The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Lost interest before I got to any significant part of the game. Intro started as a brawl in a park, then a cutscene in school, then you're completely on your own. No instructions, no map. Just explore the whole place yourself and figure out what's there to do.

This experience started before the EX update - a DLC sized content patch - was released. I've tried parts of it with an old save, and I thought what I saw was good, as the content added enhances the core experience.

If it is good to show rather than tell, it is better to evoke rather than show. This adage is clearly understood by the game, but it misses that evoking ennui is walking a razor's edge; it must be done sparingly, do it too long and it's just boring.

You get thrown into Ringo's life after a brief prologue/tutorial. After that, the game never instructs you again. It's entirely on your shoulders to learn how the game works, where everything and everyone is, and how best to spend your time. This is where the problems begin. Not in the freedom itself, but how progression works. There are many, many activities in this game: you can study in school and out, train boxing and judo, even increasing max HP can be done three different ways. The issue is all of them feel the same, and it's a dull grind. You go to a location, press a button, and watch an animation play. You can use these to speed up time, but the game would be stronger if these opportunities were used for new mechanics, deepening gameplay. There are only two other parts to gameplay - minigames and combat.

Combat in this game uses 3 buttons, punch, kick, and block. The game doesn't tell you this, but punches are for short distance, kicks reach a little farther away, and blocking is for when you get run up on by another gang because you accidentally hit their color in a fight you forgot about earlier the same day. There are combos, so you can't simply mash your way through fights. On top of this, you can unlock skills, these are game-changing, you can break faces after a knock down, or roll out of the way, or land some crazy throw as a finisher. It's all very fun. Some of the skills require weird setups and repeating events, but on the whole skills are one of the areas the game shines brightest; skills are the difference between walking up to a squad of reds bumming on their turf and getting pounded into the dirt or walking away with all their money. Even the sunny guitar strum for unlocking skills is a joy. Most of the scripted fights feel low impact, but penultimate fight out of the school is a highlight for the entire game.

After you're finished pocketing lunch money, you should spend it unlocking minigames. Pool is for late night hustling with your bros, mini tennis wins increase REFLEX, and famicom is a waste. The games it references had more depth in their powerups alone. The screen is also excruciatingly small. For future titles, a simple transition to a minigame screen would have made the experience much more fun. Throw in some flavor comments from friends and you're set.

As for the story, Ringo is finishing high school, and thus his last year of childhood, and you learn more about him as you play. For example: As your studies progress, your lit teacher will ask you if he can read your essay to the class, Ringo declines, but the next day this girl in your class chats you up about the breadth of your reading, so later if you've finished Anna, Ringo says he dislikes how this woman left her husband to live with some other guy; what a great way to establish that Ringo values loyalty over love, and thus outward action over inward emotion. You'll agree to take some random girl on a double date with your simp friend, but then as you're walking her home Ringo will start laying out what truly matters to him in life and why he is the way he is, all because she asked him why he quit karate. Ringo shows true character when his crew asks how he knows this nerd or that frycook. Ringo's response is the same, he knew both of them as a kid. Ringo's being tested here. His friends are actually saying: "Why are you friends with these losers?" and Ringo reveals, without saying as much, that he has maintained these friendships and cared for these people despite everything that has changed over the unseen years, asking nothing in return. Ringo gives himself over to delinquency due to external pressures, he is exceptionally loyal, and believes one should look after others. Of all the main cast, I suspect yeo put the most of himself into Ringo, and his silent strength even though his life sucks is admirable.

There are times when what yeo wants you to feel and what is indeed felt align perfectly, but they are fleeting, so you play on in the hope you will see the face of that somber tranquility once again. You can finish up classes and roll out with your gang to the prairies to smash some hoodlums. Walk back to your place, put a flick on, when it's done you can hang your arms over the balcony as you light up. Go back inside to rest your head and let the symphony of the night sweep over you. The structure of the game is very melancholic and deliberate - you are not forced to do anything but the clock is always ticking, and the feel of the game is stronger for it. However, this design choice doesn't mesh well with the game's mechanics. Sure, you can do whatever you want, but not wanting to be broke all the time inclines you to grind at school, research, and the video store, all of which have strict time slots. My advice? Don't even bother working the video store, it interferes with school and judo. Get good at combat and sell bags instead. This time system can prevent you from even feeling like a delinquent sometimes. With all these responsibilities, who has time to waste? Sure, you can take a day off, but you better hope there isn't a mandatory story trigger ahead of you that eats up a day you had previously scheduled for work. There will even be times when the scripted events will interfere with each other. Once I woke up and walked outside only to have this NPC give me a location to fight someone. I try to go there, only to get sucked into a separate scripted event, and by the time I am able to reach the spot, no one's there. Having a lot of side options isn't bad, but it's generally best to let the player agree before taking them on it. By the way, all of the time slot activities are waiting sims, and while Ringo's ennui is key to understanding who he is, it is still a pain. Developers have to be careful when they want make the audience feel a character's boredom, the game would have been better off evoking Ringo's depression rather than his aimlessness. 15 hours is approximately the length of a full playthrough, but you can end it earlier or later if you know what you are doing. When I was 1/3 of the way through, I imagined it'd be cool to play again, but by the time I finished the idea felt like a chore. This game as a visual novel more than double the length might have been fantastic, that way the story could really be fleshed out. As it is, the story is still a strong tragedy, worth seeing through to its bitter end.

Very cool that old versions are available in the betas section every steam game has. The dev clearly respects user choice and doesn't force the newest update on users. Do not mash your way through remapping keybinds, if you aren't careful, you can make the game unusable and only restoring from a backup or manually fixing the .ini file will work. The music in-game is great, excellent when you consider it's selection of royalty-free tracks. I liked the background art far more than those of the characters, but it's all lovingly done. I bought this game hoping it would compel me to buy all of yeo's oeuvre, but instead I came away dissatisfied.

Buy this game if:
+ You are depressed and unmedicated
+ You enjoy expanding combat systems
+ You like Shenmue

Do not buy this game if:
- You want your choices to change the story
- You dislike learning a game
- Your games must have maps

In the future, I want experience the EX update in full, perhaps it will shift my overall view of the game. I hope so.

"I just don’t think that people should have to contend for the right to matter to someone."
"Because you're afraid of losing."

I got hooked on this one. It’s actually quite bold to drop the player into the game with a simple combat tutorial and then leave them to figure out the rest. I quickly realized that a day/night cycle was progressing as I fumbled around, and I pieced the rest together as I went along. You play as Ringo, controlling him through his day-to-day life in high school as a delinquent gang leader. You're free to set your own goals in the game, there are plenty of things to work toward, and you have a limited number of days to achieve them.

Early on, I had Ringo focus on his studies to avoid getting held back a year. After school, I would gather his crew and engage in fights with rival schools to earn cash after everyone was knocked out. Later, I started fishing and going to the gym to increase my cash flow and Max HP. I played through the game thinking my choices would have at least a small impact on the course of events or the final outcome. But, I scrubbed through a YouTube playthrough to find the two quotes at the top and realized that the other player was experiencing the same scenes as I was.

As a result, much of what you do doesn’t really affect your playthrough. You’re essentially just passing time in-game until the story unfolds. I enjoyed the story, but don’t expect a novel or anything. It’s tragic to see what happens to Ringo, and you may find some aspects of the slice-of-life scenes relatable or resonant.

Good game, just not for me. I can see why people like it. Grab this and the related sequel when they go on sale as a bundle. It's a good price for both.

Fun, atmospheric, high school-delinquent life sim/beat em up. Reminds me of the old Way of the Samurai games. Dev is still active and frequently updates, which is always great to see.

I would recommend this game because the music, interactions, and story are very great!

The cooperative mode is not well thought out and poorly configured, it is practically unplayable and exists simply for show.

Ok graphics and sound, rest average, 6/10 but…
Promote minors violence.
Promote minors stealing.
Promote minors smoking.
Promote minors not following good social rules.
Promote minors getting into the yakuza way of like by insinuating to cut a finger, something which is very negative to Japanese society and caused a lot of trouble in the past.
This game is more akin to gopnik subculture, which is detrimental to Russian society.
Also promotes putin and his warmongering ways, tyranny against their people and destabilizing the region with a greater war, since developer banned me for mentioning his leader in a negative way, and masking it with the excuse of saying that he don't allow politics in forum chat, LOL?

Don't be fooled by this game like I was.
It presents itself in a way that would lead players to think that there's a lot of content and that your choices matter.

Nothing you do in this game matters.

You will spend hours doing the same actions over and over, grinding toward an ending that you have no control over.
Interactions with other characters mean nothing, any perceived character development is scripted and pointless.
You're given the choice to do basically anything throughout the game, but you have no say in the single ending the game has to offer. It's like your character suddenly has amnesia and everything you did is thrown out.

I wasted over 40 hours thinking I was working toward something worthwhile only to be presented with an extremely cynical and sub-par ending.

Great game. Lets you do a little bit of everything and play an everyday life with convos with other characters and even the possibility to date others. Overall good experience, have played it through 3 times now and still enjoying it.

Great game.

I've never played anything like it. Not for everyone but for me it really clicked

The story was quite good but I think the ending was anti climatic but I did not do all the game had to offer and the ending did make sense in the narritive

This is one of my favorite games of all time. I love the story, characters, gameplay, music and aesthetic. I played through his game like 3x on my Switch and when I heard about Fading Afternoon, I purchased an ROG ALLY X just to play that game on because I loved this one and that one was the same developer and art/game style. So in part, this game is partially the reason I am a Steam Gamer today.

I've been replaying this game on Steam and falling in love with it all over again. Every playthrough feels completely unique as I use my time differently. I wish there was DLC with an extpanded map or a sequel with new characters and new mechanics like Faded Afternoon but with old mechanics as well. The fighting is really fun and the gang, street thug aspect makes me feel like I'm playing a retro version of Yakuza or GTA. Endless replayability here for me.

Interesting take on a game. Like a slice of life anime it was fun but seemed a bit too cloudy in ways.

fun game . it has little to no hand holding so have a guide on hand so you know what to do. other then that not much .If you like open world sand box games then this might be for you

to put it simplyThis game is amazing.
Yes it’s cryptic, and yes the lack of map is infuriating.
But the characters are so interesting you don’t care about the rest. I can see the combat getting repetitive if you don’t like beat’em ups. However, The charm, wit and tragedy make up for all of this.
I mean it when I say that this is one of my favorite games of all time.

Very interesting, music is super! You just live as a character, trying to solve his problems. Yeo, great work!

Bro wtf am i supposed to do?!?

A underrated game. I am glad I know of it and have played it.
Beautifully done in all aspects, story and aesthetics. 👍

its like if kunio-kun had depression

Loved it. Give it a shot.

Ringo Ishikawa is a game worth trying for a couple reasons. 1: price is solid, 2: there is nothing else really like it, and 3: very good story .

Ringo is a student and the leader of a gang alongside his closest friends, nearing the end of their youth. Between home-life, career-building, and girlfriends, you and your friends are being slowly pulled away from that era and into adult responsibility.

Gameplay is very choice and action driven, and involves a 2D artstyle and beat-em up mechanics similar to say Final Fight or Scott Pilgrim, but tends to highlight the RPG, immersion, and life simulation elements surrounding. Ringo can go to school (or not), study as much as he wants, work part time, eats and sleeps, talk to whomever and advance the story at different paces, and fight with any of the rival gangs around. The fighting is simple but surprisingly deep, with unlockable moves, mentor NPCs, etc, and at the end of fight, Ringo can rifle through his downed enemies pockets, taking a couple dozen yen as a prize.

Story is very self-driven, kinda slice of life-esque but not in a bad way. No epic stuff, just a down to earth rumination on youth, friendship, and fleeting times.

Music is fantastic.

graphics 4/5: The graphics have a 2D cartoon style similar to NES games. It's detailed but looks low res when you increase resolution.
audio 4/5: blends perfectly into the background
gameplay 4/5: Very good for a 2D game. simple controls, easy to learn. might take some time to master as this game has some hand to hand combat sequences. mostly this game is a life sim, wake up, go to school, attend class, go to work, talk to characters, but there is a greater goal to all of it.
story 5/5: this is easily the game's strongest aspect. It's simply immersive.

6/10

I'm unsure about what to feel about this game. I think I played it right on time in my life. If I played this when I was just leaving highschool, it'd of made no sense to me. Half a lifetime later, and with much larger obligations looming over me, Friends of Ringo Ishikawa just feels right. I made a lot of mistakes that I thought were natural elements of the game, but on subsequent playthroughs I realized that sometimes not doing anything at all is the best course of action. Some things do not require repetition. There are entire screens to this game that's function eludes me. The fields and docks give me a sense of serious dread.

The fact there are no expectations of Ringo Ishikawa is perhaps one of the most haunting things about the character himself. The tragedy there is overhanging the entire game. The few characters, if you remain dedicated, that do happen to provide modicums of praise and affirmation arrive seemingly too late to make much difference. Or perhaps that's just my own perspective. Maybe they came at just the right time. We may never know. We do not get to see Ringo Ishikawa grow up, we only get to watch him grow.

Yeo's games are made for self-reflection, and Ringo Ishikawa is the start of an entire self-reflection chronology that Yeo seems to be working through. I highly recommend this game, despite the fear it makes me feel.

9/10

Much like the games of the early 90's, this game doesn't hold your hand at all - and it's a good thing. It gave me the thrill of exploring and finding new things out on my own that I haven't felt in years, unlike modern AAA titles that point you toward every major plot point and achievement as if you were geocaching.

English translation left a little to be desired but that was also kind of nostalgic in itself. Game controls were efficient but the fight mechanics left room for improvement (toss in some street fighter/fatal fury type back-forward punch moves maybe?). Music and story was absolutely stellar - It gave me the same feeling of wonder that video games of my youth did, and then reminded me that i'm an adult who has seen some shit.

Ringo was a near perfect experience and a work of art. But I still yearn for a Harvest Moon like 2d-retro game like this with more martial arts rpg elements, romance options, perhaps a larger city to explore and truly inhabit. For now, Ringo scratched that itch admirably.