Ah the spring sport festival. The one day of the year where students in a class band together to play against other classes and prove that they are the best in their grade. This is also the time of the year where for some reason the underdogs and nobodies of the classroom somehow become the heroes and win it all, or at least go the distance when no one expects them to do that. This sports festival is not just any sports festival. Its the River City Super Sports Challenge ~All Stars Special~. It has been about six years since the last River City game that featured Kunio-kun and has friends, and now they are back, ready to compete to see which school is the best. Whats even better is that players will get to experience the sports festival with none other than that hot blooded high schooler of Nekkestu High, Kunio-kun. Can Kunio-kun and the students of Nekkestu High not only win the sports festival, but also show that they are ready for a come back? Students to the starting line!!
Go Go Nekkestu!!
Story let’s you be apart of Kunio’s gang- In previous Kunio games you were always playing as Kunio-kun, his rival Riki or one of many students that attend Nekkestu High when playing in a sports game. But in River City Super Sports Challenge ~All Stars Special~ for the very first time, you can join in on the fun as a member of Kunio’s gang in the story mode. As a part of Kunio’s gang, you can customize how you look, your uniform and special attacks.
Retro graphics and music- While the latest Kunio-kun game for the DS used updated graphics, River City Super Sports Challenge ~All Stars Special~ keeps it retro and uses graphics that are from the NES version of the game. While the updated graphics are nice, this is how most people remember Kunio-kun and is probably more recognizable. Also the original music is used in the game and its a big dose of nostalgia to hear these tracks untouched. One of my favorite tracks in the game is the Dragon Twins’ theme or more commonly known as the Double Dragon theme.
Online and offline multiplayer- Since the game takes after a sports festival, it would make sense to have multiplayer, both on and offline modes. Up to four players can control a school of their choice (or creation, which will be touch upon next) to compete in set number of games and rounds.
Team/student customization- If however you do not want to be a part of Kunio’s school, want to join a different school or create a new school team the game lets you customize the teams and students that make up the teams. You can even put students from other schools in the same team.
Customize festival events- Once you and your friends have decided on teams and their customized looks, its time to pick the festival events. River City Super Sports Challenge ~All Stars Special~ lets you customize a playlist of event that makes up the sports festival. This ranges from having items on or off, the length that players can stay in area before getting DQ, and other obstacles that can get in the way of the players.
BARF!!
Terrible English translation- The Kunio-kun series of games have a long history of bad translations and River City Super Sports Challenge ~All Stars Special~ is no exception. While it was a good move to just translate the game into english without having to remove or change anything that has to culturally to do with Japan, the game still has some translation and grammatical errors. Its as if the localization team translated the Japanese words into its literal English version.
AI is pretty dumb at times- The AI for River City Super Sports Challenge ~All Stars Special~ can be pretty dumb sometimes. Sure the game is pretty much untouched from the original NES release, save for a few minior color corrections, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that the developers could have gone in and try to make the AI a bit smarter or at least respond to the actions of the human player.
Lack of events- For being about a sports festival, River City Super Sports Challenge ~All Stars Special~ has a lack of events. Sure there are four events to play through and different ways to play them, however there were two other games in the Kunio-kun series that had the title Super Sport Challenge. These two games also included other types of sports, including dodgeball, basketball and more. It would have been great to see more events added into the game to fill out more.
River City Super Sports Challenge ~All Stars Special~ is a great blast from the past and one that Kunio-kun and friends needed to make a comeback. The game may have some terrible translation errors, dumb AI and only four playable events, but having Kunio and friends back is worth it. The graphics and music really take you back to the days of the NES and being able to go through the story as a part of Kunio’s gang is really awesome. If your still feeling competitive after beating the story you and three other friends can hold your own sports day festival.
If you love beat em up and party games, then River City Super Sports Challenge ~All Stars Special~is a good mix of both and is worth a pick up.
