The world of Downtown Nekketsu/River City has a ton of characters, aside from main character and mascot of the series Kunio-kun, that are pretty interesting enough that they could have a their own spin off game. One example is River City Girls staring Kunio and Riki’s girlfriends, Kyoko and Misako. An other example, and the subject for today’s review: Stay Cool Kobayashi-san! A River City Ransom Story staring Masao Kobayashi. Is Kobayashi-san hot blooded enough to be the next tough guy, so should he have been just a good delinquent and just skipped school? Let’s find out.
Stay cool Kobayashi-san!
Takes place Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari/River City Ransom- What’s really cool and yet strange about the Kunio-kun series is how (be it the sports,RPGs, beat em’ ups) some how are connected to each other. Same goes for spin-offs like River City Girls and of course Stay Cool Kobayashi-san! A River City Ransom Story. This game, though only a side story, takes place after the events of Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari/River City Ransom. Here’s a really quick recap of the events of that game:
Riki’s girlfriend gets kidnapped by the student council president of Reiho High School Yamada, who happens to be a former friend of Kunio. His goal is to fight Kunio and take his place as the number one delinquent in River City. Kidnapping Riki’s girlfriend was just to annoy Riki. Hearing what happened, Kunio joins Riki to save his girlfriend and stop his former friend. Now along the way Kunio fought against Koybayashi, who was apart of Reiho’s Big Four. Kunio defeats Kobayashi and tells him that he wasn’t fighting earnestly and leaves to take care of the rest of Yamada’s minions. Kunio and Riki save Riki’s girlfriend, but the words that Kunio said Kobayashi still hang over his head.
Months later Kobayashi is approached by a time traveler named Mizoguchi and recruits him to fight time traveling bad guys from the future. In turn Kobayashi gets his friends from Reiho and Kunio to help. Kunio is suspicious at first but goes along anyways. I find it kind of cool that a game that’s 30+ years old can have a game from the same franchise be both a follow up and its own thing at the same time.
CoOp- Like most of the Kunio-kun games, Stay Cool Kobayashi-san! strong point is that it is a co-op beat em’ up. Two players can fight off these weird time traveling baddies using a combination of Kobayashi, Kunio or Mizoguchi. As the game goes on, players will also be able to play as the Double Dragon Twins (not related to the American Double Dragon brothers) Ryuichi and Ryuji. Each of the five characters has their own move sets, with Kunio and the Dragon Twins having modified versions of their melee attacks.
Updated pixel art designs- Kunio-kun and friends have had more or less the same look for the last 30+ years. While I have nothing against his look, its a very classic look, mascots like Mario, Sonic, etc have changed their looks over the years to keep themselves fresh and cool. So his and the rest of the crew’s looks got updated just a bit (with the exception of Mizoguchi as he’s a new original character). Kunio still sports his trademark all white uniform, but now has it open showing a black undershirt, his sleeves rolled up, hair slicked back in stead of a pompadour and wearing black leather gloves. He look more like a Western delinquent working for the Mob in the 60’s. As for Kobayashi and the Dragon Twins, they sport the red uniform of Reiho and just like Kunio, they have their sleeves rolled up and have finger-less combat gloves. I know that most mainline Kunio-kun games use the 8-bit pixel art still, but if Arc System Works ever decides to bring kunio and the gang into the 21st century, then these updated designs would work.
Music changes depending character on screen- One of the coolest features in Stay Cool Kobayashi-san! is the fact that depending on the character that you are controlling, the music changes. For Kobayashi and Mizoguchi its the game’s main them. For Kunio, its his main theme from River City Ransom/Downtown Nekketsu. And again my personal favorite, if your are controlling one of the Dragon Twins, the main theme for Double Dragon plays. And anytime a game offers to play the Double Dragon theme, I jump on it.
Multiple endings- While most Kunio-kun games are pretty straightforward with their endings. In Stay Cool Kobayashi-san! there are multiple endings. This all depends on which color order you beat up the minions. This is a pretty good way to increase replayablity in the game but if only it wasn’t too repetitive and lacking signature gameplay mechanics. More on that next.
Barf
Very repetitive/no direction- As fun as beating up a horde of bad guys from the future, the game kind of get repetitive at times. Shocking I know, a gamer where you beat up enemies over and over again can get repetitive. What I mean is that in Stay Cool Kobayashi-san! there is a ton of backtracking to the same places just go get certain colored enemies to appear. You visit the same areas, use the same basic moves and fight the same enemies over and over again. And even though I mentioned that there are multiple endings in the game, gameplay doesn’t really change. The game doesn’t have much direction either. By that I mean all it has you do is go back and forth between the same location just to fill a quota of bad guys to beat. In River City Ransom/Downtown Nekktsu you start from Nekktsu High and make your way to Reiho High. Along the way you pass by different locations such as parks, factories and shopping districts. Sure the area may look alike, but what’s contained in them isn’t. It may be linear with some branching areas, but you had a direction, a goal. Stay Cool Kobayashi-san! doesn’t really have that.
No signature gameplay mechanics- What makes a Kunio-kun game fun is the ability to beat bad guys into a pulp in different ways. You can throw weapons at them, beat them with said weapons, knock them down for a bit of ground n’ pound, deliver jaw breaking upper cuts and flying side kicks and my personal favorite: grabbing an enemy’s friend and beating him with said friend. Not to mention visiting various shops to boost up stats. Stay Cool Kobayashi-san! doesn’t have any of that. You can power up any of the five characters by using stars earned when beating up enemies, but that’s not really the same.
Stay Cool Kobayashi-san! A River City Ransom Story is a pretty decent game. Having the game follow the events of Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari/River City Ransom was a really interesting twist. The Co-op is really enjoyable and being able to play as other characters on the fly was really fun. The music is top notch and the update sprite work on the character designs is a great step into bring a updated modern version of the Kunio-kun games. However its missing the signature gameplay mechanics that made the Kuni-kun games fun. Plus the game doesn’t really have any direction. While having multiple endings increases the replay value of Stay Cool Kobayashi-san!, it’s super repetitive, even for a beat em’ up. If the game had no connection to the events of Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari/River City Ransom or even to the series in general, it would have been a pretty above average game. But when fans of the series see within the title “River City” they expect a very fun time beating up other punks and turning them into coins and not just a “meh” experience. As a spin-off game withing the series, it’s not bad. It’s more of a one and done experience. If you ever find the game on sale, give it a shot. Other wise check out River City Girls or the upcoming Double Dragon & Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle.
