Game #1302: River City Girls Zero

  Who cares about Kunio-kun these days anyways, right?

 It was like... 10-15 years ago, I was surfin' the web for SNES roms, and I came across the news that Kunio-Kun something-something was finally translated, and knowing absolutely nothing about it I gave it a try. It was a beat'em up! I used to love beat'em ups, and it was edgy, and dark, with the characters starting out in JAIL over running over a woman. Well... the River City Girls are a thing now, so the game finally gets an official translation... and it's been horribly rebranded as River City Girls Zero. I loved the River City Girls, but I hate the rebranding, they did Kunio dirty.

 So, about this package... There is a pseudo save-state, but you have to save and quit to use it. There's a tiny art gallery with the instruction booklet it Japanese... and that's about it really. No rewind, no save states, no 'enhancements'. Don't even play the game in Easy mode, as it just stops midway through or somethin'. On the other hand, the game offers two translations, a more literal one, which even has Kunio calling his girlfriend a bitch(Japanese games were hardcore like that) or a more localized script. Either way, I think this is a pretty neat way of making both camps happy. I couldn't care less for a localized version that thought they could be funnier or more '''''topical''''' than the real script, even if it came across a bit rougher, but if you prefer something more colorful... go ahead! The game also features a new cringy intro song that breaks the fourth wall, but the animation looks pretty decent. There's a new intro and outro too featuring the River City Girls. I dunno, I didn't care for those.

 The game... hasn't aged very well. You can punch, kick and jump, and you get a third 'back' attack. You can couple all three attack buttons with Block to produce special moves. Kunio, Riki, Misako and Kyoko get their own special modes. You can press ZL to swap between characters at any time, but if any of them dies... it's back to the last checkpoint. It can be played with a second player. In between stages there are AWFUL bike-riding stages that control poorly, and if you touch a wall it's back to the start. Thank god the Save slot that can help you cheese them.

 What brings the game down is how unpredictable it feels. Sometimes hitboxes can feel off, and enemies can just attack out of your combos. It doesn't feel very fair, at all.... which makes the lack of a rewind feature, or any other enhancement to make the game more palatable, a very glaring omission.

 It hasn't aged very well, it's missing features that most modern ports of old games have and, to top it all off, it was horribly rebranded as a River City Girls game, when both Miyako and Kyoko play a very small part in.... but I'm still glad the game got an official release. Having official re-releases of old games is always OK in my book.... even rereleases as lackluster as this one.

 5.0