City Hunter Review

Originally released for the PC-Engine in 1990, and based on a manga of the same namesake, City Hunter tells the story of Ryo Saeba, a man known as a City Hunter. He’s basically a cleaner that tackles a myriad of jobs ensuring the protection of women from assassinations. His partner, Kaori, also helps him in his mission to clean the city of bad guys.

City Hunter is a 2D action game where players run around buildings, opening doors for mission-critical NPCs and items all the while shooting various thugs barring down your path. Some doors won’t open, some doors will lead to empty rooms. It’s also trial and error. All doors are the same so you never know which one opens.

This release includes the original default difficulty setting but also a brand new, more forgiving, Enhanced mode. Also as it is common with rereleases of classics from the 1990s, City Hunter features a rewind feature to correct some mistakes or come back from the dead. If you come across a scandily lady behind a door, despite her clear anger, you’ll get your health replenished.

The game looks good in all of its 16-bit glory albeit showing its age from the PC Engine era. Color palette are limited, the backgrounds are for the most part grey and bland. Also the fact that the doors are all exactly the same on each level makes it annoying to have to guess which one opens. As with most games resurrected from the 90s, City Hunter features a handful of visual perks such as resolution options, a filter, and scans of the original cartridge. On the audio side of things, nothing really special nor stands out.

The first problem here is that 90% of the time you exit a room, enemies will be anxiously waiting to inflict damage with absolutely no chance for you to dodge resulting in cheap attacks and sometimes death if your health meter is close to being empty. Also it feels incredibly random and no indication which door can be opened; it’s all a crapshoot. It’s also extremely shallow; no reason to replay unless you want to test your metal against the game’s original version.

The only reason I can see this game being revived, aside from 2024 Netflix movie, is the nostalgia factor. City Hunter hasn’t aged well. And if you’re a fan of the genre who’s never played this classic will only find confusion and frustration as the game doesn’t handhold and the amount of cheap attacks from enemies. The gameplay is tight and solid, but that’s pretty much it. Not enough to warrant a purchase.