PLOT: Arc System Works presents the next installment of the time-honored River City franchise with a beat-em-up inspired by China’s Journey to the West novel.
REVIEW: It’s been ages since I first found my way to Technōs Japan‘s River City Ransom, a side-scrolling beat-em-up designed specifically for the Nintendo Entertainment System. I didn’t own the game, but my neighbor Frank did, and we played the daylights out of it. Fast-forward to today, and the latest game in the long-running River City franchise, River City Saga: Journey to the West, is giving players a new playground to exorcise their button-mashing demons while putting a fun spin on China’s time-honored “Journey to the West” novel.
River City Saga: Journey to the West feels like an old-school beat-em-up with a smattering of RPG elements and a rouguelite twist to keep players coming back for more. While the game retains a late-1980s visual aesthetic, the 8-bit characters are crisp and polished, looking like a lovechild of River City Ransom and Super Dodge Ball, both developed by Technōs Japan. The characters pop against the game’s muted backgrounds, bringing the action to the forefront. For some, the depth of field could be challenging to interpret, but once you get a feel for the movement and dash maneuvers, you’ll be okay. While the hand-drawn art style during story beats isn’t exactly to my taste, the character models are expressive, colorful, and go out of their way to showcase lavish outfits and accouterments that give each a distinct look while showcasing fashions from Chinese culture. In the game, you play as either Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, or Sha Wujing, each with different play styles and forms of attack. The levels are broken up into small chunks, making for quick progression once you’ve leveled up a bit and mastered the art of the dash. Be mindful of traps, though. They’ll mess you up if you’re not careful.
Do you like to read? I hope so, because River City Saga: Journey to the West is “talky” and verbose in ways I did not expect. While drawing inspiration from long-established Chinese lore, Journey to the West expresses its personality primarily through lengthy dialogue and text via special menus that flesh out the story. I did enjoy the writing, which is peppered with plenty of humor to keep the narrative snappy, though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed in being served the story repeatedly upon death. Revisiting aspects of the game is standard practice for a rouguelite, but because there’s so much of it in Journey to the West, I quickly found myself skipping sections I’d already read to get back to where I was in the story. Thankfully, there’s a button to help you do that. Still, there was something about the narrative-heavy reset of Journey to the West that felt harsher than something like Absolum or Hades II.
Journey to the West features a lot of flashy fisticuffs thanks to its evolving combat system. While the wind-up to the good upgrades is something of a slow and perplexing burn, the abilities eventually feel powerful, and each upgrade feels significant. That said, I found myself feeling frustrated by the lack of information regarding my upgrade path. More often than not, when I would earn the chance to tap an NPC to “bless” my party with new abilities, there would be no description regarding what I was signing on for with each upgrade. In other words, I’d get the name of the character blessing my character, but I didn’t know what that blessing would do until after I chose it. This aspect of the game made it difficult to plot my progression or know how to spec my character. Don’t get me wrong, I like surprises in my game as much as the next person, but Journey to the West makes aspects of your upgrade path feel like you’re picking a name out of a hat while blindfolded.
Despite the questionable presentation of the blessings, the game feels good to play. Yes, the controls are a bit sticky, and waiting to complete an attack to dash out of the way of another one feels like a cheap way to lose precious health. Still, I felt like a badass anytime I stepped onto the field, and the game is relentless in dishing out enemies to dispatch with swift attacks, charge moves, and spells that add a significant amount of splash to the presentation. The three playable characters offer variety to approaching combat-heavy sections of the game, though the screen can often become crowded with effects, especially during boss fights. I navigated the busy screen fireworks okay, but unseasoned players might feel lost in the relentless tornado of elemental spells, raining of arrows, and glowing oncoming attack warnings.
Another aspect of the game that could throw players off is the music. While spirited and somewhat jaunty, a lot of the tracks sounded similar to one another, at least in the early parts of the game. That said, they are catchy. The soundtrack is a fun mix of chiptune goodness mixed with a dash of traditional Chinese instrumentation and flair. I mention the repetitiveness because it stood out. Still, nevertheless, I found myself bopping along to the beat while putting the hurt on hordes of enemies with my fists of fury and spectacular summons.
River City Saga: Journey to the West is a fun beat-em-up with a surprisingly large amount of depth if you can get past a few of the game’s shortcomings. The cast of characters shines with personality, though you’ll certainly find favorites among the bunch. There’s more than enough here to warrant the game’s more-than-generous $20 prince tag, and if you’re a River City fan from back in the day, it’s a blast to see how the franchise has evolved over the generations.