The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa is a free-form 2D brawler with a unique sense of melancholy

The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa is a game that wears its influences on its sleeve, yet manages to feel altogether exceptional. At first glance, it appears to be a simple, side-scrolling beat-em-up in thrall to River City Ransom, but it blends life-sim elements from games like Persona and Shenmue with punchy combat and excellent, world-weary writing that you wouldn’t expect from a pixel-art tale about delinquent school kids. I played a lot of The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa on a recent vacation and couldn’t get it out of my head, so I got in touch with its developer, which turned out to be just one guy from Moscow who goes by the name Yeo. As it happens, the story behind the game is as unusual as the game itself. It’s not every day that you... Continue reading…