River City Girls 2, much like any side-scrolling beat ‘em up game, lives and dies by its most memorable encounters. After all, as fun as it is to pummel the usual gaggle of identical mooks, sometimes you want the game to throw you a proper curveball and put you on the backstep with some truly wild combatants.
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Much like in the first River City Girls game, the head honchos of River City Girls 2 are certifiable weirdos and monsters, just as they should be. These men and women know a thing or twelve about knocking skulls, which is amplified by some truly absolutely bizarre abilities.
8Ken, Rich Boy Yakuza
As the adoptive brother of the first game’s final boss, Sabuko, Ken wields just as much power, money, and influence as his sister, using all three to orchestrate Kyoko and Misako’s original ousting from River City High. He’s quite full of himself, not really understanding how his professional criminal sister could lose to a couple of schoolgirls.
He is taught a swift, painful lesson when he encounters them for the first time. In a fight, Ken only has the bare minimum of combat training, and while he has a gun, he tends to freak out and begin blind-firing when pressured. He definitely does not have the strength to live up to his influence, but we’d be lying if we said knocking him around wasn’t entertaining.
7Ryuji And Ryuichi, The Lethal Dragon Twins
The second time Kyoko and Misako encounter Ken on the roof of River City High, he’s not alone. This time around, he’s flanked by his elite personal bodyguards, Ryuji and Ryuichi, better known as the Dragon Twins. Which one is which? No clue, but what they lack in identifiability, they make up for with speed and precision.
The twins work in tandem with Ken’s usual slapdash fighting style, bombarding the arena with high-speed sword slashes. If they were fighting you directly, they’d probably be quite the threat, but since they’re still beholden to Ken, they’re a bit handicapped. It seems Ken’s inherent lameness is contagious.
6Provie, Block-Rocking Badass
A crossover character from River City Underground, Provie is battling against the yakuza forces in Uptown in search of her missing friend, Chris. Unfortunately, Misako and Kyoko bumble in while she’s in the midst of a beatdown, and she thinks they’re another couple of yakuza toughs that need pummeling.
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Provie has some impressive chops as a playable character, but as a boss, she’s holding back a bit, focusing more on area attacks like spin kicks and back rolls. It’s quite the spectacle to see her bouncing and spinning around the arena, though, especially when the robots in the background start firing giant laser blasts.
5Marian, Spellbound Brawler
Marian was originally a… mutual friend-with-benefits ofthe Lee Brothers. But after getting kidnapped too many times, she started working out and became an impressive street scrapper in her own right. She started working to keep the peace in the Flatirons district, which drew the ire of the yakuza. Contracting the witch Blaire, Marian was placed under a spell to conscript her to the yakuza’s cause.
Her fight in the abandoned subway echoes the fight against Abobo in the first game (it used to be his turf, after all), but Marian is packing even more muscle than he did. His powerful blows shake the ground and drop massive piles of debris, and when she’s pressed, she can flip a switch on the balcony to dump toxic sludge into the arena.
4Tsuiko, Influencer Extraordinaire
Even criminals need to have good PR sometimes, and Tsuiko’s the best in the biz. As the Sabu Family’s personal influencer and hacker, she can swiftly disable all of their foes through nothing but word of mouth and leaking embarrassing photos. She’s quite the busybody, though, which is why she literally can’t even take a break to fight Kyoko and Misako.
During her boss fight, she’s protected by a force field, all while she walks around the room working and taking coffee breaks. In the moments she actually cares about the girls attempting to pummel her, she utilizes Technos’ advanced VR tech to suck them into recreations of the old River City games.
3Blaire, Witch Of The Woods
A good criminal empire has its hands in every aspect of this world, but agreatcriminal empire has its hands in the worlds beyond this one. This is why the Sabu Family has Blaire, lord ofthe Witchy Woodsin the Flatirons, on an exclusive contract. Using her powerful magic, Blaire bewitches the Family’s enemies, either taking hold of their minds or banishing them to dark realms.
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As you fight her, she continues to cast spells, pulling out tarot cards (each emblazoned with some pretty impressive artwork of the game’s characters) that enhance and alter her powers further. Also, she has a little cat demon thing that she can launch as a spiked projectile, which is both cute and awesome.
2Primo, Fabulous Celebrity Chef
It’s admittedly not clear why the Sabu Family felt like they needed a celebrity TV chef on retainer, but Primo definitely earns his keep in more ways than one. With his potent command ofspice and flavor, Primo was able to whip up a special curry to be delivered to RCHS. If consumed, this curry would force its eater to become a mindless minion to the Sabu Family. Culinary horrors!
In a fight, Primo makes extensive use of both his various cooking implements and his personal TV studio. When he needs a break from the action, he’ll hang from the studio’s applause sign or call out his team of dancers for an impromptu number. He’s so skilled that Kyoko and Misako even give reality show testimonials about his strength between phases!
1Sabu, Criminal Overlord
Even among River City’s hefty criminal element, Sabu is a standout. Not only is he the patriarch of the largest organized crime family in the city, with connections everywhere you could think of, but his monstrous strength is also enough to break through a solid stone prison wall. He may have been in prison at the start of the game, but we can assure you: it was entirely by choice.
Even with that incredible might, he still enhances himself further prior to his final bout with Misako and Kyoko just to ensure he gets his point across. Thanks to the best experimental tech dirty money can buy, he can fire off gigantic lasers from his hands, create plumes of fire by pounding the ground, and create duplicates of himself. He can even perform a legally-distinct knock-off ofAkuma’s infamous Shun Goku Satsufrom Street Fighter.
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