further pad out gameplay near the end of the main quest. There are a total of 2.5 new areas this go-round, with the rest being recycled from its predecessor. You better believe that most of the objectives, movesets, and weapons are more or less copy-pasted from the original as well. There are two new playable characters, at least.

So with River City Girls 2 gameplay-wise being a sequel in the same sense Overwatch 2 is a sequel, you're mostly playing this one for the aesthetics and, uh, story. Writing was certainly not RCG1's strong suit, but its script was downright Shakespearean compared to whatever they were going for here. 1 was cringey and a little too mean-spirited but ultimately all it amounted to was harmless, cheesy fun - until the ending, which, in trying to go for an obscure meta joke, managed to be insulting to both the characters and players alike. Everyone hated it, to the point where WayForward eventually patched a new "true" ending in to replace it. So, of course, 2 quintuples down on the miserable meta shit. You can't go 15 minutes without a character breaking the 4th wall to talk about the HUD or wink at the audience about video game tropes they're engaging in. The titular River City Girls (and their boyfriends/girlfriends because the other player characters don't have unique dialogue) no longer feel like people living in a world because there are absolutely no attempts to make their "second adventure" feel organic in-universe. Everything is a joke about how much better this game is than the first one, all plot beats now exist solely as set ups to obvious, obnoxious punchlines. This is further compounded by the new vocal tracks; in the first game, all these insert songs were sung in-universe by Noize, with lyrics relevant to her characterization. Here, they're all sung from the perspective of the bosses, I guess, despite the composition and vocals being exactly like the ones from the original, and Noize still being a famous popstar making music in River City. Again, credibility and believability are sacrificed for the sake of being meta.

The narrative doesn't even try to make sense or have any urgency, but that's okay because it means we get to endure an entire level built around "millennials always on they damn phones" "satire," complete with a head-scratching "social media bad" anthem playing in the background. Meanwhile, there are many, many instances of characters referencing things that either haven't happened yet or never actually happen at all, such as when they complain about their rubber mask disguises being hard to breathe in (they aren't wearing any) or lament helping someone who betrayed(?) them (they haven't even met her yet and she's not part of the main story). I can only assume the script and voice acting were created for an earlier build of the game and were never changed after a project overhaul.

The music is still pretty good, though almost all the best tracks are, of course, taken directly from the first game. That said, it does somehow manage to outdo the original's L33tStr33t Boys-style credits theme with a frown-inducing track that is, of course, about how you just beat a video game and it was a lot of fun wasn't it you really liked the game you just beat didn't you? Maybe that would've been cute in 2007? I dunno.

Anyway, I know it seems like I hated this game, and honestly I kind of did, but it's fine. It's serviceable. It's still fun to play, nice to look at, and pleasant to listen to (the music, anyway). There are a few quality of life improvements (EXP share) but just as many downgrades (loading screens every room). I hate being one of those guys who says things like "this sequel should have been a $15 DLC for the first one," but this sequel should have been a $15 DLC for the first one.

River City Girls 2 improves on the previous game and I think it's one of the more fun beat em ups I have played recently. There are some minor annoyances that I ran into, game glitched out a few enemies, had them stuck in a wall. I don't like not being able to save anywhere either. It's not that hard, but running to a safe house every time when I need to quit is a bit annoying.

Combat feels good! I really loved Marian's move set. She can absolutely destroy everything with ease.

Story is just as silly as last time. You aren't getting a masterclass of narrative but it works for the game and that's all it needs.

So long story short, I liked the game, hope they make more!

Had a great time playing this on the 'Tough' difficulty with a friend over the course of a month or so. The decision to make enemies easier to juggle really amped up the combat by making combos much more feasible to pull off when compared to the first game (this is especially fun in couch co-op when you can work together to juggle piles of enemies for 10+ seconds). There are numerous improvements to player choice/freedom as well including multiple playable characters (each of which sporting a distinct playstyle), a greatly increased roster of assists, and far more accessories that are tempting to experiment with. The writing remains as cartoonishly charming as the original and the soundtrack is full of earworms that I've found myself humming weeks after completing the game.

I do have some gripes with RCG2 with the primary being that some of the bosses felt underwhelming/incomplete and occasionally downright frustrating (pretty much just the helicopter boss toward the end). I also found it a pretty strange decision to have some of the in-game secrets/quest items not appear until they were triggered by an NPC later in the game as it required a lot of unneeded backtracking when trying to 100% all of the side quests (though admittedly this created a great opportunity to try out new characters while running around completing these toward the end of the game). Finally, it would've been nice if the various mini-games that occur throughout the course of the game were multiplayer as it felt odd to have one player sit and watch for 30-40 seconds while the other got to play, but this only happens maybe 3-4 times so its not the end of the world by any means.

TL;DR: A great hang-out game with a few flaws that can definitely be overlooked due to how fun everything else is. I would 100% only play this multiplayer with a buddy as I can not imagine single player being nearly as fun.

A fun beat em up that is raised up by wonderful characters and humorous writing. This game lets you play as more than just Misako and Kyoko but I couldn’t bring myself to swap to anyone else because they are such fun characters. They bounce off each other really well with great comedic timing/writing, and it plays well into the plot with them fighting off the Yakuza who have taken over River City (and their school). The comic cutscenes are fun and the general presentation is great, there are so many wonderful songs that uplift the game and vibe so much. The game play is good but not the greatest beat ‘em up I’ve played, it can be a bit annoying with how often you get knocked prone, but I like the light rpg system and how having each food healing item for the first time increases your stats permanently. I do wish it kept the whole cast the same level to encourage swapping characters but that’s a small nitpick, I would like to play again in coop one day and try someone else just to see how different they play. Ultimately, if you were a fan of the first one or just want a funny adventure I think this game is well worth the time.

What a fantastic sequel! This game went from 2-player co-op to 4-player co-op! It even gave Marian from Double Dragon some awesome character development! The music is fantastic and there was plenty of comedy to go around. There are some boss fights that are annoying. This could be me not understanding what to do. The game is roughly twice the length of the first one. Towards the end of that, I was ready to be done. When I realized I was about to start the end section of this game, I felt like this was the right length. This means they kept the pace going very well.

more of the same, but also just more in general. having played these games back-to-back, the improvements on the gameplay in this were felt immediately. comboing mobs was so much more fluid and satisfying. there are actual air combos now, and your actions can be more easily linked by super moves on the ground and in the air. fighting and building up the hit count was an absolute blast. also, assists actually work now. for some reason they were super finicky and unresponsive in the first game, but i had no issues with that here.

unfortunately, the guard break feels kind of janky. there's no way (that i found) to work a guard break into a combo because you've gotta stop what you're doing to hold the heavy button and break the flow of combat. it's great for sending floored enemies up into the air, however. on the player side, guarding seems to be useless for the most part. might just be my unga bunga brain using offense as the best defense.

all the charm from the first game is here, including the hit or miss humor. the map is somewhat expanded on and has a few additional areas with a good number of new characters to interact with. there are now player hideouts spread across the map that let you to respawn in whatever part of the city you died in, allowing you to avoid some backtracking.

great game. had a ton of fun turning my brain off and mashing away.

It's a serviceable sequel in gameplay only. Story wise this could be the cringiest thing I've ever played. And laziest. You have 6 characters, but Wayforward only wrote for 2 of them, so the other 4 have the same personality as the main 2 girls. The dialogue contradicts itself constantly because the other personalities are thrown right out the window. Legit, the 2 boss characters that join your team have complete personality overhauls once they become playable. A plotline even goes unresolved!

And how many times are we gonna have a punchline where the joke is "we are in a video game"? Y'all ain't Deadpool, knock that shit off.

Before I forget, the loading. God damn the loading. There's a loading screen for every room. Every. Single. Room. And that shit ain't short! I had the game crash on me too. It's honestly astounding why that's even the way it is. I legit made sure to play the game a year late because I wanted these problems ironed out, but I guess that's too much to ask for.

So while the gameplay has improved, the overall presentation takes a step back, making me love River City Girls 1 much more. If there's gonna be a River City Girls 3, please. Get writers who don't suck a fat one and are willing to write for more characters than just Kyoko and Misako.