City Hunter (PS5) Review
Release Date: February 26, 2026
Publisher/Developer: Clouded Leopard Entertainment/Red Art Games
Platform: Nintendo Switch 1, 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X | S, PC
Price: $24.99
Originally released in March 1990 on the PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16 to those perhaps unaware) and only in Japan, City Hunter follows the tale of the 1987 anime and 1985-1991 manga of the same name. City Hunter’s anime got popular in many countries, while the game itself has been locked to Japan this whole time. Here in 2026, you can now digitally download this title in your preferred language, with a physical edition coming in September. Standard, deluxe, and collector’s editions will be available, with all three options available directly from Red Art Games’ online store.
City Hunter is the tale of Ryo Saeba, a “cleaner” who is hired to a variety of tasks to protect people from the evil underbelly of criminals in Tokyo. Mostly, this ends up involving Ryo hitting on his client, but still using his skills to get the job done. The game consists of four stories, the first three of which you can tackle in any order.
The base game itself wears it’s sixteen bit heart on it’s sleeve. Despite having three different scenarios to choose from, most of the gameplay is very simple, where Ryo has to enter a facility to do/figure out something, which usually involves gunning down a bunch of similar looking bad guys, dodging strange security systems or machinery, and finding the right door to get the right key, card, or conversation before heading out to find the next piece. There are the occasional boss fights and more difficult enemies, but ten minutes into the game you’ll know the entire process. I consider it an action-maze game, where you have to fight off hordes of enemies whilst making your way to the appropriate locations to move further into the story.
The developers did more than just port the game over to modern systems, though. City Hunter’s new release has plenty of extras, including a hard mode and a new enhanced mode that makes tweaks to enemy AI that original gamers disliked in the nineties. Add in art and a music player, and this release will definitely scratch the itch of someone who remembers the original game or was a fan of the anime or manga.
Outside of that, however, City Hunter is exactly what it is expected to be, a rerelease of a 1990s video game on an ultimately obscure console. It’s a neat time capsule, but it’s not going to be the next grand adventure for someone unfamiliar with the series. Controls are a bit odd as well, with X as jump and O as shoot, L2 and R2 as pause and rewind, and swiping on the touchpad to change weapons, whilst leaving Triangle and Square unused. And in the end, gameplay is straightforward and very similar across all the levels. I also didn’t like some of the odd knockback I would have when taking damage; sometimes getting shot from the front would result in Ryo getting turned around before the knockback, effectively putting me in contact with the enemies and taking more damage.
City Hunter will definitely appease those who know what they are getting into. True diehards are likely either double-dipping or preordering the physical release in September. This package is really an excellent representation of how older games should be released, keeping the original intact whilst adding a few more bonuses or even a mode that fixes concerns of the original release as options. Overall, City Hunter is a great purchase if you are looking for a shot of retro anime or gaming goodness.
Pros:
-Excellent recreation of the original
-Plenty of bonuses for fans
-New enhanced mode tries to fix issues with the original release
Cons:
-Simplistic gameplay
-Hard to recommend to people who don’t already know the game or series
-Questionably set up controls
Special thanks to Clouded Leopard Entertainment and Red Art Games for providing a code for review!