River City Ransom

THE BAD:
The fighting can get repetitive. Building up your character and earning money for items is too time-consuming.

SUMMARY:
Considered a sequel of sorts to the arcade/NES brawler "Renegade", this game took Renegade's characters and put them in a storyline involving rival high schools. The player's character and his friend fight to get the player's girlfriend back from an archrival at the other school, fighting all the way across town.
The graphics are pretty good for the game-backgrounds like shops and industrial areas have good detailand characters show some nice, almost hilarious facial expressions when they get hit or knocked down. Sounds and music are good, but could have been better if some attempt at speech was included to go with the in-game dialogue during fights (still a nice touch). Controls are good as well-one button punches, one kicks, and with the right combinations you can use acquired special moves. An in-game menu keeps track of items-helpful but a little complicated at first. In addition to being able to choose which character you play as, a 2-player option is added for co-op play, plus both characters can hurt each other as well, adding to the fun and replay value. There's a lot of fighting too, but it gets repetitive after a while and also you do a bit of going back & forth between places you've already been to while trying to get money for items & powerups. The variety of shops add to the fun and being able to carry limited items makes for more strategy.
The things that always made this game stand out most was the school background for the story and also it was just so much fun to play, between the goofy-looking characters and cheesy in-game dialogue. It's still a lot of fun today and is worth looking for. The game is also available now on Game Boy Advance.