is a

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

beat 'em up A beat 'em up (also known as brawler and, in some markets, beat 'em all) is a video game genre featuring hand-to-hand combat against a large number of opponents. Traditional beat 'em ups take place in Side-scrolling video game, scrolling, 2D c ...

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily game of skill, games of skill and in ...

developed by Westone and published by

Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

Plot

The plot begins when

narcotic The term narcotic (, from ancient Greek ναρκῶ ''narkō'', "I make numb") originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with numbing or paralyzing properties. In the United States, it has since become associated with opiates ...

s agents Paul and Bobby are committed to putting an end to the drug syndicate known as "MID". MID's secret hideout is located on Riot Island, an island full of uninhabited ruins with people moved inside of it while turning it into a slum. Buildings include

apartment An apartment (American English, Canadian English), flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), tenement (Scots English), or unit (Australian English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that ...

hospital A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized Medical Science, health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically ...

factories A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

and even a

casino A casino is a facility for gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shops, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos also host live entertainment, such as stand-up comedy, conce ...

. During their heavy research on MID, they unexpectedly received a phone call from MID. When Paul heard the voice of his girlfriend Catherine crying for help on the phone while being hung up without explaining, he assumed she's been abducted, making him and Bobby head toward Riot Island and save her.

Gameplay

''Riot City'' resembles

Capcom is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil'', ''Monster ...

's 1989 arcade hit, ''

Final Fight ''Final Fight'' is a series of beat 'em up video games by Japanese publisher Capcom, which began with the arcade release of '' Final Fight'' in 1989. Set in the fictional Metro City, within the '' Street Fighter'' universe, the games focus on ...

'', which is an archetypal side scrolling beat-em-up game. Player one controls Paul the blond-haired with balanced fighting skills, and Bobby the tough, but slow break-dancer from left to right through each level (most of which are split into three or more scenes), fighting with the enemy characters who appear, until they reach a confrontation with a stronger boss character at the end of the level. Once that boss is beaten, the players automatically move on to the next stage. Enemies appear from both sides of the screen, and the players must defeat all of them to progress. If the players try to simply travel through the levels without fighting, the screen will stop scrolling until all current enemies have been defeated, before allowing the players to continue progress. Enemies may move outside the confines of the screen, but players may not. Unlike ''Final Fight'', there are no weapons to pick up along the way, but players will only pick up items for points.

Soundtrack

soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...

album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

, ''Riot City Original Soundtracks'' was released by EGG Music, a division of

D4 Enterprise is a Japanese video game publisher currently specializing in content delivery services like Project EGG, EGGY and PicoPico over the Internet. The company has also collaborated with Nintendo to re-release Neo Geo, MSX and arcade titles for t ...

, on February 27, 2009. It contains every background music and sound effect from the game, which were composed by Jin Watanabe, who also composed '' Monster World IV'' along with Shinichi Sakamoto.

''Riot Zone''

While Westone decided to create a modified version of Sega's ''

Wonder Boy The series, also known as the series, is a franchise of video games published by Sega and developed by Westone Bit Entertainment (formerly Escape). Beginning with the original ''Wonder Boy (video game), Wonder Boy'' arcade game released in April ...

'' for

Hudson Soft was a Japanese video game company known for releasing numerous titles across video game consoles, home computers, and mobile phones. Headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo, it also maintained an office in the Hudson Building in Sapporo. F ...

as '' Adventure Island'' for the

NES The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the ...

, they also took ''Riot City'', remade and ported it to the

TurboGrafx-CD The TurboGrafx-16, known in Japan as the , is a home video game console developed by Hudson Soft and manufactured by NEC. It was released in Japan in 1987 and in North America in 1989. The first console of the fourth generation of video game con ...

as '' Riot Zone'' (known in Japan as ). The sprites of Paul and Bobby were modified and used for the main characters of ''Riot Zone'', Hawk (who uses Paul's) and Tony (who uses Bobby's). Some parts of several ''Riot City'' stages were also recycled for use in ''Riot Zone''. Unlike ''Riot City'', ''Riot Zone'' lacks multiplayer and features high-quality music instead of chip-tune music.

References

External links

''Riot City''
at MAWS *{{KLOV game, id=9324
''Riot City''
at arcade-history
''Riot City Original Soundtracks''
at VGMDB 1991 video games Arcade video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Sega arcade games Sega beat 'em ups Side-scrolling beat 'em ups Video games about police officers Video games developed in Japan Westone Bit Entertainment games