River City Girls 2 from Developer and Publisher Wayforward is the sequel to 2019’s River City Girls. This time around there’s a total of 6 playable characters with Misako and Kyoko returning as playable characters.
After having beaten a crime syndicate and rescuing their boyfriends Kunio and Riki from the clutches of evil, something new is afoot and out titular heroines get drawn into the fray once again.
River City Girls 2!
After being late to class, Misako and Kyoko are berated by their teacher when suddenly they get interrupted by a henchman and his two lackeys. They subsequently throw both the girls out the window and they crash onto the street defeated. Fast forward 2 months and both girls haven’t been back to school since. They’ve just been gaming at home right up until a brand-new video game that they want is released.
The story of River City Girls 2 follows in the footsteps of its predecessor. The storytelling is done via a slick presentation style of fully voiced visual novel scenes and black and white manga-esque flashback sequences. The voice acting in the game is excellent with the main character’s personalities really shining through once again here.
Gameplay in River City Girls 2 also builds upon the success of the first game by incorporating a range of new abilities. The new characters have their own attacks and each character feels great to play. Players will definitely find a favourite quite quickly though and thankfully, the animations are still as gorgeous as ever.
Explore the city
Exploration in River City Girls 2 follows the same formula as the first game too. You’ll have the freedom to explore the city which is subdivided into different areas. Each area has enemies and interactables within it. River City Girls 2 also features a lot of side quests which will have you completing a range of different tasks for NPCs. As with the previous title too, this does also mean that you’ll often be backtracking through areas as you try to complete side missions or progress further throughout the story. This can become a tad repetitive over time, especially when tougher enemies defeat you and you have to slog on through once again when you’re stronger.
You’ll be able to upgrade your characters and thankfully having access to so many characters means that there’s enough variation to keep you coming back for more. Where River City Girls 2 does falter though lies with the fact that on PC, the game currently runs at a framerate that’s seemingly broken. Some elements on screen are rendered at a smooth 60 frames per second while others are at 30 frames per second. The developers have acknowledged this and are currently working on a patch though but how this is implemented remains to be seen.
As it stands right now, playing River City Girls 2 on PC is a very strange experience and it’s something that Wayforward needs to address as soon as possible. The first game ran extremely well even with multiple things going on at once on screen. It’s a shame to see the sequel isn’t up to the same standard and has strange frame pacing issues.
Players should also note that if you are playing the game co-operatively with someone else, you need to commit to doing this throughout because you will lose your story progression when you go back to playing solo if you aren’t the host.
Graphically, despite the frame rate issues, River City Girls 2 looks fantastic. The new areas are teeming with detail and the new characters and animations are super slick. There are some recycled objects and animations from the first game but that’s fine given that we don’t expecting everything to be brand new in a sequel set in the same city. The visual presentation is still as outstanding as ever and the storytelling really benefits from this.
The soundtrack of the game is filled with amazing music with Megan McDuffee once again lending her talents to the game. It’s legitimately mind-blowing how good the game’s soundtrack is with so many of the themes being not only extremely catchy but really fun to listen and game to. The musical range offered here features everything from jazz, electro, synth, pop, rap, rock and more. The soundtrack is honestly one of the best parts of the game and never ceases to surprise because of how good it is.
Final Verdict
River City Girls 2 is more River City Girls. If you enjoyed the first game, you will definitely enjoy this one. Yes it follows in the footsteps of its predecessor and does a lot of what its predecessor did too but the new soundtrack, new areas, new playable characters and new attacks keep things fresh here. The writing is also filled with jokes, references and humour that will keep you laughing throughout. It’s really well done!
And yes, you can still dab on your haters as Kyoko which will never not be amusing to see in action. Now if only Wayforward can sort out the frame rate issues and introduce some sort of save system that carries over multiplayer progress for all players when playing co-op. If they ever make a River City Girls 3, it needs to learn from the mistakes here and truly knock it out the park. In the meantime though, River City Girls 2 still gets a solid recommendation here, just note that it’s still having some issues worked out.
Reviewed on PC through Steam, Grab your copy here https://store.steampowered.com/app/1920480/River_City_Girls_2/
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