Inspired by the top 20 NES games thread. Did people really prefer RCR over DD2 back in the day or it's a recent thing? I am a fan of Kunio Kun games in general but I have always felt that RCR is not that good as a beat em up. It is only carried by stats customization and character graphics. And because of the customization, it's artifically bloated but otherwise a rather small game. Double Dragon 2 has an actual stage, enemy and boss variety. It packs much more stuff in a shorter playthrough.
In my west european country Double Dragon was one of the biggest franchises on NES. Bigger than Castlevania or Contra or Mega Man. Almost everyone who had an NES had at least one game from the trilogy and they were obligatory birthday parties games.Meanwhile, RCR was literally inexistant (did not release).
RCR sucks fucking ass. Kudos for doing something that hadn't been done, but its systems and ideas needed more buttons.But don't sleep on Nekketsu Fighting Legend and thank god for that new translation, because this game is fucking amazing. 2v2 masterpiece that you wouldn't see until stuff like Def Jam Fight for New York. Even supports 2P in the campaign.
>>12654686That's one of my favorites, along with the hockey and basketball games. I love how it's basically a backyard wrestling game with a CAW feature.
>>12654680In my east european country, we had famiclones and Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari was known, although much less so than Double Dragon games.
also here is the proof that I'm not full of shit, a magazine doing NES/GB walkthroughs, with Double Dragon cover, poster and main feature. NES Zelda in the same issue, but it doesn't make the cover.
>>12654673Both were giga popular but RCR would have been picked first among me and me friends at least. I know we have a few anti-RCR schizos on this board and they can say whatever about their personal experience with the game, but nothing changes how popular it was with kids when it released.
>>12654673Yes I prefer an actual world to explore and interact with than a generic beat em up move from stage 1 to stage 2 gameDD is outdated arcadeslopRCR is a proper console game
>>12654708Double Dragon was the bigger IP and was THE most hyped series for the 8-12 demographic at the time. River City Ransom was a newcomer but it made a huge splash when people actually started playing it.Without looking at the numbers I would guess that DD probably sold more, but desu sales numbers don't mean all that much for that time period since it wasn't the prime playing demographic that were purchasing the games. Some kid across the street would get a random game for his birtjhday and if it was good everyone would come over to play it. That was River City Ransom. Magazines were not an influence whatsoever at that point, and barely even existed in the US at least.
RCR got a popularity ressurgence in the 00's thanks to emulation and the fact that metroidvanias and action-RPGs were at their peak of popularity, indeed the 00's was the moment when action games went from "the challenge is the point an action game" to "exploring, backtracking, collecting useless shit and numbers go up are the point of an action game". That's the context for when RCR started becoming a hidden gem and for when people started to pretend that they've known the game since they were kids, because it resonated with the modern (at the time) sensibilities.
>>12654914>RCR got a popularity ressurgence in the 00's thanks to emulationYou keep saying this but it doesn't make it true. It was never a hidden gem. it was always a popular game before emulation even existed.
>>12654996>Nintendo Power 10, Jan-Feb 1990>both Double Dragon II and RCR are featured as new games>RCR gets a six (6) pages coveraged>Nintendo Power 11, March-April 1990>Double Dragon II makes 14th place in Player's Picks>RCR nowhere to be found>Nintendo Power 12, May-June 1990>Double Dragon II is now in the top 10 of player's picks and also makes its way to the top 10 of Dealer's Picks and is 13rd in general top>RCR still nowhere to be found>Next issue is 14, July-August 1990>Double Dragon II is now 3rd place in Player's Picks and 8th place in Dealers>RCR is still ?????>Check wikipedia page>95% of the (American) praise is from after the 2000's while the reception at the time of release is very mixed, with only a European magazine cited as giving a high score (and RCR was not a success in Europe)
>>12654996NTA but RCR was a more under the radar release than DD2 or TMNT2. It rarely came up in vidya conversation before the Internet era
>>12655064>UK television programme GamesMaster generally panned Street Gangs, with one reviewer saying he "would rather sit in a vat of horse manure than play this game, give it to your worst enemies", with an overall score of 32%Based bong reviewers at it again
>>12654996It was popular enough that I wouldn't say it was a "hidden gem" before emulation, but it's fair to say RCR got way more popular after emulation. Not to say it had no fans before that, it did and people who played it seem to have remembered it fondly. But it wasn't a major hit on release, and then became really big among NES fans in the 2000s. It went from a good NES game that some people loved to one of the top games.>>12655073That was my experience, but vidya conversation before the internet era was obviously more limited to your local community and magazines. So in some places it might've been more popular than others.
>>12654673RCR is goofy and chill. DD2 is plagued with the worst god damn platforming of all time.
>>12654914>RCR got a popularity ressurgence in the 00's thanks to emulation and the fact that metroidvanias and action-RPGs were at their peak of popularityAlso the rise of sprite comics and RCR's character designs being easy to edit.
double dragon was ubiquitous. rcr was a rental at my local mom n pop video store but i never saw or heard it discussed anywhere else until the 2000s internet
>>12655203Yeah I think nowadays people forget how popular Double Dragon used to be. Despite it getting a movie and cartoon, and a bunch of sequels/fighting game spin-off.
>>12655064I would caution people to take nintendo power polls with a grain of salt. Games were sometimes outright missing from the poll list, and you had to pick your top 3 games only from the list provided (each was assigned a number). You couldnt even manually pen in the name of games missing from the poll list.
>>12655142>the worst god damn platforming of all time.No way. It's awkward and does not fit into the game very well but it works. You have fun puzzling out the correct route through each sideview room and then you repeat that on subsequent playthroughs as a test of skill and (to a small extent, because they are small rooms) of memory.
>>12655324Yea I juat confirmed it. There is a site that shows the poll results even for the games that didnt make the top 30. Pic related is the bottom of the list for april 1990 (it has stuff like shadowgate and ultima, old 1996 pinball and donkey kong, and more obscure stuff like adventures of lol, etc). River city ransom was simply never added to the survey list of available choices for the year following its release, so it never charted in the polls by omission.
Look at what beatemup games came before RCR on nes:Kung fu: a walking sim. first level walk left and punch. Second level walk right and punch. Repeat for infinity.Renegade: decent game but few enemies on screen compared to arcade. Limited moveset. Double dragon: a demake of the arcade. Single player only. Max 2 enemies on screen. Still had flicker and slowdown. Slow paced action overall. Double dragon 2: gave up on trying to port arcade and made an orgininal game instead. Still 2 enemy limit.Bayou billy: clusterfuck of a game.River city ransom had a bigger moveset, wide weapon variety, faster action (once you level up agility), and was a much longer game. Your character starts out slow as fuck and combat feels sluggish at first, but a few agility boosts and it becomes crisp and responsive combat. Still 2 enemy limit on screen but they swarm you and come in running nonstop, so it feels like you are fighting a whole gang ulike the DD games. My buddies and I rented it several times in 1990/1991, it was one of the few NES games that was worth a second playthrough in the rental era, especially co-op.
