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.
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.
Random_Hajile
8 months ago