River City Saga: Journey to the West Review – Great Combat, Flawed Journey

River City Saga: Journey to the West Review

River City Saga: Journey to the West is the latest spin-off from the Kunio-kun franchise, often localized as River City. Like previous titles, it’s a manic romp through a bizarre world full of colorful foes.

But this game isn’t like other beat ’em ups. It’s also a roguelite.

Players take on the roles of Sun Wukong, Sha Wujing, and Zhu Bajie in a loose retelling of the classic Journey to the West novel… with the River City cast. Kunio is pulling quadruple duty as the four main characters.

The demons and deities who help and hinder the party are belligerent and stylish delinquents. Riki’s back, literally on fire, and he wants to schedule a nice boss battle or three. And Kyoko and Misako of River City Girls fame are watching and throwing shade gloriously.

River City Roguelite

River City Saga: Journey to the West is focused on gameplay and presentation first, with story being a distant second.

Mechanically, this is a side-scrolling 2D beat ‘em up. You pick a player character and advance while smashing everything in your way. Combat is definitely the main appeal of this game, and there are a ton of options on offer.

As a roguelite, this title is quite hard and you’re expected to play it over and over while figuring out how to advance. The game provides Assist Options for players who aren’t experienced with action games.

Even on a lighter difficulty, it gets quite hard in later levels. By default, it can be a grueling challenge.

River City Saga: Journey to the West is Fun, Frantic, and Full of Energy

River City Saga: Journey to the West features a Hades-like upgrade system of blessings. You can also upgrade your own attacks through Alchemy. Each Buddhist deity grants blessings and talismans that support a different play style. I’m a sucker for the status effects Shock and Divine Punishment.

Combat is frantic and full of semi-strategic button-mashing. It’s easy to briefly lose sight of your character in the melee when things get really crowded. Boss fights are a nice balance of frustrating and challenging. They always seem to have at least one screen-wide attack that’s a pain to dodge or counter.

Fortunately, some abilities offer new ways to deal with unblockable hits. A well-timed use of temporary invincibility or auto-dodge can turn the tables. Speaking of which, you can modify how difficult your playthrough is. Just purchase extra challenges, healing rooms, and other alterations to your route.

Some upgrade options are significantly more useful than others. I suppose that if you’re going to create multiple complex fighting styles, some of them are bound to better.

Anything that boosts your health, grants extra lives, or debilitates foes is generally good. Some stages are absolutely flooded with enemies. Slowing them down can be the differences between proceeding to the next level or getting bounced back to the start.

Enlightenment Eludes Me

River City Saga: Journey to the West features an interesting combination of 2D sprites on 3D levels. This helps distinguish enemies from the rest of the map. There’s no voice-acting, but the soundtrack is fun.

It also has some fascinating character designs. All four Kunios are adorable. The deities and bodhisattvas have an awe-inspiring yet comedic air to them. It makes for a nice atmosphere.

Sadly, the narrative is not exactly riveting. If you aren’t familiar with the Journey to the West tale, you’ll get confused very fast. So if you don’t enjoy the core gameplay loop, there’s very little on offer here.

The translation is also not great. Many sentences are awkward or downright nonsensical to read. Finally, this is a short game that can be beaten in about an hour. The post-game rewards repeat players with behind the scenes commentary from the cast.

All in all, River City Saga: Journey to the West is a flawed but fun experience. I wish the translation was better, but the combat is far more interesting than the narrative anyway.

***Steam code provided by the publisher***