Red, yellow, and blue beams shoot out of the digital priests’ faces in the Techno-Algorithm Hall. I pass twitchy sheep grazing the Binary Pastures. Every pixelated screen is a glossary of computer programmer words. Only later does it cut you loose and let the gameplay do the talking.īut I’m quickly over Her Royal Verbosity as the digital decay of this CRT kingdom flip flops between chalky opacity and epileptic fits of flashing lights. Narita Boy introduces its world with stuttering steps. Narita Boy, however, is afraid you’ll miss all the neon signposts if you aren’t stopped in your tracks every few seconds to talk over your mission objectives again. A game like Hyper Light Drifter, to compare and contrast, is celebrated for its wordless world building. Everything is a capital-M Metaphor in Narita Boy. And yes, there’s a mother figure named Motherboard. That didn’t require a repeating 5,000-word monologue from you, Motherboard. For instance, I needed to collect 12 totems. If you go into Narita Boy expecting a top-to-bottom Metroidvania, you’re in for a surprise with how much lore you’ll be reading. Then the platforming and hacking and slashing and near-JRPG-amounts of dialogue either grew on me or the Stockholm Syndrome fully set in, and I ended up pushing hard towards the end game. For story, there is a father-son tale set inside a ham-fisted hall of memories and a lorebook that reads more like a glossary of computer terms. For action, it’s a hack n’ slasher that’s a little bit stingy with its slashing. He did it all, I have to mention, to a sick technowave soundtrack worth every dollar as a separate purchase.įor movement, Narita Boy is a side-scrolling platformer that wants you to hate its platforming. Behind aviator shades and a cop mustache, the Creator stayed up dark days and bright nights, pounding away at his keyboard, building the Digital Kingdom one red/yellow/blue beam of light at a time. Like in Ready Player One, there’s a Creator. And if Narita Boy had launched a few years earlier, he would’ve had a cameo in Ready Player One. Especially if those things are the ego-fueled equivalent of a 14-year-old living out a Tron-loving power fantasy. They do not suit the game's art style at all.Techno-swordsman. Minor gripe: The button prompts (like when they tell you to press the "A" button) stick out like a sore thumb. Nearly all of the lore is explained through text which also sucked some of the joy out of the story. ![]() I actually wanted to get into it, but I just found it too complicated. While the main story is engaging, I found the lore & world-building confusing which was a shame. Slight delays in switching directions while moving (but you get used to it fairly quickly) What makes it more infuriating is that when you leave a house, you return to the 3 doors/entrances of the 3 houses, but you can't reopen the door(s). You have to restart the entire campaign if you want to unlock everything. COMPLETIONISTS, BEWARE: If you miss a collectible in a house and you exit the house, you can't return to the house later. The enemies are creative! It feels really satisfying to slice them up and to use your powers to kill them. There is 1 difficulty and it's very well-balanced for the most part (I particularly love the song that plays on the main menu). Exciting and catchy music: It has a lot of synth in the soundtrack, and it's amazing. It made me admire the creativity of indie developers much more. It is definitely worth getting the game on sale. ![]() I enjoyed the game however, this game is NOT worth the full price. ![]() In all, there is room for improvement on almost every aspect of the game, but it is still a fun adventure. While it has lots of gameplay mechanics from metroidvania-esque games, this game has no backtracking and it actually locks you from going back, which leads to a huge world that is all linear and has only a single sidequest.Īlthough the fighting and movement mechanics are a bit janky you get used to them and they are fun, soundtrack and the visuals are really nice, the story presented has a nice touch and brings the more emotional side of the journey. The story was supposed to be simple, but overcomplicated by excessive programming jargon and always mentioning stuff way ahead of the stage you are in, just like explaining to a 12y/o everything he'll have to do at 25, there is no need to do that and it just causes confusion. Narita Boy is good, the theme of the game is its charm, you are a kid playing a game and then you are sucked into the exact game! But not so much, you actually are in the codings of the game, you "see" how that world functions, talk to every line of code and subject responsible for the inner workings.
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