Anyone who’s touched an NES has likely either played that 2D brawling title, River City Ransom. Even today, people are still playing and loving the lovable beat em’, which is pretty amazing, despite the game being nearly 30 years old.
Now a new game featuring the characters from the Kunio-Kun series is being worked on, Downtown Brawling March Mach (Downtown Rentou Koushinkyoku Mach).
It also serves as an updated release of Downtown Rantou Koushinkyoku: Kachinuki Kakutou SP or River City Melee: Battle Royal Special, as it’s known in the West. This new title is being developed by Arc System Works, and according to the reports, will see a release on the Switch, PlayStation 4 and PC (Steam). Downtown Brawling March Mach is being developed in the same mold as multiple other games existing in the Kunio-Kun series. Such Super Dodge Ball, Street Challenge and Nintendo World Cup.
Players will be able to partake in a tag-team mode, which will let you sub in characters if your first character gets downed. Power-ups will also be available, in the form of bamboo shoots that will make the character holding it tripe in size. That won’t be the only item either, as I’ve seen plenty of bottles, bats, and there’s even footage of someone firing a gun. There’s also a handy editor where you can create and customize characters.
So here’s where it gets confusing. The info I saw mentioned it would see a Japan release for the Switch, but it then mentioned the PS4 and Steam. Are those also going to be a Japan-only release? I sincerely hope not. We also saw this game during the Nintendo Direct, which gives me some hope that this game might make it to the West. Especially given the popularity of River City Ransom series over here. Including the PC-only title, River City Ransom: Underground, that started out as a Kickstarter title and one that went on to review pretty decently.
Here’s to hoping it makes it over here. As for a release date, Arc System Works is planning for a Spring 2019 release window for the Switch version. No word on the PS4 or Steam releases as of yet. Hopefully, this ends up better than Arc System Works Double Dragon 4, we weren’t fans of that game.
