I feel like I've been all over the place with this franchise with the ones I've played. I think I've been wanting to play this one since 2021 but was waiting for the rerelease only to end up not playing said rerelease. Guess I'm very late to playing this game.

This is your usual beat em up of the 16 bit variety. It seems to follow more of what the original Arcade game did which is probably why it has Shin in the title. You can play as Kunio and Riki going through the story and beating up bad guys. Two girls named Misako and Kyoko will join you on this adventure. This game is surprisingly very story heavy. I mean I guess Kunio-kun games usually have story but there is A LOT here.

You can punch/slap with the Y button, jump with B, kick with A, hit behind you with X, and guard with the triggers. You have a good variety of moves past that like stomping on someone doing down and A. You can even do a special move if you press one of the 4 buttons after guarding. It all sounds nice but sadly by the second half the game gets a lot less fun and just becomes me spamming my special moves because it's the best way to minimize damage.

You'll be going through many areas fighting a boss at times or maybe even a couple of times so the look of every level is pretty unique and varied. You sometimes even do purely 2D sections and have some interesting setpieces like fighting on a ferris wheel. There are also a few times where you'll ride a motorcycle fighting enemies and avoiding the side of the walls. It's alright but it's nothing outstanding either.

In fact this game is not really as good as I wish it could be sadly. I feel like by about past the hour mark maybe a little further it just gets dull. Like I said the game gets very repetitive and the bosses are the low point of the game by far. I only didn't get mad at them because I at least had easy strategies to win but that also makes the game dull. Maybe it's better in co-op? One other annoying thing is that if one character dies then it's game over instead of just having them all be down. Thankfully you do have infinite continues and a super easy password to remember. There's also an easy mode though don't pick it as it'll stop you from completing the game.

The game graphically looks pretty nice. I like a lot of the sprite art and the looks for the areas are good too. The mode 7 for the motorcycle levels sure are mode 7 graphics. They just kind of exist for me. The music is also just there for me, idk maybe some others like it more then me but I didn't care too much for it.

I could probably go further in detail with this game but I think I'll stop there. I really want to love the game because it has a lot of good work put into it but it just didn't hit the mark for me. I will say at least the story is entertaining though there's a lot of swearing which was weird. The game was meant to get a sequel on the PS1 that would have a crossover with Double Dragon but that was sadly never put past the draft. A modern game called River City Girls would sort of act like a sequel for this game as when this was released they called it River City Girls Zero here. I've never bought that release so I can't say it's worth it but it certainly ain't making me pay $15. I gotta say though before I end I just wanna say this, playing this game and seeing what happens to Misako and Kyoko kind of makes me hate the ending to RCG not gonna lie...

This game, recently rereleased as "River City Girls Zero", is a passable beatemup I suppose, but it's a bit dry as far as gameplay goes and it's quite overlong. I liked that you could switch between four characters for a chunk of the game, but they don't really differ much in playstyle and so it's more like having four health bars. They decide to cut you back down to just two in the home stretch, though, which was annoying. Also annoying was the lack of health bars on enemies and even bosses, though I hear that is pretty common throughout the Kunio-kun games.

Though I much prefer the off-beat personality showcased here over River City Girls' internet poisoned dialogue and frustrating cameos, it's not much of a better game in other regards either. I guess I'm just not as hard on it because the latter was like only four years ago and by then it should just be well known how to not make a shitty beatemup if you're going to make one to begin with. I still can't really get over how disappointing that one was. Fucking WayForward. I hope they burn.