Intro

Kunio Kun franchise is extremely versatile, spanning the genres of various sports, arena fighting and beat ’em up, the last of which is the case with River City Saga: Three Kingdoms Next.

It makes sense in a way since River City Ransom was in the same genre and proved to be the most popular game of the bunch when it comes to global audience. However, Three Kingdoms saga then narrows the potential audience with the combination of the chosen theme and tone, resulting in a game that is in the middle of the road instead of excelling at what the franchise does best.

Story

Diving right into the weakest part of River City Saga: Three Kingdoms Next, it is a direct continuation of River City Saga: Three Kingdoms. Just like the name suggests, it is set in what is modern day China during the hectic third century when the dynastic states of Cao Wei, Sun Quan and Liu Bei were at each others’ throats.

While I find that part of the Chinese history intriguing, its presentation through Three Kingdoms Next was rather lackluster. Kunio Kun games have always had a goofy sense of humor and it was endearing in every game thus far but it needs to be dispensed in small doses. Kunio Kun / Nekketsu / River City games used to have a lot of action with brief lighthearted dialogues in between. Now it’s the opposite, with drawn out goofy narrative that barrages the player with attempts at humor all over the place and brief pieces of action in between.

Furthermore, the dialogues in Three Kingdoms Next are either bland blocks of exposition or word salads that offer no information or amusement in return. This caused me to start skipping even before reaching the second chapter. Reading Wikipedia is likely more captivating.

That said, I don’t think anyone ever played Kunio Kun games for the plot so I would normally let it slide but there is just so much dialogue in this game that it’s hard to ignore. Spamming the skip button for a minute straight is never fun.

Gameplay

Jumping from the weakest to the strongest point, gameplay in Three Kingdoms Next offers a lot of fun but it is not devoid of drawbacks.

You start off with the basic kicks and punches but the leveling system picks up quickly, allowing the players to learn the staple moves such as Mach Punch, Mach Kick and some new techniques like the spinning attack Secret Staff which can be obtained for other weapons as well.

On top of that, the player can learn devastating Ultimate Attacks as well as Tactics which add a lot of flair and actually try to present the saga as a war. Among other options, Guan Yu (Kunio) can use Tactics to call up archers to rain fiery arrows down on his enemies which gives some semblance of a large scale war rather than a local brawl.

For the unexpected goofy twist, we have the motorcycle the player can ride and wipe the enemies with but it is best used sparingly so it doesn’t actually ruin the brawling tone we’ve come to know and love in River City series.

Some of the drawbacks include ridiculous input reading NPCs eventually get, resulting in most of the player’s attacks being blocked. This can be circumvented by choosing the projectile-like abilities which are not blocked nearly as often. However, this limits the aforementioned wide selection of skills. When increased difficulty takes away from the game’s depth, it is usually bad design and the input reading is no different.

On top of that, some of the boss fights can get extremely annoying due to off-screen moves that can obliterate the player’s health with little to no telegraphing which would give them a chance to avoid losing most of their health.

Even worse, boss fights are often drawn out by allied NPCs who often knock enemies down. Normally, it’s a good thing but bosses get invulnerability frames (iFrames) after getting knocked down and the player gets barely any chance to hit the boss. One could potentially just let the allies finish the fight but their damage output is so miserable it could take half an hour to whittle one bulky enemy down.

Finally, the save system leaves a lot to be desired since the progress is not saved when you are changing location and I couldn’t locate an option to save manually. Instead, the only autosaves I ran into was when I would complete an entire chapter, meaning you are locked into hour-long sessions at the very least, unless you don’t mind losing all the progress.

Back to positives, Three Kingdoms Next offers the Hardliner Route which is basically NG+ for each chapter and if you complete those, additional difficulties will be unlocked. Each time you replay the game, you get to keep the skills you learned which may sound harmful to progression at first but as you learn to engage and weave more combos, the combat remains fresh.

Co-op options are kind of a mixed bag. If you are planning to play this game together with someone else, then it’s all good. The number of the enemies and their attacks on the screen seem to be adapted to having 2 players dishing out the pain, even if you are playing alone. In other words, the fights can get tedious for solo players but it should feel like a fantastic adventure for 2. Couch co-op is featured in Three Kingdoms Next and I would highly recommend it.

Graphics and art style

Graphics and art style in Three Kingdoms Next, just like in the original game, are a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, all the character sprites are authentic to their counterparts from the NES days but the choice of the background style Arc System Works insists upon still puzzles me.

Three Kingdoms games are not the only River City games that have this weird upgraded background that stand out from the pixelated characters and they don’t necessarily fit the style. This schism in style is something that bothered me with River City Super Sports Challenge and Rival Showdown and now continues to pester me in Three Kingdoms games.

Having smooth lines and gradient colours in the background is just incoherent with the pixelated 2D sprites. Apart from each other, they each look great but when you put them together, they create a jumbled mess that is not really pleasing on the eye.

Performance

River City Saga: Three Kingdoms Next doesn’t bother players with technologies like raytracing which would require a whole lot of computing power for a little bit of visual fidelity in return. As such, performance is buttery smooth in the game, letting the players beat the enemies up even on rigs that are the equivalent of a defibrillated carrot.