River City Girls Boss Guide

Kyoko and Misako are tough, but the bosses they face could be tougher. Ensure victory with our River City Girls boss guide!

River City Girls Boss Guide

What’s more synonymous to a beat-’em-up game than a tougher-than-nails boss fight? River City Girls, the latest beat-’em-up title from WayForward, houses a multitude of bosses that are sure to test the efficiency of players everywhere. This River City Girls boss guide will elaborate on the details that will make these punks eat dirt. It’s all about careful planning and flawless execution—a combination of brains and brawn!

(Note: This guide will not include the secret boss fight.)

An Obvious Hint

One of the more lenient details to River City Girls is the inventory feature. As evidenced by title alone, one can reach into a baggage slot and use an item to benefit themselves. In this case, one can peruse the many shops available in most areas and buy lots of food items that increase stamina (HP). One’s inventory is quite big, so finding the room to store will likely never be a problem. As such, the easiest solution to taking down a tough boss would be to simply peck away at its health while continuously recovering oneself during battle. It makes things substantially easier.

But if you wish for more of a “fair” fight, these are some tips I picked up that could prove useful to taking these River City Girls bosses down.

Misuzu

River City Girls Boss Guide - Kyoko vs. Misuzu! Lack of brains versus full-on brawns!

Kyoko vs. Misuzu! Lack of brains versus full-on brawns!

Misuzu, as a first boss, serves as a good introduction to how future bosses will operate. A big ol’ health bar, phases they’ll go through when you get their health down to specific points, and lots of damage dealt. She may seem pretty fierce, but Misuzu actually has a very exploitable weakness.

Aerial attacks. The perfect guide to dealing with Misuzu safely is to spam aerial attacks. She’s slow, so it’s easy to run away in the half-second that she’s stunned from your attacks. A meticulous but effective process, one can slowly nick away at her health until she enters an invincibility phase. When activated, she will charge at you at a decent speed, but no faster than one’s own running speed. I’d recommend hiding behind the pillars in the room, as she’ll either break them or stop just before, leaving her open for attack. Occasionally, she’ll tire and be susceptible to combo attacks.

So long as you’re patient and continue the aerial method, Misuzu should be a cinch. Careful not to hover too close to her for long spurts, as her attacks will deal enormous damage.

Yamada

River City Girls Boss Guide - Kyoko vs. Yamada! Dark Arts is a euphemism for depression!

Kyoko vs. Yamada! Dark Arts is a euphemism for depression!

Yamada is almost the complete opposite of Misuzu. This River City Girls boss has a keen fascination with the “Dark Arts,” which allows him to perform supernatural feats. Y’know, because giant, beefy women weren’t quite enough! Yamada’s abilities are definitely trickier to adjust to, so guide yourself accordingly.

One of the most frequent attacks he will turn to is teleporting behind the player and shooting a giant, painful blast. Most often, this comes directly after being knocked to the ground as a result of the player’s attacks. To remedy this, one should combo-attack Yamada, then while he’s down, wait about a second and run forward and jump so as to leap behind where he teleports and have the attack miss. Just be careful of the pitfalls surrounding the stage. WayForward probably thought it fun to make things more difficult.

His second phase involves taking objects and having them hover around him, spinning horizontally. It’s risky, but one object is actually a healing item, so take Yamada down and quickly grab the health before he teleports behind you again. Jumping over the other objects doesn’t prove too difficult, but it makes it trickier to attack him directly. Better to keep your distance until they subside or are launched at you. His third phase will have the entire stage turn dark, which doesn’t actually hinder much. Just continue the process as stated but be careful not to travel too far out of bounds. He’ll be down in no time.

Hibari

Kyoko vs. Hibari! I hate this boss so much!

Kyoko vs. Hibari! I hate this boss so much!

Admittedly, River City Girls can be a little unforgiving. Part of this is with Hibari, a boss so cumbersome to face that it made me want to drop the game out of spite. Not only does she have bullet-hell-like attacks and can summon minions at command, but she flies. One cannot simply run up and hit Hibari—no, one has to wait until she hovers to the left or right-most sides of the stage so that the player can walljump and hit her enough to have her come crashing down for combo attacks. But one can’t always hit her, as sometimes her attacks will make her invincible and… ugh, I really hate this boss.

To start, Hibari is most vulnerable upon standing up from the ground after falling. Her stun is timed, so it’s best to hit her with four light attack strikes and a heavy finish. If one times it just right, you can land two full combo moves on her before she hovers back into the air. While in the air, she’ll do a number of different attacks, but the one worth noting is one where she shoots a needle that ricochets off hard surfaces. When doing this, she is invulnerable for a short while, but aiming the needle directly below her and getting out of the way at just the right time will have the needle shoot back up at her, causing her to fall down, stunned immediately. She’ll do this continuously once her other attacks have been depleted.

Another useful thing to consider is the inclusion of her summoned minions. Quite often, they will deter the player from avoiding other attacks, so it’s best to rid of them first. I’ve found that two running heavy attacks will eliminate them, and one will stun them for a couple seconds, which is enough time to avoid Hibari’s magic. And when the spider-like boss unleashes a needle that swipes through the air leaving a trail, do everything you can to avoid it. The payoff to this attack hurts a lot (nearly half of your health). Keep up the assault and do your best to avoid your moves and she’ll be squashed eventually. By that point, though, you may have already suffered an aneurysm.

 

Abobo

Kyoko vs. Abobo! Hey, he seems familiar!

Kyoko vs. Abobo! Hey, he seems familiar!

Abobo is interesting as a boss simply because there isn’t anything supernatural about him (except his strength, maybe). River City Girls makes no qualms about absurdly powerful enemies, but Abobo is just a really tough dude with a passion for kidnapping. Mastering his up-close style of combat can be intimidating, but he’s actually not too hard to take down. One just needs some reliable hesitance.

Something I found out is that after the fourth consecutive light attack, Abobo will block any continuation (and headbutt you). Therefore, stop at four consecutive light attacks. It is the most effective tool for getting his health down and Abobo won’t typically attack you right after, leaving room to run. He will, however, occasionally do a flying dive move that’s somewhat hard to avoid, so be sure to run more than you walk. Keep at four hits at a time and he’ll eventually be knocking on the door to his second phase.

By that point, Abobo will start pounding the ground (jump to avoid it), causing giant pieces of debris to fall down. Two large chunks will remain that Abobo will try to pick up and throw at you. Let him pick them up (he’ll always go for the debris rather than you), then attack him with the four strikes and he’ll drop the debris. He’ll do the same with the second piece, so repeat the process. This attack will repeat every so often, so adapt to it while continuing the method from the beginning. His third phase will incorporate an attack where he sucks you in and deals a powerful blow. I’m not sure if it’s a one-hit kill (it only landed on me once and killed me), but better to avoid it by running. Otherwise, his patterns don’t change much and the rest is cake.

Noize

Kyoko vs. Noize! Quiet Riot reference!

Kyoko vs. Noize! Quiet Riot reference!

Noize is, in my opinion, the easiest boss of River City Girls. Half of her battle isn’t even fighting her, per se, but the music that she plays. In a blatantly obvious reference to the Guitar Hero series, large chunks of her battle see the player hopping over incoming guitar notes while a song plays overhead. It may have been a coincidence, but the first two notes are the ones that are played the least, so stick to the left. The only difficulty here is depth perception.

Once Noize is actually down on the field, one’s only real hassle are the adoring fans that filter onto the stage, impeding your path. They’re not hard to deal with, but they’re annoying like flies. Noize herself only has a few attacks in her arsenal, most dealing with banging around her guitar. The most capable is an attack where she flings her guitar around almost like a boomerang, leaving a trail and making her invulnerable. When she’s finished, she’s open to attack, and not exactly tough.

Each phase is just a new song to avoid the notes from, so her battle doesn’t change much overall. Jump and swat the flies and Noize will be singing her last song eventually.

Sabuko

Kyoko vs. Sabuko! Koko crazy!

Kyoko vs. Sabuko! Koko crazy!

As a final boss, Sabuko could definitely be harder, but is no Noize. Her capabilities are supernatural and ridiculously overpowered, but her defenses aren’t up to par.

Like Abobo, Sabuko is susceptible to the four-strike attack. Also like Abobo, she will block anything further and immediately retort. She doesn’t have any high-flying moves, but her firepower makes standing closer to her a colossal hazard. With each phase, she jumps to a higher level and lets her grunts do the dirty work. Unlike the other bosses in River City Girls, these grunts are actual, fully-capable enemies, so facing them on top of the boss can be excruciating. Eventually, Sabuko will come back down with a powerful strike that actually kills her own henchmen, but be sure to avoid the attack yourself.

With each phase, Sabuko gains more elemental capabilities with her sword. Sometimes she shoots icy particles out at you, sometimes she unleashes waves of fiery tornadoes. The best method of attack is simply to wait for an area big enough to fight and flee, which isn’t ever easy. Sabuko is also the only boss with a fourth phase, which comes as a surprise after initially depleting her health. However, only her arsenal of attacks change with each phase, as one can expect grunts every so often and new attacks to adjust to. Keep at the four-strike combo and Sabuko should be flying out the window eventually.

Thanks for reading! Should there be any details I missed, feel free to comment below, or simply comment on how this guide worked for you. For a more formal post, feel free to visit our official River City Girls review!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

×