Gaming

River City Girls is the funniest brawler I’ve ever played

Seriously, I’m still laughing.

by
Jake Vander Ende
September 25, 2019

Image: WayForward

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It’s rare that games make me laugh out loud. I’ve found that games capture a pretty wide array of emotions pretty well, from excitement to grief and curiosity to despair, but humor is pretty elusive, I think. Imagine my surprise when a brawler – generally a mindless action genre tracing its roots back to Double Dragon – consistently makes me laugh out loud.

Like, I just recorded footage for y’all and not only have I played this game already, but I played the demo at PAX and it was this same section, and the jokes still make me laugh.

I guess with River City Girls I shouldn’t be surprised. WayForward is well known for making incredibly polished games in every regard, from their design to their audio/visual presentation to the way their characters are written.

Anyway, without further ado, here are the first 20 minutes of River City Girls, including the anime intro trailer, the game’s first area, and up through the first boss. I even lost to the first boss once but kept the take because hey, nobody’s perfect.

Check out the opening gameplay for River City Girls

So really, get ready for River City Girls to grab your attention immediately and not let go until you put the controller down. Honestly, my only complaints about this game are that abilities unlock too slowly and that dialogue advances automatically and quite quickly.

For that second one, however, I do understand the trade-off; the game’s comedy does rely on expert timing and it wouldn’t be as funny if you were just blasting through dialogue at your own pace.

River City Girls is developed by WayForward and this video was made possible with a review code from the developers. It is available now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam (Windows).

What do you think? Had the chance to try out River City Girls or will this be one you skip? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.