I don’t think I’ve ever referred to something vague as “charming,” yet that’s exactly what Narita Boy is. There’s certainly an underlying emotional narrative, but progressing through the game itself is so “out there” that I couldn’t help but want to uncover more of the Digital Kingdom and the life of The Creator. The 80s aesthetic makes the experience that much better, allowing me to revel in my own sense of nostalgia while playing.
Narita Boy is an extremely competent 2D platformer. The guys from Studio Koba have succeeded in the uneasy task of giving a unique personality to a video game whose basic mechanics could sometimes appear derivative.
Narita Boy is a love letter to pop culture and visual references from the 80s. This indie game stands out thanks to its story, design and music, although problems with gameplay and controls prevent it from reaching its full potential.
Narita Boy’s retro style is its main selling point. It’s almost like a documentary on the early days of videogames when their creation were labors of love and dedication from passionate geeks in a garage, not industrial products focus-tested by mega corporations. Although it falls short of being a masterpiece, it’s got more than enough appeal to come recommended to those who have a soft spot for the period.
A fun adventure filled with endearing stories, a great soundtrack, and gameplay that is hard, but never truly feels impossible. My hopes are high for a second game!
In general, I had fun playing Narita Boy. It's a clear "nerdy" homage to the 70s/80s, with lots of action, combat and some "metroidvania" elements. It reminded me a lot of the first "Tron" movie. Don't expect a deep story. The narrative tries to abstract the real world into the digital one, but the technical jargon ends up being a bit heavy and makes the metaphors a little confusing. Despite the "retro" graphics, the animations are very fluid and satisfying, the setting is creative, and the adventure has its memorable moments. Good and cohesive soundtrack. What bothered me the most, besides the technical jargon, are the slightly sensitive controls (at times it's difficult to do what needs to be done without "dying"), and the focus/contrast of some elements of the scenarios that you need to interact with (they can be difficult to identify). I experienced some performance problems in one battle or another against the "bosses" that seem to be from the game engine (since my CPU and GPU weren't even 10% used). Anyway... if you like 2D action/combat platformers, you might like Narita Boy.
I really don't want to be harsh with this game, since it's made by such a small company and comes from Spain (my home country), no less.
However, Narita Boy is pretty disappointing in most aspects. The combat is serviceable, it works but isn't really engaging. The main mechanic of the game is activating differently colored "modes" to kill enemies with that color quicker, but none of the bosses use the mechanic. In fact, the majority of the bosses are either easy and boring or frustrating in a badly designed way. The other part of the gameplay consists of jumping around, acquiring powerups that can only be used in very specific ways, and add nothing to the game, they're just cool ideas that aren't incorporated in any meaningful way into the gameplay. You'll constantly be talking to NPCs that have the same 5 to 10 appearances, and the dialogue is baffling. Seriously, I got into the game hoping for an engaging story about a digital kingdom, which really is my jam, but it's really badly delivered. About halfway through the game I started skipping every single dialogue because I found it really hard to concentrate on what's being explained (and I'm used to playing old-school RPGs, reading long texts is not a problem for me if they're interesting enough). The backstory of the creator was the only thing I didn't skip, and it was the most enjoyable aspect of the game.
The final boss is probably the worst in the game, with really poor telegraphy on attacks, and being more of a big damage sponge with bullsh** moves rather than a powerful evil techno-wizard. The game ends on a high note with a big twist, but just after that you get a powerup called "Beat 'em up" and the game just ends with a "To be continued...". I guess it's a way of telling us the next game will be a beat 'em up?
Anyways it's not awful, just frustratingly average for the potential it had.
Visually very well done, music is great and combat feels good.
But the story is like super boring, I started to just click the story out after 30 minutes. Then the rest of the game was really about running back and forth getting keys, killing some boss and the running again. I would say this would be a good game, if there wouldn't be like 5000 games which does the same with more content internally.
Maybe the most frustrating thing (why I ended the game) was that the player needs to run back and forth too much, but only because there is a key in the back of the dungeon and then you need to go to start to get a new key and then run back to the end.
I think the weird and bad and maybe cryotic story to bad level design just makes this too boring to finish.
SummaryBecome symphonic in Narita Boy! A radical action-adventure as a legendary pixel hero trapped as a mere echo within the Digital Kingdom. Discover the mysteries behind the Techno-sword, lock swords with the corrupt and tainted Stallions. Save the world!