River City Ransom is a game that's long been missing from SDA, and i've attempted to remedy this. It took a week of experimentation, research, and planning to develop the route. Then about 4 hours of emulator practice and 10 hours of recording to obtain the result you see here. There is not a lot of previous work on this game. The TG record is (was) 34:04. There is a walkthru on youtube that completes the game in about 15:20 (on emulator), and i've heard rumor of someone at MAGFest doing it in 16 minutes. I knew i could get under 11 minutes, and in the end i pulled about 10 and a quarter. This is an excellent classic beat-em-up game that really stands the test of time, and i hope i have done it justice.

From start to Warehouse
   I snag a weapon on the second screen and try not to lose it. The gangs, enemy placement, and behavior are randomized, so it's hard to predict what's going to happen. I try to play it safe in this section because just one hit will cause me to drop the weapon.

Warehouse
   I must kill 4 thugs in the warehouse to reach Rocko. Two of them must be killed before i cross to the left side of the warehouse (or else the other 2 thugs would spawn back on the right side and i'd have to backtrack). In some lucky cases the first 2 thugs will begin on the right side of the warehouse (and i can grab their cash), but in most cases it is necessary to kill one or both of them through the wall. Hence the need for the weapon.
Sometimes the thugs will pick up the wheels and leave them lying all over the area where i'll need to fight Rocko. I was fortunate that this didn't happen.

Rocko
   My boss fighting stratgegy is fairly simple. Dash-kick, throw, repeat. Character placement and timing has small margin for error, and the bosses get quicker as the game progresses. But if everything is timed right, it's possible to retain control of any boss through the whole fight (with no random elements to contend with). The one complication is weapons lying on the ground. I must avoid throwing the boss onto a weapon because you'll automatically pick a weapon up if you kick while on top of it.
Rocko is the only boss that i have to kill without Dragon Feet. The main difference is that the fight lasts longer and it takes 2 kicks for each knock-down, instead of just 1.

Buying Dragon Feet
   I need to earn $6.95 (beyond my initial $20). Rocko gives $3.50. Depending on which gang is in the warehouse and how many thugs i have to kill through wall (where i can't reach the money), i may get anywhere from $1.50 to $3.60 from that encounter. So i'll typically have to kill a few thugs on my way back to the Grotto Mall.
This time I got the minimum amount (1.50) in the warehouse, but by luck i ran into one of the more lucrative gangs, The Mob, coming out of the warehouse, which nets me $.90 for each thug. So i earned the rest of my cash quickly.

Blade, Turk, and Mojo
   Blade is a punching bag to try out the fancy new feet. Then, i must run past 8 screens of thugs before reaching Turk. With all the randomness, there is a lot that can go wrong. In several places you can get a pipe to the head if you aren't holding up or down as the screen fades in.
Turk is a pushover. Mojo's fight is a little tougher because the space is so cramped. Throwing him against the wall affects the timing of the dash-kick, and throwing him left runs the risk of accidentally picking up the wheel or losing him on top of the pipes. This fight turned out well despite the complications. Notice the very narrow margin by which i miss picking up that wheel. Whew.
In the Flatirons Mall i buy a Lamb Leg for $11.95 and max out my will power. This allows me to recover from 3 knockdowns, which is more than enough to complete the game.

Factory and RC High
   These areas and their bosses (Thor, Ivan, Otis) are fairly straightforward. The factory jump can be problematic. And the vertical positioning when you initially assault Ivan must be just right (too low, you miss him; too high, he'll jump onto the fence as you throw him). But there is nothing else of note between the Lamb Leg and the Dragon Twins.

Dragon Twins
   This is the hardest fight of the game. Each Twin alone is faster and more difficult than Simon, plus there's two of them. I choose to fight them one at a time, utilizing a bug that causes the twins to be activated separately. Try as i might, i have not found a reliable strategy for fighting them together. Even taken one at a time, it is extremely difficult to keep control of the fight.

Simon
   The last boss, Simon, is nothing compared to the Twins. He's got a lot of stamina, so it takes a long time to wear him down. But there's plenty of space to fight, only 1 weapon to be avoided, he's not especially quick, and it doesn't matter where i position the body at the end of the fight. So there is little complication to the battle.

I owe a lot of thanks to the helpful folks in the SDA forums for advising me in my planning, to Peter Yang's video walkthrus on youtube, and to Spatvark's FAQ.