Written by Patrick Orquia
Title: River City Melee Mach!!
Developer: Arc System Works
Publisher: Arc System Works
Genre: Arcade, Fighting, Beat ‘em up
Number of Players: up to 4 players
Release Date: 10 October 2019
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Price: $13.99
Also Available On: Steam, PS4
I’m not much of a fan of the series. I even barely played the River City game on the NES Nintendo Switch Online app, so probably I’m not the right person to review this game. That being said, I’ll review this game on the sole basis of how much I liked the game, with all the ups and downs of it. So, here we go.
River City Melee Mach!! is not a new full-fledged entry in the franchise, but perhaps it can be described as the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate version of it. A River City Ultimate, if you will, though maybe not quite so. Either way, this game features 180 playable characters from across all the entries in the River City game series, plus additional new ones. The game comprises of 30 teams of 6 characters each, ranging from the usual high school teams to all-star collection ones. Again, I’m not familiar with these teams, but I did recognize a couple of ones: Jimmy and Billy from the Double Dragon games, who are part of the International team. Like Jimmy and Billy, each of the other characters has their own special moves and stats, and it up to you to utilize them of play whichever that fits your play style. Well, most of them are melee fighters, hence the title, but some of them can perform hadoukens and whatnot, so, really, there is certainly a character or two here for everybody.
The game is divided into different modes. Single Play is the story mode, where you can choose any of the 30 teams to play. Each team has its own story of sorts. Regardless of which one you choose, the goal is simple: make your win all of its matches. Each match consists of your team battling with 3 other CPU teams. You choose which of the 6 players on your roster to play, which the other teams will also do. Once characters are chosen, it’s fight time.
The goal during the match is to eliminate the opponents by depleting their HP. Since this is a fighting game, well, you fight other characters via punching, kicking, doing special moves like Jimmy’s and Billy’s signature spin kick, or using various objects available at your disposal. These objects can be bats, chains, boxing gloves, bowling balls, whathaveyou. You can either hit your opponents with them or throw said objects at them. You get corresponding points depending on what move you do, and the score is tallied at the end of the match. You may think that you can just avoid getting hit and let the others duke it out and then fight whoever is left but that is actually not advisable. Since there is a scoring system aside from knocking out opponents, you may lost a match and your team may still end up winning in the end, if they score more. By the way, there may be multiple rounds per match, and the HP level of your chosen character carry over to the next one, but you are given the chance to choose a different player at the start of the succeeding rounds so you can use a fresh character with full HP.
If none of the teams appeal to you, you can pick and choose individual characters and assemble a dream team of your own. This doesn’t guarantee victory, but at least you’ll have a better chance at it. Or if you think you’re tough enough, you can try the endless battle mode, where you get to try to defeat as many opponents as possible until you yourself gets beaten
If you have some friends in the room with you, you can play local multiplayer with up to 3 other people. This could be a great party game if you and your friends like beating up others, at least in video games. You can set up you own match rules to maximize you enjoyment. Or if you have no friends, you can connect online and play with other players from around the globe, and probably get beaten up, if you are like me.
Overall, River City Melee Mach!! is decently good game, especially if you play it with friends. The story mode doesn’t really have much story to boast for any of the teams and it goes down to having to beat up your opponents, either with you bare hands or using a great assortment of objects. For its price point, there is plenty of content to enjoy in this game. Beat up or shut up, and win it all, that’s the name of the game.
REPLAY VALUE: High
PROS
CONS
I’m not much of a fan of the series. I even barely played the River City game on the NES Nintendo Switch Online app, so probably I’m not the right person to review this game. That being said, I’ll review this game on the sole basis of how much I liked the game, with all the ups and downs of it. So, here we go.
River City Melee Mach!! is not a new full-fledged entry in the franchise, but perhaps it can be described as the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate version of it. A River City Ultimate, if you will, though maybe not quite so. Either way, this game features 180 playable characters from across all the entries in the River City game series, plus additional new ones. The game comprises of 30 teams of 6 characters each, ranging from the usual high school teams to all-star collection ones. Again, I’m not familiar with these teams, but I did recognize a couple of ones: Jimmy and Billy from the Double Dragon games, who are part of the International team. Like Jimmy and Billy, each of the other characters has their own special moves and stats, and it up to you to utilize them of play whichever that fits your play style. Well, most of them are melee fighters, hence the title, but some of them can perform hadoukens and whatnot, so, really, there is certainly a character or two here for everybody.
The game is divided into different modes. Single Play is the story mode, where you can choose any of the 30 teams to play. Each team has its own story of sorts. Regardless of which one you choose, the goal is simple: make your win all of its matches. Each match consists of your team battling with 3 other CPU teams. You choose which of the 6 players on your roster to play, which the other teams will also do. Once characters are chosen, it’s fight time.
The goal during the match is to eliminate the opponents by depleting their HP. Since this is a fighting game, well, you fight other characters via punching, kicking, doing special moves like Jimmy’s and Billy’s signature spin kick, or using various objects available at your disposal. These objects can be bats, chains, boxing gloves, bowling balls, whathaveyou. You can either hit your opponents with them or throw said objects at them. You get corresponding points depending on what move you do, and the score is tallied at the end of the match. You may think that you can just avoid getting hit and let the others duke it out and then fight whoever is left but that is actually not advisable. Since there is a scoring system aside from knocking out opponents, you may lost a match and your team may still end up winning in the end, if they score more. By the way, there may be multiple rounds per match, and the HP level of your chosen character carry over to the next one, but you are given the chance to choose a different player at the start of the succeeding rounds so you can use a fresh character with full HP.
If none of the teams appeal to you, you can pick and choose individual characters and assemble a dream team of your own. This doesn’t guarantee victory, but at least you’ll have a better chance at it. Or if you think you’re tough enough, you can try the endless battle mode, where you get to try to defeat as many opponents as possible until you yourself gets beaten
If you have some friends in the room with you, you can play local multiplayer with up to 3 other people. This could be a great party game if you and your friends like beating up others, at least in video games. You can set up you own match rules to maximize you enjoyment. Or if you have no friends, you can connect online and play with other players from around the globe, and probably get beaten up, if you are like me.
Overall, River City Melee Mach!! is decently good game, especially if you play it with friends. The story mode doesn’t really have much story to boast for any of the teams and it goes down to having to beat up your opponents, either with you bare hands or using a great assortment of objects. For its price point, there is plenty of content to enjoy in this game. Beat up or shut up, and win it all, that’s the name of the game.
REPLAY VALUE: High
PROS
- Retro 8-bit pixel art style from the original River City games
- A collection of music from the past River City games
- A good collection of stages with various objects to be used as weapons
- 180 characters with more than 250 special moves to perform
- Good, responsive controls and buttons can be remapped
- Ideal for playing in handheld mode
- More ideal to be played in local multiplayer
CONS
- Bland story
- Repetitive gameplay
- Matches during story mode cannot be paused or saved between matches
- Takes some time to connect with other players online and some lags here and there can be experienced
RATING: 4/5 Beatdown all-stars
No comments:
Post a Comment