River City Ransom is classic at its best! I loved this game since I was a small boy. You choose your player and difficulty level as you begin. You then begin your quest as a high school student out to save his girlfriend from the toughest gang in river city. In the process, you must fight through the various gang territories. Many items such as chains, sticks, pipes, and trash cans could be found along the way to help along in the process.
They have very lovely names such as the squids, frat boys, the jocks, and the home boys to just name a few. As you defeat these rugged gang members, they drop what seems to be their lunch money since it ranges from ten cents to five dollars per person beaten. You could pick this up and save up to buy many things. You must also find and beat the different leaders of the main gang in order to reach the end.
As you will lose life along the way, you can buy food to replenish your life and status. Some food you can carry along with you, and some are just for the moment. Speaking of status, the game was one of, or maybe, the game
that began using stats such as attack, defense, agility, stamina, power, speed, etc. The game also allows for power-ups found by reading books. As a younger child with the mentality of books not being a good thing, I never knew of this. It was not until later when I played this as a young adult when I learned of the skills acquired by reading books. Some books can just rebuild your stats while others could improve your abilities. Your abilities could include a huge increase in punch speed, kick speed, item speed, acrobatics, and others. I completely recommend doing this. After your book learned karate expert is ready, you may enter the high school and fight the many bullies in there to reach the roof where your girlfriend is held and finally save the day.
This is a long game to play in one sitting and in the original cartridge version there were no saves. But the game quality and the additions of stats, this new game was ahead of its time when it was originally released in the 80s.
