When River City Girls 2, the latest game in WayForward's beloved beat 'em up RPG series, arrived in December, players quickly discovered that the game's frame rate was inexplicably locked to 30 FPS. The developer promised an update to fix the issue, but the wait stretched on for quite a while. At last, the performance update is here, kicking the frame rate up to 60 FPS, adding unlimited New Game Plus playthroughs, and fixing lots of bugs and minor issues. River City Girls 2 is back, baby!
The River City Girls 2 performance update includes:
- Frame Rate/Performance: The animation rate and camera movement have been updated for smoother gameplay, effectively displaying at 60 FPS on PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox, and Steam. Performance has been further improved in problematic areas such as Ocean Heights Beach Plaza and the School Auditorium.
- New Game Plus: New Game Plus can be replayed again after defeating the final boss in New Game mode.
Bug Fixes:
- Provie can now perform air specials and air grabs from aerial light combos.
- Riki's Guard Break now always dizzies enemies.
- Human Weapon can no longer be used to remove enemies from screenlock battles.
- Player stats now show a full bar when maximized.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the game to freeze if you defeat an enemy while equipped with both Gamer Guide and Bomb Bottom.
- Coach's Hat now increases the damage dealt by all recruits.
- Fixed issues causing players and enemies to occasionally go out of bounds.
- Updated some Honkr mission tracking for better accuracy
- Fixed an issue causing players to sometimes miss Honks and Quest rewards while transitioning through doors in multiplayer mode.
- The confirm button when hiring Henchmen is now consistent.
- An exploit that allowed players to avoid dying and return with full health has been fixed.
- Game credits have been updated for content and scrolling speed has been updated for better readability.
- Updated text in some of the Japanese motion-comic cutscenes.
- Fixed various issued caused by disconnecting controllers at certain times.
- Fixed various graphical issues causing shadows or other elements to not display properly.
- Various typos have been fixed across all languages.
- Various other minor bug fixes.
A quick co-op session with the updated game reveals that the game definitely runs smoother than before. Movement and gameplay felt a bit off before, but now they're just right. At last, we can get back into the game and work on our co-op review. There's no need to wait for a review if you're a serious beat 'em up fan, though. This game is amazing, especially now that it has received a fresh coat of polish.
River City Girls 2 supports 4-player local co-op, 2-player online co-op, and cross-play. The North American version of River City Girls 2 sells for $39.99 on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and Steam. The killer soundtrack is also available for $11.49 at Amazon and other digital music stores.