The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa tells the story of the titular character, Ringo Ishikawa, as he’s trying to go through his final autumn before he proceeds to his high school graduation and enters the marketplace. You’ll need to juggle your school life and defend yourself from other school gangs trying to make your life a living hell.

The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa is a 2D side-scrolling beat’em up with RPG lite mechanics; think of it as a game in the same vein as the classic River City Ransom game from the NES era. Not only can roam around the city beating up bad guys scattered everywhere, but you can stop at a small shop for a bite to eat, go home and play your videogames or test your skills are various mini-games such as poker and ping-pong. Getting your ass beat? Head to the gym and buff up your stats. You can also find a part time job that you can get fired from if you don’t go to your shifts. While the combat remains the core aspect of the game, it does fill more like a collection of mini-games intertwined with roaming around the city.

Combat is very straight-forward: one button to punch, one to kick, one to block, and another one to grab and throw your enemies. But every other aspect of the game is very cryptic to the point you’re wondering yourself what’s the point of playing this game. More often than not, you’ll find yourself randomly wandering across town and talking to every NPC in order to have a clue as to what to do next; akin to Shenmue. While it does force players to explore the city, it can be a detriment for those who want to enjoy a game with a normal flow.

The biggest nuisance with this is game is that the developer decided, for whatever reason, that it would be a good reason to delegate jumping to a combo of buttons; as if there weren’t enough buttons on modern gaming controllers. You can change the button mapping for everything *except* jumping; which is ridiculous. Also, you can’t fight willy-nilly. When encountering enemies, you need to switch to Delinquent mode so you fight and defend yourself. This is another questionable decision given that it leaves you open to attacks before you can react.

The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa looks great in all its 16bits pixelated glory; it’s a unique mix of colorful visuals with a darker tone; which makes the game feel a bit “depressive” in a way. Not the ideal terminology, but it’s still a fun city to walk around and navigate; aside from the tediousness of running around after any NPC that might help you. The soundtrack is the high point of the game; it’s an eclectic mix of acoustic guitar, jazz-y tunes, funky songs and ballads that makes it sound pretty opposite to the game’s premise, but somehow works really well.

As a long-time fan of River City Ransom, I had high hopes for The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa, unfortunately, its cryptic-ness can be a fun killer. I can appreciate and understand doing away with hand-holding, but it’s easy to get bored and fed up by walking around and having to hunt down every NPC to get an idea of where to go. While the combat is overall enjoyable and simple, it would’ve been better to have a deeper combat system to make the exploration worth it. There are so many better, straight-forward beat’em ups available on the market, it’s pretty easy to pass on The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa.

Overall
  • 55%
    CX Score - 55%
55%

Summary

Pros

  • Great variety of gameplay content
  • Varied soundtrack
  • Combat is pretty straight-forward…

Cons

  • …but lacks a bit of depth
  • Feels too cryptic
  • Having to enable combat mode is annoying and counter-intuitive

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *