City Hunter

City Hunter has had a long life as a manga and anime — decades of adaptations, a Jackie Chan movie, a 2022 Netflix film, still-running fandom — but its only official game has been locked away since 1990, a Japan-only PC Engine exclusive that international fans could previously only reach through fan-translated ROMs. This February, SUNSOFT, Clouded Leopard Entertainment, and Red Art Games finally brought it west, in full, with the kind of remaster treatment that suggests everyone involved actually cared about getting this one right.

The remaster is the best part

Visually, this is a genuinely careful restoration: the original pixel art and Ryo Saeba’s anime-accurate sprite work are preserved rather than smoothed over, and they hold up better than most 1990 platformers have a right to. On top of that sits a proper modern toolkit — save states, rewind, scanline filters, multiple screen and aspect-ratio options — and full localization across nine languages, subtitles included, with the French release even carrying the “Nicky Larson” dub name the series goes by there. The single best touch is that TM Network’s “Get Wild,” the theme song practically synonymous with the anime, finally made it into the game itself rather than staying a menu-screen afterthought. For a licensed 35-years-later revival, that’s exactly the kind of detail that separates a cash-in from a project someone actually loved.

What the remaster can’t fix

None of that changes what’s underneath it: a short, dated 2D action game built around exploring maze-like building interiors, shooting enemies with simple gunplay, and hunting for the right door to progress. It’s playable and occasionally stylish — Ryo fights with firearms rather than fists, which set the original apart from its 1990 peers, and enemy placement across multiple vertical layers asks for some positioning rather than pure run-and-gun — but the level design repeats itself well before the credits roll, and there isn’t much of a story here beyond a backdrop for the action. This was always going to be true of a straight remaster rather than a remake, and the studio doesn’t pretend otherwise, but it’s the reason this can’t be scored purely on presentation.

The price is the sticking point

$24.99 for a short, three-decade-old game has been the most consistent complaint across other coverage, and it’s a fair one — comparable Japan-only retro re-releases from the same era have launched at a third of the price. The licensing costs of bringing back an anime tie-in are real and probably explain some of the gap, but it doesn’t change what the number feels like at checkout next to the amount of new game you’re getting.

Verdict

City Hunter is a genuinely well-made remaster of a game that was never going to be more than a short, maze-heavy curiosity — the kind of release where the care put into the presentation and the localization outpaces the original design it’s preserving. If you grew up with the manga or anime, or you collect PC Engine history, this is worth owning and the “Get Wild” integration alone might be worth the price of admission. If you’re coming to it cold looking for a substantial action-platformer, wait for a sale.