River City: Rival Showdown

River City Ransom is back, rebuilt from the ground up! Rekindle old rivalries and relive past rumbles through a completely revamped story! A re-release of the classic Nintendo 3DS sandbox brawler, this version…

78 11 October 2023

Adventure Hack and slash/Beat 'em up Role-playing (RPG) Action

River City: Rival Showdown is an adventure developed by APLUS Co., Ltd., released 11 October 2023 on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PC (Microsoft Windows).

Verified 4 Oct 2026 Sources: IGDB , Steam , Wikipedia

What River City: Rival Showdown is

River City: Rival Showdown is an adventure game developed by APLUS Co., Ltd. and released in 2023. It was published by Arc System Works. It is available on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PC (Microsoft Windows). It runs on Unity.

The premise, in the publisher's words

This game acts a sequel to Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun Special, its prequel Riki Densetsu, and River City: Tokyo Rumble. The events of River City Super Sports Challenge ~All Stars Special~ take place directly after this game. Kunio, the top delinquent of Nekketsu High School is a standout in street fighting and sports, and an icon to the student body. He's won glory traveling overseas to win sporting events and taking on the yakuza to rescue his friends. His burning passion for righting wrongs and fearless courage to fight to the finish has made him a living legend... The infamous hot-blooded tough guy Kunio of Nekketsu High School. "What a beautiful night." Kunio is walking through Yumemicho…

Description from the publisher · source

How it plays

It is played from a side view perspective. Its themes are action. It is a single-player game with no multiplayer component. Available modes: Co-operative, Multiplayer and Single player.

Where it sits in the Kunio-kun series

River City: Rival Showdown is the 92nd of 96 entries we hold in the Kunio-kun series. The next entry was Super Pocket: Technōs Edition in 2024. Its critic score of 78 is 10 points above the series average of 68. The highest-rated entry is River City Ransom EX at 91.

See all 96 Kunio-kun games in release order →

How it was received

River City: Rival Showdown holds a critic score of 78 out of 100. That places it above 59% of the 7,525 rated adventure games in our database, which average 72. Games released in 2023 averaged 76, so it scored 2 points above the year average.

What it launched against

River City: Rival Showdown launched on 11 October 2023, within three weeks of Alan Wake II, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Marvel's Spider-Man 2. All of them reviewed better. It arrived 3 years into the PlayStation 5's life, so it was built for hardware developers already knew well.

Released around the same time: Alan Wake II, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Cheats and codes

We have not confirmed any working cheat codes for River City: Rival Showdown yet. Rather than reprint a list we have not tested, this section stays empty until one is verified.

Know one? Send it in and we will test it →