A long time ago, on a console far far away, there was a revolutionary game called River City Ransom. I'm no stranger to cult classics, a great deal of my collection might be considered to be cult market games, however, sometimes games should just remain in the past.

I'm not saying that River City Ransom is a terrible game. I wouldn't even call it a bad game. I'll just air out my main issue now. What in the hell is with that game save system? Look, it's great that the developer wanted to maintain the integrity of the original title, but damn people. When you make a game for the GBA, you should be able to quick save or at least save your game progress. The initial menus and game save feature are so far from intuitive that it isn't even funny and there is simply no reason for development like that today.

Maybe it's just being nitpicky, but I just felt it really detracted from my personal enjoyment of the game. I would have loved to just throw a couple minutes into the game, save, then pick it up later. Sure, you can save the work you put into your character, but you need to start from the beginning every time. I know this is the way we used to do it back in the day, but, well, we have moved on since then. Technology advancements now allow us to cheaply and easily save games and, well, some of us have had to take on more grown up responsibilities as we have aged. Sometimes I just want a 10 minute gaming fix and River City Ransom for the GBA would have been super sweet for that purpose.

Enough bitching though, onto the good stuff. River City Ransom is a hybrid fighting/RPG game which was basically unheard of when it was released on the NES. You have your basic story line which won't break any new ground, but they do take some shots at the other brawling classic, Double Dragon which gave me a couple chuckles.

The gameplay is pretty fun, but it does show it's age. It definitely isn't the simplest brawler out there. If you think about when River City Ransom was originally released, the moveset available to you is actually pretty impressive. I've seen games released today that don't have the moveset that this title has. Even from the start you have an impressive list of moves, from your standard punch and kick combos to a spinning throw that can clear a room, you have plenty of moves at your disposal. Add in the ability to buy new moves as the game goes on and you end up being a pretty decent ass kicking machine.

The main appeal of River City Ransom is probably the ability to increase your stats as you would in an RPG. Your abilities can level up with the purchase of food and items, plus you have to manage your overall health as you fight through the various street gangs. It's a great little concept and it works reasonably well. Defeated enemies drop money which you use for replenishing your stats with food items or learning new moves from books.

There is actually a fair amount of things to do and unlock in River City Ransom. One of the objectives you can do is get people to basically join you and form a gang which will help you battle the multiple foes you generally face on screen at the same time. (Little tip: Do yourself a favor and turn off the friendly hits. No need to over-annoy yourself with all of the chaos going on.)

River City Ransom, to me, is fun to revisit as a history lesson, however, it really should have had a couple additions to make it a successful portable game. I'm sorry, there is no excuse for those types of omissions anymore. It did hamper my enjoyment of the title quite a bit, so it was a very big issue for me. If you were a huge fan of the original, and there are tons of you out there, I'm sure you can look past the aging gameplay and save issues.