Handheld gaming is more than a compromise of power and portability. Whether it’s the ability to play anywhere, multitask or hold an entire console in your hands, it’s a special experience consoles have never replicated. In a world where high resolutions and teraflops reign supreme, we take a look at a portable relic every month and reflect on what makes it memorable. Be warned, spoilers may occasionally populate these articles.

Game Boy Advance had an incredible library during its era. There were many great original IPs for the handheld, but an equally strong proponent was how much the library dipped into retro NES and SNES properties. Some of these were straight up ports, others were more expanded editions and some were just brand new games that were made in a style that hadn't gotten much attention in years due to most developers being enamored with 3D games. River City Ransom EX is a remake of the original NES River City Ransom. For the most part it maintains the charm that made the original such a highly-regarded NES classic, but does change up enough stuff where there's still a learning curve for River City veterans.

The OG River City Ransom was often compared to Double Dragon, probably the best known beat 'em up of the 8-bit era. A lot of this was based on similarities in gameplay, but the plot could essentially be recast as Double Dragon: Lee Brothers in High School and no one would notice the difference. Ryan's high school sweetheart Cyndi has somehow gotten into the clutches of the villainous Slick, so he gets the help of his friend Alex (player 2 in the NES version, a much sadder incarnation in GBA) to fight a bunch of gangs to get her back. The gangs in River City Ransom have less threatening names like the Generic Dudes, The Jocks and Squids which all sound softer than the Shadow Warriors. But despite the violent street fighting nature of the title, the look and feel of the game is on the more wholesome side for the genre.

River City Ransom was always unique among beat 'em ups because of how non linear it was compared to its brethren. Final Fight, Double Dragon, Rival Turf and so on were all great examples of the genre but were all so linear. River City Ransom Ex allows players to freely explore the world and take time off from fighting to do things like shop for food. To refer it to as an adventure game or action RPG may be using the RPG term loosely, but it's also not entirely inaccurate as it does have some role-playing elements. Learning new moves and increasing stats to becomes more powerful is within that realm. Beyond those elements it's classic beat 'em up gameplay. Ryan and Alex use their martial arts mastery to beat the living tar out of everyone who gets in their way and aren't afraid to use found weapons like brass knuckles and chains.

River City Ransom EX did a lot to improve on the original game but there were a few missteps along the way. The graphics were given an SNES-style facelift that managed to maintain the trademark character design of the original. Because of the character proportions combat doesn't have the greatest precision, but watching the little rectangular people run around the screen beating each other up is amusing. Unfortunately not all changes were good. The original, and this can be said of beat 'em ups in general, is best to play with a friend in co-op mode. This is a little trickier to pull off on a handheld so River City Ransom EX is single player only but Alex can help out as an AI bot. The problem with this is Alex has artificial below average intelligence. He means well, he's just an idiot, and having friendly fire turned out makes him more of a danger than an aid. Old games didn't always have the best means of saving one's progress. This was due to hardware limitations at the time where battery back-up saves were a rarity and most games relied on a password feature. River City Ransom EX upgraded to using save files instead of the password, but this only saved the character progression and not the game progression, so every time you started a game it'd be at the beginning but it didn't take too long to play catch up thanks to the character progression being saved. A weird choice was a debug menu that gave the player control over battle speed, attack power, friendly fire, enemies on screen and a few other options that normally aren't there. It felt like a debug mode that was in some old NES games that could be unlocked with a secret code except it was out in the open. It was fun to play with, partly because it felt like something you shouldn't be able to play with.

River City Ransom EX is one of the sillier beat 'em up games. There's a lot of dialogue on screen, both for the time period and for the type of game, and a lot of it wasn't even trying to be serious. Not too many games will have enemies say "BARF!" while taking a beating, but everyone who's familiar with this franchise doesn't even flinch at the idea. Between the dialogue choices and chibi character designs, River City Ransom has a lighthearted feel to the overall presentation, which is weird when you realize it's about teenage gang street fighting with kidnappers. But the tongue-in-cheek tone combined with the open-world gameplay and solid old school beat 'em up style comes together in a nice package that makes River City Ransom fondly remembered by many.

River City Ransom EX was an interesting attempt to modernize the classic game. The core gameplay remained largely unchained from how the original was remembered, but there were several other expansions, additions and updates, so it felt like a blend of modernity and retro sensibilities but sadly it also brought about changes that weren't exactly welcome. It didn't make a ton of waves when it was originally released, but it was a breath of fresh air for fans of classic beat 'em ups when retro-style titles were more scarce than they are nowadays. Since its release there have been better River City Ransom entries, but during the age of GBA, a lot of good times were had in spite of poor design choices.

Get more Pocket Power. Click here to view every Pocket Power so far and prepare for a pocket-sized stroll down memory lane.