A newer series in the Kunio franchise that has some elements and characters from the SNES beat em up Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-tachi no Banka (or River City Girls 0 being the name for its recent English release). This time starring only Misako and Kyoko until you finish the game and unlock Kunio and Riki. Each character has their own animations and moves to unlock but the gameplay between the remains similar with a block and parry button, dash attacks, light and heavy attack, jump attacks, and a variety of special moves that lower your special meter that recharges on its own fairly rapidly. You can also find a variety of weapons lying around. While it is a linear game plot wise there are RPG elements where you can go back and forth between areas fighting random enemies on the map for XP and money. As you level up stats will increase and you can learn or have access to new moves you can buy at a dojo, money can also be spent on food items that can be stored in your inventory for healing, and you can buy mostly near useless accessories that you can equip two of for barely noticeable passive benefits. Like some of the old Kunio games, like River City Ransom/Street Gangs outside of Japan, the first time you eat a new food item you will also increase your stats.
It's a fun, responsive, well animated beat em up with some good music, funny story moments that reference older titles, and can be good for co-op. Though it doesn't do anything too interesting for the genre and with a lot of palette swapped enemies it can last a bit too long for a beat em up. One somewhat interesting feature is that the last enemy in a wave can surrender to you and you can then recruit and summon them to perform an attack when a meter charges, after the attack they will either leave or take a hit from an enemy. They can withstand three hits before you have to recruit a new ally or you can replace them when another person surrenders. The actual attack they do tends to not be that useful and be a bit awkward to aim since they need to jump on screen and do their attack in time to connect with someone. Not really that well implemented but something different.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1741715555562963064
It's a fun, responsive, well animated beat em up with some good music, funny story moments that reference older titles, and can be good for co-op. Though it doesn't do anything too interesting for the genre and with a lot of palette swapped enemies it can last a bit too long for a beat em up. One somewhat interesting feature is that the last enemy in a wave can surrender to you and you can then recruit and summon them to perform an attack when a meter charges, after the attack they will either leave or take a hit from an enemy. They can withstand three hits before you have to recruit a new ally or you can replace them when another person surrenders. The actual attack they do tends to not be that useful and be a bit awkward to aim since they need to jump on screen and do their attack in time to connect with someone. Not really that well implemented but something different.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1741715555562963064