The road to becoming a ninja is long and arduous...but in 8-bit it only takes a week!
River City Ransom, if you haven't been told, is a beat'em-up style game with RPG elements. These role-playing elements include: character upgrading, skills to learn and an item inventory that can be filled with all manner of culinary goods that have myriad effects on your player statistics. Your character actually has more statistics that affect the gameplay than a standard RPG such as Final Fantasy.
The meat of the gameplay is really just straightforward street-brawling. You travel to the right, and fight anyone that gets in your way. You have the option of punching, kicking, jumping and dashing. To dash you simply double tap the d-pad in the desired direction, right or left. In order to jump, you must press the punch and kick buttons simultaneously.
Now, the brawling can get extremely dynamic (especially with two players!) since there are weapons all over the battleground. Your foes will throw trashcans at you or hit you with iron rods. You can, of course, pick these items up and give the baddies a taste of their own medicine. You can force the enemies to drop their weapons by hitting them as well. You can also jump over their projectiles, which often causes the thrown weapon to hit their allies!
What makes this game so much fun is the amount of strategy involved in the button mashing combat. You must react to what your foes are doing very quickly to twist their offence right back against them. Soon enough, you will find yourself throwing baseballs at an oncoming foe to slow him down while dodging a trashcan that will then bring down that same foe, all the while jumping around punching and kicking in all directions. Let's just say, a man (woman) can get pretty good at this game. You can turn into a graceful ninja in good time, and all you need is two buttons!
What more can you ask for? A two player arcade game in which your player stats can be upgraded to your hearts delight? Yes please! And I'd like a side order of fries, to go with that.