Many gamers who beat River City Girls, the 2019 brawler from developer WayForward (known for their flagship Shantae series), were confused by the ending. Some found it soured the experience, ruining the last moments of an otherwise enjoyable game. To understand the ending requires some familiarity with the Kunio-kun franchise, as the fourth-wall-breaking humor WayForward delivered in the ending references games that have never received an official English translation. Even for those who were in on the esoteric joke, it may not have landed as the developers intended.
The story of River City Girls involves two delinquent high school girls, Misako and Kiyoko, who are spending time in detention when they receive a text notifying them that their boyfriends, Kunio and Riki respectively, have been kidnapped. Combing beat-em-up gameplay with humor, much like the recently-released Battletoads, the girls break out from detention and their school, battling students on the way, and then proceed to brawl their way through various districts of River City, seeking clues as to the whereabouts of their missing beaus.
The story that follows, about twice the length of 2020 brawler Streets of Rage 4 and featuring more RPG elements than a typical beat-em-up, eventually leads the girls to a Yakuza headquarters. After defeating the de facto leader of the crime syndicate, the girls crash through a window and plummet through the roof of a spa below. There, they find Kunio and Riki enjoying a relaxing sauna. After the gents protect their modesty, and the heroines proclaim how worried they were about them, Kunio says, “Aw geez, it’s those crazy girls again. What were their names?” This did not go over well with some players who had become invested in helping the violent but endearing duo struggle to rescue their boyfriends, only to discover they had no idea who they were.
After Wrecking The Town For A Rescue Mission, The Ending Was Not What Players Expected
The original “true ending” to River City Girls provided some elaboration on the joke, as beating the game multiple times to receive specific items triggered an alternate final boss fight against Hasebe and Mami, a pair of stuck-up girls who insisted they were the actual girlfriends of Kunio and Riki, and that protagonists Misako and Kiyoko were delusional. The original version of the ending proved the rivals to be correct, as after Kunio still fails to recognize Misako and Kiyoko, he suggests to Kunio that “Maybe Hasebe and Mami are still up.” Mami and Hasebe spelled out the gag during the fight, breaking the fourth wall to note Kunio and Riki would not remember the protagonists because, “you dated them for like ONE 16-bit game,” one “that wasn’t even released in the USA.” This requires a bit of familiarity with older titles from Technos Japan, developers of the Double Dragon and Kunio-kun brawler franchises.
The joke references that River City Ransom was the localization of a Japanese game titled Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari. The Japanese version was part of the Kunio-kun series, which featured several sequels to River City Ransom that were not released in English territories. These include the Super Famicom’s Shin Nekketsu Koha: Kunio-tachi no Banka, the 16-bit game Mami referred to where Misako and Kiyoko dated Kunio and Riki. While that title has yet to be localized, the original River City Ransom is currently part of the selection of classic NES games included with a Switch Online subscription.
River City Girls Is A Great Comedy Brawler, But Not Everyone Was In On The Joke
The deep-cut nature of the joke doomed it to the narrow target audience of fans who were familiar with Kunio-kun titles that had never been officially localized, and it also placed meta-humor over narrative consistency. The notion that Kunio and Riki have no recollection of their experiences from an obscure 16-bit game, or the characters they dated at that time, is amusing, but it left in-fiction narrative plot holes, as there was no explanation provided as to the origin of the text the girls received that prompted them to track down their supposedly kidnapped possible boyfriends. Much like changes to the controversial Mass Effect 3 ending, a later revision to the River City Girls true ending had Kunio invite the girls to join them for a burger, providing a bit of satisfaction for some upset players.