City Hunter coming to modern consoles was not something that I had on my bingo card for 2026. For players who aren’t familiar, City Hunter was a PC and TurboGrafx-16 game released in 1990. It was a playable experience of the popular manga/anime from Japan. Seeing it being revived was a welcome surprise for me, as I really enjoyed the series. From stopping arms-dealing gangs to rescuing kidnapped workers, Ryo Saeba is back in the modern age. He brings retro gameplay and substance that many players may be experiencing for the first time. In an age where there are plenty of modern gaming adventures, City Hunter is a fun time for players looking to scratch that retro itch.
Ryo Saeba, Clever Investigator
City Hunter is about Ryo Saeba, also known as the Stallion of Shinjuku. He’s an investigator who cleans up the streets from the criminals who try to run it with an iron fist. Using a variety of weapons, players take on four different cases in the game. From stopping an evil CEO to ensuring a gang doesn’t get weapons out on the streets. It’s a fun story, and the game cleverly has all of the missions interconnected in a realized way. It does well with feeling like different episodes of the TV series, with each case being a different scenario for the player to enjoy and for Ryo to investigate. The arc wrap-up was surprising and fun, feeling like something right out of the original source material.
When it comes to the execution of story development, it’s all done through text. Each mission has an opening crawl to set up what’s coming for players, which is done well by explaining the characters involved, such as Kaori. Additionally, when you run into other characters (physically), you get more dialogue that progresses the story and mission. It’s a retro concept, but one that feels right, especially since it’s something that’s part of the original game. When something isn’t broken, there is no point in fixing it.
City Hunting Feels Maze-like But Rewarding
When it comes to the levels of City Hunter, they vary only slightly in what you get. Players go through industrial-style areas, a corporate office, and even a cruise ship, all while fighting through hordes of foes. When it comes to the number of levels in the game, it falls on the shorter side with there only being four, however, the level design is purposely crafted to be maze-like. While there are only four levels, there are different background scenes that make the game feel extended, especially when you couple it with the fact that you have to backtrack and interact with different characters before being able to proceed further in the level.
The maze concept is something I appreciated when I was playing the game. It had me looking to explore more and more of the levels to see what I could find. Sometimes, I found a nurse or a woman’s changing room to heal me (not even kidding with that, Ryo is a charmer after all). Other times I would come across a character that would offer me another weapon to use, such as a laser gun or bazooka. These bonuses end up being quite rewarding when you go against the final bosses of the level, as they end up being much easier to take down compared to blasting away with your pistol for the entire level, taking forever to defeat enemies.
Sometimes the maze aspects of the levels can feel daunting. but by navigating from one side of the floor to the next before ascending or descending, it felt less so. Plus, it gave me more time to experience the game and felt like it fit in perfectly. With this being a port of the 1990 game, its DNA definitely shows. However, it makes it feel all the more satisfying to progress through the levels when you have to find the way with your own investigative skills.
Some New Goodies For Your Retro Fun
This edition of City Hunter brings along some new features and addons for players, both new and old, to enjoy. Firstly, the game now has a Rewind mechanic to help you in tough spots of the game. So if you are a player who wants to experience the harder difficulties, you can with some assistance. Or if you may want to experience a boss fight again, just hit the assigned button (R2 on PS5) and it starts. It’s a useful feature that can make things more approachable especially for younger or newer gamers just getting into retro games.
Additionally, if you are a long time fan of any City Hunter media, you’ll especially enjoy the fun art and music to listen to from the game and anime series. It’s a neat little addition to the game that allows you to see what the art and design looked like back in the day. While sometimes in games it gets skipped over, looking through the art was refreshing, especially having seen episodes of the show. Plus, it brings more appreciation to see it come alive in the game.
Difficulty is a Three-Headed Hydra of Experiences
This newest version of City Hunter has three different difficulties: Enhanced, Hard, and Original. I started with the Original difficulty, and I could see where the age of the game began to crack. Ryo is very stiff when in combat; you can only switch sides to fire at enemies by getting up and turning, which wastes time and leaves you vulnerable. With plenty of enemies to receive damage from, your health can go down considerably quickly. It’s something to try out to appreciate what the game used to be like, however, there is a much better way to play with Enhanced.
Red Art Games took what Sunsoft made with City Hunter and evolved it just ever so slightly, keeping the main fundamentals of the game while making it more enjoyable. Now, when shooting in a crouched position, Ryo can simply turn to each side. It’s a small change, but something that can be a lifesaver more than you would think. Furthermore, the projectiles you shoot from your weapons are much improved. Rather than being hit or miss on doing damage, they consistently make contact with the enemy. Plus, they go farther than they originally used to, making each of the weapons better and giving you good odds of surviving, even at a greater difficulty.
When it comes to the Hard difficulty, though, it feels like things are kicked up more than a notch. Enemies do much more damage (two or three notches of health per hit). Pair that with the mechanics of enemies peeking doors when you come out of rooms, and enemies such as those with flamethrowers, where it can be hard to damage them, and you can see a game over rather quickly. The difficulty felt extremely unforgiving to play. Sure, there may be a feature to rewind, but it’s still really tough to the point where I felt like I was just rewinding a tape rather than making progress on the difficulty. Something that could be toned down a bit.
8-Bit Goodness To The Eyes & Ears
The visuals of City Hunter are a throwback to old school visuals, and I love it. Seeing the classic sprites sprinting around with the various other characters is always a great change from modern gaming. With no filters on it, the game looks really smooth, which could be easy on the eyes for some. If you are longing for the old days, however, it has a CRT Filter and it looks great. The game plays really clearly, and I only noticed lag when it came to playing on the Original difficulty, but other than that, it was well crafted performance-wise. Something that was a shock to see, even after all these years, was the attention to detail; more specifically, when it came to Ryo’s weapons. If you have a two-handed weapon equipped like the Bazooka and sprint (with strides that are well designed), you can see it on his back. It’s a small note, but there are some titles even today where the weapon disappears, so to have that featured in a game from over 36 years ago was incredible.
For retro games like this one, I am a sucker for the audio and the soundtracks that comes with them, as long as it delivers in both of those fronts. For City Hunter, they do. The sounds of guns, even the grunts of enemies being taken down, are all authentic from the original title. They are cleaned up a bit quality-wise, but it serves as a nice upgrade. Musically, the soundtrack is catchy, and as a bonus, it even comes with Get Wild from the anime, which was a delight to listen to. Playing the levels with the bit-style of urban and city pop tunes never got tiring to listen to on loop, even at times when I was getting lost throughout the different levels. It fits perfectly into the 80s aesthetic of the City Hunter world.
City Hunter Is An Investigative Delight
Playing City Hunter had me nostalgic for a time I didn’t get to experience. The 80s theme and the overarching story of Ryo’s investigations were a fun story to explore, showing the ever-true nature that Ryo Saeba as a force to be reckoned with when it comes to his detective, weapons, and charming skills. The game feels like you are experiencing a part of the show, and fans of the series will especially love it. While the game essentially has mazes for levels, it’s a great way to experience this style of game, making you do the investigating to solve the case and get to the next job. Being able to get extra dialogue, healing, or new weapons is the worthwhile payoff to exploring.
The new features of being able to rewind, listen to the music, look at original art, and use filters are great, but one criminal act with this game is the jarring difficulty spikes going from Enhanced to Hard. It makes it feel like a completely different game and something that can taint the experience a little bit. With the game only having four levels, the extreme difficulty can add to the length, but when you get stuck in one spot due to the difficulty, it can feel a bit demotivating, even after you may have completed the game on the other two options.
Overall, though, the City Hunter game is a great journey to experience. It feels like a mini-vacation in an anime or manga that was needed. Plus, the old detective drama days are never a bad place to visit. Red Art Games is one of the various developers doing the good work of bringing back these older titles to enjoy. If you are looking for a new retro adventure or even your first dive in, City Hunter needs help getting some cases solved.
City Hunter is out now on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.