City Hunter Reviews
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City Hunter remains a mediocre in 2026. Extra features make this the best way for hardcore fans to play, but this is an underwhelming experience. It's short in runtime and overpriced for the amount of content. This one is strictly for the fans.
It's great that Red Art Games has elevated the experience by adding two new modes, while also preserving the original version. The only issue is that the game, no matter the version, is too brief, disorienting, and repetitive to truly enjoy.
To truly enjoy this game, you need to be a fan of City Hunter. While it’s not a bad game, it does have its flaws and offers simplistic gameplay that feels outdated for its time. However, with some patience, you can still have fun with it and appreciate its visual flair that pays tribute to the material.
Classic 2D action game based on the City Hunter anime, now ready for a new generation
City Hunter isn't a hidden gem or an essential classic in the PC Engine catalog, but this re-release does manage to unearth a rather interesting curiosity for fans of Tsukasa Hojo's manga and anime. Its mechanics are simple, repetitive, and clearly limited by the passage of time, although modern improvements make the experience much more comfortable and accessible today. Ultimately, this is a product very much geared towards fans of the franchise and lovers of pure Japanese retro gaming, where historical and nostalgic value outweighs gameplay depth. As an exercise in preservation and homage to City Hunter, it works much better than many might expect.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
City Hunter is a solid remaster of a retro game that was never particularly unique back in its day. It does everything right, offering updated controls and cleaning the soundtrack alongside adding bonus content. Its shortcomings are the result of the game itself being not that impressive and a product of its time.
Originally released for the PC-Engine in 1990, and based on a manga of the same namesake, City Hunter tells the story of Ryo Saeba, a man known as a City Hunter. He’s basically a cleaner that tackles a myriad of jobs ensuring the protection of women from assassinations. His partner, Kaori, also helps him in his mission to clean the city of bad guys. City Hunter is a 2D action game where players run around buildings, opening doors for mission-critical NPCs and items all the while shooting various thugs barring down your path. Some doors won’t open, some doors will lead to empty rooms. It’s also trial and error. All doors are the same so you never know which one opens. This release includes the original default difficulty setting but also a brand new, more forgiving, Enhanced mode. Also as it is common with rereleases of classics from the 1990s, City Hunter features a rewind feature to correct some mistakes or come back from the dead. If you come across a scandily lady behind a door, despite her clear anger, you’ll get your health replenished
If you are a die-hard fan of the anime, this game is a lovingly preserved curio. Hearing Get Wild in 8-bit glory and seeing pixel-art cameos of Kaori and Umibozu will likely carry you through the frustration. However, if you are looking for a polished action platformer, City Hunter might feel more like a midlife crisis than mokkori magic. It is a product of its time. It's charming and authentic, but undeniably dated.
City Hunter on the Nintendo Switch delivers exactly what it promises: a nostalgic experience focused on arcade action and respect for the original work. It's not a title that reinvents the genre or significantly expands its mechanics, but it fulfills its role by providing straightforward and uncomplicated, albeit repetitive, fun. For fans of the franchise, it's a competent adaptation full of references. For new players, it can serve as an entry point, provided expectations are aligned with a more traditional approach. In the end, the game succeeds by focusing on its own legacy—even if it doesn't broaden its horizons much.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
There's not much to say: City Hunter wasn't spectacular back then, and it isn't spectacular now. What a shame.
Review in Italian | Read full review
City Hunter is neither a new game nor a perfect game. But it's a good attempt to keep it alive, letting new people enjoy a unique piece of PC Engine and anime history. Fans of the series will enjoy spending time with characters they know, and retro gamers will enjoy a good-looking action-adventure game with some light puzzles and fun fighting. The game is short, easy to understand, and a great example of how to create a PC Engine game in the late 1990s.
classic experience that offers a charming appeal for fans of this type of game and anime enthusiasts in general. However, it may not suit those seeking a deeper story, richer audio, or more varied content, as it brings no significant changes compared to the past.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
City Hunter returns to modern platforms through a respectful remaster of the 1990 PC Engine game based on Tsukasa Hojo’s manga. The release includes quality-of-life features such as save states, rewind, multiple screen options and full localization, making the game more accessible than ever. However, the core experience shows its age. The gameplay revolves around exploring maze-like buildings, fighting enemies with simple shooting mechanics and searching for the correct doors to progress. While controls are responsive and the historical value of the release is notable, the repetitive level design, confusing exploration and shallow combat prevent the game from being more than a curiosity for fans of retro titles or the original franchise.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
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.
City Hunter is really only for fans and those feeling nostalgic, who will likely prefer the physical version. This remaster includes the usual galleries, improved comfort, and bug fixes, but you can see everything in two hours. It received an 8/10 rating back then, but it's hard to give it a coherent score today. So, no rating for it, but enough information to give you an idea and help you make your decision.
Review in French | Read full review
City Hunter is an average, shallow and hardly interesting game but it had the chance to be rescued from the past and is now available in an acceptable way on modern systems. With its limitations in mind, the game can be interesting for retrogamers, but its appeal ends there.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The PC Engine version of City Hunter was not a groundbreaking title even in 1990, and its conventional side-scrolling structure and simple combat clearly reflect the limitations of its era. This re-release does not attempt to romanticize those aspects. Instead, it brings the game into a modern environment with official localization, stable performance, and contemporary quality-of-life features, while preserving the original structure and feel with notable care. Rather than serving as mere nostalgia, it stands as an exemplary restoration—one that allows today’s players to experience a slice of licensed action game history in an accessible and faithfully preserved form.
Review in Korean | Read full review