River City Girls Round 4: Abobo bursts onto the scene! Showdown against a Double Dragon legend! [Eng/Esp]

about 12 hours ago

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_Hibari

Hello friends of Hive Gaming! I hope you're enjoying this holiday weekend. Today, as usual, I bring you a new chapter of our adventure through the streets of River City to rescue Kyoko and Misako's crushes. In the previous chapter, we faced off against Hibari to get information about Ricky and Kunio's whereabouts. Not only did she know nothing, but she was also annoyed by our terrible taste in clothes, and insulting her didn't help matters much. In the end, we had to settle things with our fists. The only clue we gained from our victory was that we would get more information if we headed to downtown River City. If you want to know the details of this complete adventure, I've included links to the previous parts below.

Round 1	Round 2	Round 3

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Before diving into the next area of the game, we farmed a couple of levels while exploring new areas we couldn't access in the main game. One of these was at Nekketsu Junior High, where an area opens up behind the school, in the gym yard. There, the enemies have more experience than at the beginning of the game and drop significantly more money, but their damage and resistance are also higher. The great thing about doing this backtracking is that it also lets you remember the shops you left behind that sell unique items you can't find later on, like buying new moves at Jimmy's Dojo.

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New and more challenging enemies

I started leveling up because if there's one thing I've learned in the Kunio Saga, from the SNES games to the arcades, it's that whenever you have to fight in Downtown River City, the toughest enemies are there, and I wasn't wrong. Now punks, guys in wrestling outfits, and even cyborgs reminiscent of the first Terminator appear. Defeating them is much harder than the previous areas and they can knock you out if they manage to land 2 combos on you, the good thing is that there are shops to replenish health and stay in the battle.

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This area is actually quite short; the maps aren't very big, and it only has one side mission, but it makes up for it with large waves of these tough enemies. The only side mission here is given by the same vagrant from the previous post, who asked us to destroy the mayor's statue because it was too ostentatious. Well, in this case, he asks us to destroy four luxury cars located in different parts of the city. These missions are reminiscent of the old Kunios games, where you act like a vandal, destroying private property, which is usually all sorts of luxury items.

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We find the first car quite close to where the mission starts. The other two are at the east and west ends of the city, while the last car is located in the south. Destroying each one triggers a wave of enemies of all kinds that we will have to defeat, but in the end the reward in experience and money is worth it.

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New Kunio & Ricky Track

After that brief mission, we move on to the main one, which consists of finding more clues about Kyoko and Misako's friends. Exploring the streets, we find Naritaka, a boy who aspires to be as tough and strong as Kunio. Upon learning from Misako that he was kidnapped, he tells us that the only place he could be held captive is underground, but he warns us that it's a dangerous place.

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We head to the subway, but it's completely blocked by trash and debris. This leads us to the city's junkyard to see if we can get help clearing the entrance. We find someone willing to help, but he lost the keys to his crane and is at the bottom of the garbage compactor, where zombies also reside!

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Our mission, then, is to eliminate waves of zombies while the compactor gradually closes in on us, forcing us to dispatch these enemies as quickly as possible if we don't want to end up crushed. Finally, we manage to get the key and head underground.

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This part of the game gets interesting because the gameplay music drastically changes to that of another game that also came out on the NES, but which took me a while to fully recognize. Only when we made our way through the underground and reached the deepest part of this area did we understand everything. The enemy in this area is a classic boss from the game Double Dragon!

ABOBO! A direct Double Dragon challenge!

When I saw ABOBO's entrance in all his glory, I understood why this chapter of the game was so short. This part is pure fan service, or rather, a tribute to the game that helped launch Technōs Japan's franchise. But to understand it, we must talk about the game that spawned this boss, and it is none other than the legendary Double Dragon.

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Double Dragon was first released in arcades, but it became famous on the NES due to its two-player mode and extreme difficulty. Among the most notable characters was Abobo, a fighter who was practically twice the size of the player. His attacks almost guaranteed a game over, and he was known for his bald head. This enemy became so popular that he continued to appear in the Double Dragon series and even had his own game. This franchise led to River City Ransom, and this game seems to merge the worlds of Double Dragon and River City Girls! If you're interested in learning more, I wrote a review of this great game some time ago; you can find the link here.

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Once he's introduced and sees such lovely girls visiting him, ABOBO asks us what we want from him. When we show him the picture of Kunio & Ricky, he ignores who they are, to which Misako replies that he wasted their time and is an ugly, bald, and boorish jerk! Enraged, ABOBO decides to teach us a lesson, and thus begins this glorious battle!

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This boss is undoubtedly the most difficult so far, and the best part is that he doesn't mess around with ranged attacks or stay out of your reach; he comes straight for you. Engaging in a one-on-one fight with ABOBO is a real treat because it's truly challenging, and up to this point, I felt the need to improve my attacks to do justice to this boss's repertoire. When he's low on health, he uses his earthquake attack, which causes debris to fall, and he also launches slow missiles along the ground that are easy to dodge. The real challenge is close-range combat with this behemoth. Fortunately, we have the uppercut, which takes away a significant amount of his health and can knock him down. In the end, he wanted to finish him off with a combined attack using the Stryker, but he had already fallen defeated.

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Once defeated, he confirms again that he doesn't know or have seen Kulio & Ricky, but he tells us that all the kids from high school will be at the Noize concert—Noize is the most famous singer in River City! So we have to go to the Noize concert in High Seas to find them. But we'll see that story in the next chapter.

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With this, we've completed the 4th chapter of River City Girls, friends. This level was highly nostalgic with the appearance of ABOBO! It even made me want to revisit my Double Dragon cartridge and beat him there too! In short, as you can see, I'm still hooked on this game, and rest assured that next week I'll share the next part. I think we're close to the end, so I hope to finish it before the end of December. See you in the next episode. Best regards!

Versión Español

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