River City Ransom's Roxy's Return Revealed?

If you're still following River City Ransom Underground, Conatus Creative's ambitious sequel to that most famous of Kunio Kun series games, you likely know that after the umpteenth delay, they no longer are setting release dates, though they say they're "content complete"; whatever that means.  Still, two people involved in the game have been good enough to offer at least a bit more insights.  One is Andrew Russell, the programmer, whose video blogs about how he does important things in the game can be viewed here.  (But warning; it's very technical!)  The other is Sarah C Maas, and I'm not actually sure what her job is in the team, but she's answering questions, and that is at the subject of this article.

While Sarah isn't allowed to answer everything, she did tease a bit about Roxy, saying to a person they'd have to wait and see.  With a winking text emoticon, to boot.  So while that's not exactly a yes, it would seem Roxy is at least planned to be in this game, and likely playable at some point.  But how far might they have gone towards implementing her?  Recently, I've dug up some media and info that suggests she might well be there, and in the game as of release. (Whenever that may be.)

Let's turn to that silhouette at the head of this article; it's from a post made three years ago on RCRU's Facebook page.  It is quite obviously a female, though it doesn't look much like the official art of Roxy, who in the Japanese original was named Hasebe.  Yet whoever she is, we might just have gotten a fuller view of her since then, courtesy of this shot:

If you squint, you can see a very similar hair style blending into the carpet.

It can be found on Google Image Search, and it points to a site called www.just-gamers.fr.  However, the RCRU page on Just Gamers doesn't actual seem to have the screenshot, and it was probably one of the many broken media archived there.  I may be wrong, but I believe this was taken from a video that used to be online, but I can't find it anymore.  I'd love help from people who know where it might be.  Meanwhile, though, it seems likely this is the character who was previewed on Facebook three years ago, and based on her position in that screenshot, she's likely a player-controlled character rather than one of the enemies.  The less-answered question remains, is she Roxy?  Maybe not, but there's one more thing that points to her being so, and it's another game inspired by River City Ransom.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, referential to video games in general, but specifically modeled on RCR, also has a character called Roxy, and this is what she looks like.  The similarities to the girl we've been looking at so far in this article, though not absolute, may well be pointing in that direction.  Since Conatus Creative is, much like Scott Pilgrim, Canadian and in love with River City Ransom, it makes sense that they'd derive at least some inspiration. (Update: Since I wrote this, I saw a video interviewing Bannon Rudis, confirming that yes, a Scott Pilgrim Alumnus contributed to this game.)

All this is to be treated as speculation rather than a definitive answer, but I think it's based on some rather convincing evidence, so stay tuned!

Update: Another image with this character has been located at Kamgraphica, a web design company who took on RCRU as a client.  She is in the same pose, which likely implies it's her standard fighter stance.