River City Girls 2

The followup to WayForward's take on the Kunio franchise (most particularly the Downtown Nekkestsu/River City Ransom offshoot series), River City Girls 2 is what you'd expect - keeping the overall format intact while adding in a bit more of everything.  The area you're exploring is now much larger, with six interconnected maps, and there are two new playable characters added - Marian and newcomer Provie.  The game has plenty more to experience, with a wider variety of enemies and maps, plenty of quests to undertake for hefty experience and cash rewards, and a more involved (and much sillier) storyline about a Yakuza takeover of River City.  The gameplay remains largely untouched from the original, though like the old Technos games, it hits a perfect blend of being technical and visceral - you can chain together some truly flashy and devastating combos once your skills are sufficient, and being able to buy equipment to earn special effects, bolster stats and call in recruited enemies to land a hit or two (whether mid-combo or to get out of a tight situation) only further adds to the fun of it all.  River City Girls 2 is proof that more of the same isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Developer: WayForward
Publisher: WayForward, Arc System Works
Platform: PC, Switch, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, XBox One, XBox Series
Released: 2022