Patreon Pin Up 2/10/20 (Patreon)

I picked up River City Girls on Steam this weekend, and within the first 30 seconds I knew that Misako and Kyoko here were characters I had to draw. What can I say, the writing, voice acting, and presentation on this game won me over in a hurry. 

River City Girls is the latest entry/soft reboot of the long running Kunio-kun series, (the most famous entry to leave Japan is known to us as River City Ransom.) RCG is side scrolling beat 'em up in the same vein as Double Dragon, which was, no joke, created by the same guy who created Kunio. But if I had to compare RCG to another game, I'd call it more of a successor to the game adaptation of Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World for the PS3 released back in 2010. (An awesome game that you can no longer buy due to an expired license, which is part of why I perpetually wave my middle finger at the idea of an all-digital future when it comes to gaming.)  The style, humor, and presentation are similar, but I think RCG gets the win largely due to its lead characters.

Misako and Kyoko are two rad bitches, and I mean that in the most reverent possible sense. To my eyes, at least, the concept of the badass female lead has become a difficult one to pull off in modern video games. It seems like the default approach is to take a female character, basically write her to act like a man in every sense, and then call it a day. Look no further than how thoroughly they sucked all the fun out of Lara Croft over the last few years for an example.  If you ask me, when you throw all the femininity out the window, what was the point of your lead character being a woman in the first place? The River City Girls are characters that kick plenty of ass while wearing mini skirts and heart-shaped pink backpacks on a quest to save their boyfriends. That's a great balance of tough yet girly in my opinion.

But what do you think? Am I way off base? What are your favorite tough female characters? Let me know as always in the comments. :)