City Hunter is a man’s manga and was adapted into a man’s anime. It’s about Ryo, a womanizing private eye who operates in the seedy underworld, that feels like Golgo 13 meets Scooby Doo, but with a glorious 80s anime machismo and shenanigans. Its greatness was recognized around the world, leading to several live‑action film adaptations: one starring Jackie Chan as Ryo Saeba himself, one on Netflix, and a French adaptation in which Ryo is known as “Nicky Larson”.
Video games adapted from anime/manga are nothing new, and even back in 1990, City Hunter was one of many. It has taken over 35 years for this to finally be released in the West, and now it’s available in English as well. While many fans may have already played it through emulation, this new version includes several features that make it worthwhile to revisit for long-time fans and a great choice for newcomers.
What can gamers expect from this belated localization of anime’s most suave ladykiller? Check out our City Hunter review to find out!
City Hunter
Developer: SUNSOFT, Red Art Games
Publisher: SUNSOFT, Clouded Leopard Entertainment
Platforms: Windows, TurboGrafx-16, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 (reviewed)
Release Date: March 2, 1990 / February 25, 2026
Price: $24.99
City Hunter does its best to convey what it’s all about with as little fluff as possible. There are volumes of manga and several seasons’ worth of adventures following Ryo and Kaoru, and even a few reboots. You get a stylish introduction, a few lines of text that explain each scenario, and then the game sets Ryo loose to figure out what to do and to fight his way to the truth.
The gameplay and storytelling are as Spartan as can be. It’s best described as something like Elevator Action with some LucasArts-style adventuring where Ryo has to look around for a key and talk to a guy. The core experience is running around, looking for unlocked doors, and finding keys while shooting the shit out of anything that moves.
It doesn’t get any more complex in all three scenarios. Sometimes you may have a slightly tougher-than-average enemy or a boss fight with a pathetically easy-to-follow pattern, but for the most part, what you see is what you get.
Ryo doesn’t get any power-ups or upgrades. His pistol is all he needs and it’s almost too effective. You don’t even need to look out for health packs since the nurse lady is always willing and ready to give Ryo sloppy seconds to restore his HP.
Some rooms have sexy ladies changing their clothes or taking showers, and bumping into them is like God coming down to give you a pat on the back, thus restoring Ryo’s HP. It’s very much in line with the manga/anime, but without Kaoru around to slap Ryo with a comically oversized Looney Tunes mallet.
Ryo’s adventures take place across three different locations, but you’d never know since they all use the same handful of assets. The hospital, docks, and office buildings where these stories take place all look similar, making navigation a waking nightmare. There are no numbered doors, no maps, and no indication of which keys will open which doors.
The “enhanced mode” does a fair job at adjusting damage values and enemy behavior to be less cheap, but they needed to add more details to the background and graphics. Things like color-coding the doors and keys would have been a huge help and would have made it so you don’t waste time. Adding floor numbers to the background would have also reduced confusion.
For 1990, City Hunter is pretty interesting and deep. Each scenario has a self-contained story, and players are free to try to figure out what to do. The adventure game elements and open-endedness elevate what would be a very by-the-numbers action platformer, even if everything in City Hunter is as basic as it gets.
Compared to other action platformers of its day, City Hunter isn’t special. Older Sunsoft games on NES, like Blaster Master or Batman, have more going on with their gameplay.
Given that the TurboGrafx-16 was less popular than other consoles in the West, and that City Hunter as an IP was largely unknown and the game fairly unremarkable, it makes sense why it remained in Japan.
As far as ports go, this could be better. The emulation seems sloppy, as I encountered enemies and traps with missing sprites. Some of the flickering got aggressive, almost sending me into an epileptic seizure. The CRT filter is disappointing and does the lazy thing, where it’s just black horizontal lines running across the screen.
Worse yet, sometimes Ryo feels a bit delayed when playing, which especially sucks when enemies in this game are prone to bum-rushing and sucker-punching you.
Fortunately, the rewind feature is generous and operates as it does in most of these retro revivals, but it still feels like more of a crutch, especially since the “enhanced mode” was already designed to make the game fairer.
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.
City Hunter was reviewed on PlayStation 5 using a code provided by Clouded Leapard Entertainment. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Earnest Evans Collection is now available for Windows PC (via Steam), TurboGrafx-16, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
