Kunio and the kids of River City are back again to put on another mythical tale from history in River City Saga: Journey to the West. This time, Kunio is taking center stage as Son Wukong, following the famous tale of Journey to the West. But leaving the mean streets to be the Monkey King is no walk in the park. Can the latest Kunio game survive the trek, or does it lose its way along the road?
Walk Along the Riverside
The game sees Kunio-Kun and Co. tackle the famous fable which has been adapted in many forms, from Dragon Ball to Black Myth: Wukong. Like the previous River City Saga games, this places the cast of River City in iconic roles, such as Kunio in the role of Sun Wukong, and sees them retell the story in a comedic parody style.
While it’s an entertaining and at times quite funny tale, it’s told through static screens of text, which can go on for quite some time. It lacks the charm that River City Girls had, and it really didn’t grip me. Despite being a fan of the source material, I found myself wishing the scenes were over quickly, as I found them quite pace-breaking compared with the energetic gameplay that is on offer.
Fortunately, while the way the story is told is somewhat lacking, the character personalities shine through the roles they are playing. If you are invested in the world of River City, you’ll get considerably more out of the tale than those just coming for yet another crack at the Journey to the West story.
Streets of Roguelike
River City Saga: Journey to the West is, for the first time in the River City franchise, a roguelike. Seeing how well titles like Absolum and the Mr. X Nightmare DLC for Streets of Rage 4 handled the fusion of roguelike and beat ’em up, I was excited to see what Kunio and Co. had to bring to the table.
From the get-go, River City Saga: Journey to the West presents you exactly with what you’ll be doing for the next handful of hours. It’s an incredibly basic roguelike that forgoes a lot of the nuances that come with the beat ’em up genre and instead puts more focus on what abilities you pick up and how you create your build, showing that maybe the focus was skewed more towards being a roguelike rather than a fully-fledged fusion of the two genres.
The combat is incredibly basic with only one standard combo. You also have a stronger special attack, magic, and a dodge, and, after your first run, you can unlock a screen-clearing ultimate. There are three playable characters, but the difference isn’t staggering, mainly only changing the attack animations or their special attack. Considering the levels of combos the series is predominantly known for, this felt like a crushing blow.
A Pretty Standard Ability
I won’t keep beating a dead horse when it comes to it not being much of a “beat ’em up.” As an action roguelike along the lines of titles like Hades, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate, and The Rogue Prince of Persia, it does a serviceable job. The combat is fast-paced, and enemy hordes grow in time with various types.
After you defeat a randomly generated wave of enemies in the combat stages, which sometimes have traps that can help or hinder you, you’ll get to choose a power-up from one of the Divine Beings. These range from more HP to stuff like damaging dashes and status effects with your attacks. The pool for these doesn’t seem to be too deep, as I found a loadout that got me through the entire game within a few runs and didn’t leave me with any desire to continue going through to experiment any further.
While River City Saga: Journey to the West doesn’t fall into any particularly large pitfalls with this design, it just doesn’t do anything really new, unique, or better than other similar games. I was hoping for a masterful fusion of the genres with River City’s classic combat and the chaos and loadout-building of the roguelike genre. The River City games have impressed me of late, but unfortunately, this has been the exception.
Castle of Color
In terms of visuals, River City Saga: Journey to the West does a good job of blending the 2D sprites that fans will have seen in previous games with a 3D playing field. It does look a little phoned in when compared to previous River City Saga titles though, a bit of a curse given this is the third in this spin-off series.
It’s colorful, it’s loud, and it does a fantastic job of making you aware of what’s going to damage you and what isn’t. Larger attacks are presented with red areas of effect, and the character art in cutscenes is absolutely stunning, featuring high-quality pieces of art that sadly lack animation.
On the audio side of things, the music is fine, if not exactly memorable. There also isn’t any voice acting like some other River City games. Like much of the product, it is serviceable but not standout, which is, again, slightly disappointing considering previous games have some amazing tracks.
Verdict
Maybe it’s a mixture of burnout with the roguelike genre of late or the fact I went in expecting a fusion of two genres I really enjoyed, but River City Saga: Journey to the West just didn’t click with me. It felt too basic in all areas, and what was once a strong leader in the beat ’em up genre is now trailing behind the stronger releases from Dotemu.
It’s still pretty serviceable without any particularly massive issues, there just isn’t that special sauce here that I needed to really enjoy my latest Kunio-Kun fix. It’s cheeky, it’s fast-paced, and it’s chaotic, but sadly, it feels like a rare miss in the long-running River City series, eclipsed by its much stronger predecessors in the River City Saga spin-off series.
WAIT FOR SALE ON RIVER CITY SAGA: JOURNEY TO THE WEST
If you are looking for another action-platformer, check out our review of River City Saga: Three Kingdoms Next.
Many thanks go to Arc System Works for a Nintendo Switch review code for River City Saga: Journey to the West.
A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.
