Play this game. Enough said.
The story revolves around two guys, two rival high schools, gangs of thugs with corny one-liners, and a girl who's been kidnapped whose in desperate need of saving so she can finish her shopping. Created by the same team behind the Double Dragon games, River City Ransom looks like a bare-bones, white-knuckle beat-em up upon first glance. But once you look past all that, you'll see what sets it apart from all the rest; its intuitive and immersive RPG character building system. It's not enough just to beat up a bunch of thugs and call it a day--in theory, your enemies get tougher, so you've got to toughen up. How do you do that? Throughout the game, you'll be fighting in the streets trying to keep your face on straight amidst a sea of threatening bozos armed to the teeth with bad jokes, tires, chains, baseball bats--you name it, they'll probably use it against you in one form or another. At the same time, you'll also run into little strip malls and visit restaurants, book stores, toy shops--each of these stores serves a purpose; whatever you eat, read, play with or drink will affect your base stats in various ways. For example, if you treat yourself to Pasta, you might get an increase in Strength and HP. If you read a comic book, it'll raise your Intelligence. As in real life, however, that stuff costs money, and you can only get it by pilfering from the local thugs you pound into the pavement.
The graphics are quite nice for an 8-bit game, and character sprites are hilariously charming. It's always a laugh riot whenever you defeat an enemy and they spout off with a corny death-spiel (i.e. BARF, Maaama, and the ever-popular 'Is this fun yet?') The game is just as humorous in its tone as it is cartoony violent fun.
Overall, River City Ransom rocks. It was a game that didn't get the attention it deserved back in the early 90s, so it is truly admirable to see it get the much-needed exposure now for an entirely new generation. If you fit in that demographic, you owe it to yourself to play this.