In-Indie - The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa 

Well, here comes a game even I wasn’t expecting to talk about till I played it. When I was surfing through the indie titles of the Nintendo Switch when I had little to no games for it, one game that caught my attention was The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa. I remember hearing there was a sort of River City Ransom esque game and I thought it was this. The trailers made it look that way. Little did I know that I was completely wrong. And despite that, I couldn’t be happier with what I had played.

The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa follows… Ringo Ishikawa, a young Japanese high school delinquent who is the leader of a group from his school, consisting of five of his other friends. Together, they hang out, beat up rival schools, and just think about their futures. While the story isn’t terrible, far from it, don’t expect things to pick up until the near final part of the game. At the start, you are given tutorials for beating people up. You can grapple, block, and throw a punch and a kick. Simple mechanics, but depending on what you do, you can learn all sorts of new moves to beat up rival schools around town just for the fun of it. I say depending cause you will not be able to do everything in one playthrough. The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa is set on a real time day and night system. Think Persona but you get to go through the entire day. You can do whatever you want throughout the days. If you wanna make some extra money, you can get a part time job and work throughout the day. If you feel like doing better in school, you can attend classes and study to get straight As and a scholarship. If you want to learn more moves to do better in combat, you can train at the dojo. Or you can just merely dick around town for fun, beating up guys and finding your friends (or ringo ishikawa). While the game is a beat em up, it is not all you’ll be doing. Hell, I doubt you’ll be fighting half the time unless you want to kill some time. Just wandering around this small Japanese town, seeing the different residents of it, going to the park, the docks, the underpass, the fields, the shopping district, the bridge, and the houses, it all makes it feel so alive. Just like Night in the Woods, I really like small town settings in games, and indie games pull them off perfectly.

That being said however, this game does have some problems. Being made by a guy in, not Japan surprisingly, but Russia, the game has a few translation errors. Not too frequent to ruin everything, but when you see it, you just can’t help but notice it. But the real problem comes with the glitches. Ringo getting stuck between spaces, enemies appearing in places they don’t belong, the music cutting out for moments. One really beneficial glitch I had was when Ringo just stopped needing sleep up until I got him knocked out in a fight. It made studying real easy and I just abused that up until I couldn’t study no more. The glitches aren’t terrible, but one or two will require you to restart the game, which can be annoying. Another thing is that the game is really vague on what to do. Sure, it doesn’t hold your hand, but with all these options for you to do, you will be wandering around the town a lot at the start just trying to figure out where you can go. And some items are just baffling to me. You could be reading a book the whole day, only to find out it was nothing. And the gold chain you purchase… I don’t know what it does. Apparently it does something, but it’s never stated.

Thankfully, the problems are only minor, aside from a couple of annoying glitches. But the one thing that doesn’t become a problem is the story. Despite it being not being told too often, once you get it, it really grips you. Ringo is a troublesome child. He isn’t stupid, and he doesn’t have problems to deal with. His problem is that he just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about his future, his successes or anything aside from being a tough guy with a 16 bit pompadour. His friends, however, are moving on. From having relationships with girls they’ve known for years to trying to go into college to training to be professional boxers, they all have dreams and desires and something to look forward to. Ringo doesn’t have any of that. And I won’t spoil the ending, cause god knows the creator would rather people experience it themselves, but all I’ll say is you can be a straight A student, a hard working youth, a black belt karate champ or just some kid. It will all end the same for Ringo and there is nothing you can do about it. It’s just a part of growing up, or rather, Ringo’s blind ignorance to do so. And I don’t think I’ve seen that story told often in these coming of age tales. The desire to not grow up, to stay young and ignorant.

The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa isn’t perfect by any means, what with the glitches and the rather odd use of royalty free music. But it is a gem regardless for the ton, the variety, and the story. It’s a game that I was happy to stumble upon on the Switch. Hell, I’m glad it’s on the Switch in general, considering it didn’t seem like it would get that kind of love. Now if only some RPG Maker games could get that support. If you are looking for a well crafted set of story and characters with a few bits of beat em up action, The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa is for you.

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