River City Ransom

River City Ransom takes the Kunio-kun brawler formula and drops it into an open city. Instead of marching left to right, you wander River City freely, entering shops to buy food that permanently raises your stats, picking up weapons from the street, and beating down gang members to learn new moves from the books they drop.

It is a brawler with RPG numbers underneath: punch, kick, weapon, throw, agility, defence, willpower and stamina all grow as you eat and fight. Two players can roam together at any time, and because the city is non-linear, the game doubles as an early example of co-op open-world design — you can grind money on weak gangs before taking on the bosses.

• ▸Open, freely explorable city instead of left-to-right stages
• ▸RPG stat growth through shop food and defeated gang bosses
• ▸Learnable special moves from dropped books
• ▸Two-player simultaneous free-roaming co-op