Reviewed by Dyslexic DJ for Frank's River city site...

Seeing as how I cannot understand much Japanese, this review will be SEVERELY handicapped. When I recieved this game as River City Ransom II, I was expecting a major upgrade of River City Ransom with the usual sequel obligations; better graphics, better gameplay, better sound, better everything and MORE of everything. What I got was major confusion.

First off, the title screen looks like it says "Super Mr. Kunia". For those of you who don't know, Mr. Kunia was the Japanese version of Renegade, released by Technos Japan some years ago and featured a guy in what looks like a tai chi uniform beating up a bunch of other people to rescue his friend. When you start the game, you see a guy that looks almost EXACTLY Mr. Kunia as well, but it has the River City Ransom style screen layout, with the players' names and life at the top of the screen, and a dialogue box at the bottom that turns into a subscreen when start is pressed. There is even the RCR subscreen as well!

The game starts off with the main character (Alex or Mr. Kunia, depending on how you wish to look at it) arriving with his friends at a hotel. Evidently, there is a rival gang there as well and seem to be taunting Alex and his 'gang'. Having no idea at all what anyone in the game is saying, this is just how it appears. The actions in this game displayed by the characters are pretty much enough to tell what is going on as Technos is very adept at the game of video charades (it's a joke, son!). Anyhow, I suppose the object of the game is to beat the other gang.

The gameplay is VERY similar to the original RCR. As mentioned before, the game layout is pretty much the same as the original. The actual gameplay itself is a tad different. Instead of reading books for more attacks, you gain them with experience. Starting off with punching and jumping only, you work your way towards earning kicks, jump kicks, super punches, attacking downed foes, etc. No money is left bouncing behind the fallen enemy, but as far as I can tell, you still get money, because you can still go to shops. Also of interesting note is a TALK button. You can talk to virtually anyone walking around, except enemies when you enter a fight (which is signalled by a change of music.)

Bosses are scattered throughout the levels as in RCR1, but because of the strange level designs, they are sort of hard to find. Bosses even appear in the shopping mall right off at the first of the game! It is not really clear, however as to how they are related to the group shown in the intro sequences. Subscreens are as of yet, unidentified in their fullest use. I have figured out that one of the screens (the writing with the dash in it) is a character status screen, and another option gives you back 4 - 10 hit points, but is unclear why this extra life is givin. There doesn't seem to be an item list, as far as I can tell. Pretty much, if you just mess around with the options enough, you can probably figure out what each one does by trial and error. It's worked so far...

The game itself is kind of addictive like the original, but in it's own right. Even though virtually none of the text is readable (I can read some Katakana, but very little), it's still quite obvious what is going on. Given that the title screen and characters are almost straight out of Mr. Kunia, the gameplay is almost all River City. There are quite a bit more actions for the heroes (like riding a subway), which add to variety in the game. The most luxurious part of the game is the inclusion of a SAVEGAME battery, which eliminates those long frustrating codes of the original. But seeing as how it's really unclear as to what game this is a sequel to (or if it is a sequel at all, for that matter), there is no one way to rate the game, so I have rated it three times from various points below.

As River City Ransom II - 7 out of 10. It would've been nice to see the super deformed characters return.

As Mr. Kunia II - 9 out of 10. BIG improvement over the annoying original. Mr. kunia is STILL beating up women...bad boy!

As Stand-Alone Game - 5 out of 10. Not being able to understand the story as it unfolds henders the game severly.

---Dyslexic DJ