(My Steam Review)

TL;DR: Play River City Girls 1 before this. It's the better game. If you really enjoy part 1, maybe part 2 is something for you. It's just the same.

I love RCG 1. I speedrun it for quite a while and was super excited about the second installment of the series. I'm not completely disappointed in what we got, but this games has some serious quality issues and lacks some attention to details.

But the good things first:
- This game is what most people want, the same as part 1, but more.
- I enjoyed returning to River City, the overall reinterpretation of the city is nice.
- The soundtrack is very good again (I love the basketball theme)
- New characters, new move sets, fine-tuned fighting system. Everything perfect.
- New enemies are ok.
- Some minigames are fun.
- Online Multiplayer (although not tested yet) is a nice addition.
- Even more Crossover references to Double Dragon made me lough so hard.
- I played on PC and Steamdeck and everything just works.

--

Here are the issues I have with the game. (Let's not talk about the FPS thing, because this will be fixed in the future):

- The story started well, but fell flat at the end. I couldn't care less for the story and the ending at some point in the game.

- Most of the side quest are just boring. Collect some 22 fluffy whatever here, collect 22 whatever there. Make some selfies.

- All Boss Fights (except maybe the first one) are boring as hell (In really enjoyed the boss fights in RCG 1, as they are more creative and challenging) as in RCG 2). Here the fights aren't balanced at all, the enemies are missing funny or surprising attacks or any nice details. Except for "more bullets and faster" there isn't any real difference in the different phases during the fights. What also bothers me: The "opening VERSUS screens" are just a cheap quick and dirty work and missing the attention to detail which we got in part 1. This makes me just sad.

- The lack of attention to detail in present all over the game. Of course, we get a hell lot of reused sprites in this game. I'm fine with it. But man, I really don't enjoy some of the super stupid color pallets some enemies have.

- Revisiting the city is nice, but some changes to the city layout are strange. While exiting the Aquarium in Part 1 results in entering the hotel, now you end up on the beach at the weightlifting area? Why? Again, just some details got wrong.

- Hell: The credits and the credit sequence are a complete mess. Ugly as hell, what even is the art style here? What are those fonts, why is everything so fast. You should celebrate yourself at this point.

- I hate some of the new voices of existing characters. I'm too used to the original voices of part 1. (Sorry to you folks, still love you)

- White subtitles during a black-and-white comic sequence are not readable! ;-)

- Please fix those loading times. A game like this shouldn't have so many loading zones. This has to be improved. And man... these loading screen this the super huge text are just ugly. Please fix this (although I enjoy the loading-fighting-sprite thing)

- The German localization is all over the place. At some places, the text just runs off the screen.

In the end, for me, this game fells rushed for a release. Just one or two more rounds of QA and this game would be so much better. Most of my issues are solvable, but at this point I strongly recommend new player to start playing RCG1, if they have never played the game. Part 2 is just more of it, but in questionable quality.

To those who love Part 1, enjoy part 2.

Reviewed on Dec 17, 2022


1 Comment


I agree on the loading times. It got me so frustrated that I didn’t want to do the other side quest and rushed to the end.