River City Ransom

River City Ransom
Also known as: Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari (JP) Developer: Technos Japan Corp. Publisher: American Technos Platform: NES This game has unused graphics. This game has unused text.

BARF! River City Ransom is a classic old school beat-em up for the NES and Famicom that also allows free-roaming and the ability to upgrade character abilities by visiting shops scattered throughout the city.

Unused Graphics

These strange crouching frames pop up now and then in the VRAM, usually when a new screen is loaded. It still retains Kunio's long sleeved uniform from the Japanese version and is almost certainly unused due to this fact.

To do: get comparison pictures

A number font is used in the VRAM bank normally used for storing character sprites. Presumably this would be used to show the amount of damage done to the enemy, similar to the numbers used in the game's precursor, Super Dodge Ball (Nekketsu Kōkō Dodgeball Bu), and in its semi-sequel, Downtown Special: Kunio-kun no Jidaigeki da yo Zen'in Shūgō.

The smaller set of coins are never used; only the larger ones are.

Loads in the VRAM during the final battle. In Downtown Special, Simon/Yamada has an item levitation move that uses the same pose. It appears they originally wanted him to have it in this game as well but for whatever reason he doesn't. He wears the uniform in both the Japanese and the English releases, meaning the sprite wasn't localized.

And this naked shopkeeper is found among the bookstore shopkeeper tiles. Possibly not unused but i'm not sure of any way this would ever be triggered.

Upon loading the Japanese version, the game loads high-school tiles in the second PPU bank(which are identical to the ones used on the game's first screen repeated in the bank multiple times for some reason), and the game's cast, the ending kanji and an English font in the first. Apparently there was going to be an opening cutscene showing the kidnapping and the gangs terrorizing the schools.

A girl waving and hurriedly giving somebody a note, and bowing in thanks when it is taken or delivered. Apparently this is supposed to be Roxy(Hasebe), but a generic mall schoolgirl is used to represent her in the final version.

Cyndi, the blonde girl(as seen on many of the Kunio games' Japanese covers and in the Japanese version of Crash N' The Boys: Street Challenge) that gets kidnapped. Has a strange sitting animation that looks as if somebody is carrying her on their shoulder. She also has frames portraying her bowing(possibly getting punched) and looking inside her locker(possibly waving at the girl above).

When Cyndi is rescued in the final game, her sprite is also a recycled mall schoolgirl sprite.

Probably two guys shaking hands. They possibly aren't Kunio and Riki, though they are the only ones that have animations looking to the side loaded.

Simon grovelling and lying on the ground. The standing animation could apply to anyone since all the bosses and the two heroes are also loaded into VRAM and they all share the same body anyway.

Some unidentified graphic. Possibly related to Cyndi but it's hard to tell. Should be noted that Cyndi's sitting graphic fits perfectly in the black space, and the white space below appears to be a pair of sleeved hands.

In River City Ransom, the cast on is partially replaced by extremely disturbing SD portraits of Kunio and Riki. The cast tiles are still unedited(still in Japanese uniform). Some Hiragana text appears below this graphic; appropriately, it translates to "Kunio" and "Riki".

Unused Text

To do: check JP version

At 5441 in the ROM is a line of spoken dialogue for a character named Shin. He simply says, "My name is Shin."

Version Differences

To do: ughh

The password system in River City Ransom is slightly expanded (three lines of 11 characters each) from the password system in its Japanese counterpart (one line of 5 characters, a line of 7, then another of 5) compared to River City Ransom (three lines of 11 each). However, the extra spaces are used to keep track of which bosses have been defeated.

There are two 2-player options in Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari, a mode with "friendly fire" and a mode without. River City Ransom only has the "with" mode.