The humanoids that occupy this digital world look like a mixture of old tech like old fashioned monitors that have been spliced with wires and neon rainbow fuel. Just seeing the many locations and beings brought to life with stunning animation and creative charm is by far my favourite part of this title. Each area of the game has its own feel and look, which helps keep things fresh as you progress. There has clearly been a lot of time poured into both the overall world design and also the pixel animations which are as good as I've ever seen. The very first time I saw Narita Boy it grabbed my attention with its gorgeous pixel art aesthetic. While I don’t think pixel-art games are known for their emotionally heavy storylines, I was impressed with how touching these small story segments were. At the end of each stage you gain access to one of said memories in which you can walk through and observe how this event altered the Creator's world and life path. In terms of variation there are no real plot or path choices through the game so one run will suffice for most players but the game is so damn cool I see myself having another play through very soon.Īs I've already mentioned, the Creator has had his memories corrupted and so you must fight to restore them. Indeed, this is a smaller offering than both of those games and my first complete run clocked in at just over twelve hours. While there is a degree of backtracking, it is nowhere near as much as games like Hollow Knight or Castlevania. I loved these ideas, even if they were a little under used. The more interesting skills are the way you can use a floppy disc as a mount or transform into a digital animal to pass certain landscapes. New moves are nothing too outside the box with a wall smashing charge here and height gaining uppercut there. Early on you unlock the Techno-sword and must use it to defeat the generals of HIM known as the Stallions. There is a story for you to unfold and as you unlock new skills more areas become accessible to you. In the simplest terms, Narita Boy is a sideways scrolling game which is part action combat and part platform puzzle solving with an emphasis on the former. It is this reference that bears the strongest resemblance to the goings on in Narita Boy. Of course Tron was a classic film that exudes 80’s charm and told the story of Kevin Flynn who was digitised into his own computer world. Another World (1991) was a game that was way ahead of its time and involved a partial physicist being teleported to a strange Alien world: the opening of Narita Boy really had me thinking about that old classic. Dead Cells is a fantastic pixel-art action game from two years back, excelling in fast paced action and beautiful pixel animation. I would say Narita boy reminds me of a cross between Dead Cells, Another World and Tron. Without these the Creator cannot vanquish HIM from this digital plane and so he is now spreading through this vast computer world unchecked. In the introduction we see HIM reach out from the digital world, attack the Creator and leave him devoid of his core memories. This digital landscape is seemingly a whole other world that was fashioned by the Creator, the person who you now race to save from HIM. In this title you must take control of Narita Boy, a young chap who is summoned from our world and transferred into a digital avatar on the other side of his computer screen. Ok, let us take a gander at the game itself. I don’t normally plug merchandise in this way, but this is a very special case that is near and dear to my heart. A donation from each copy of Narita Boy will be made to these three museums as well as other fundraising events and the soundtrack being available for purchase on various platforms. The fine folks at Studio Koba and Team 17 have been working with three gaming museums to help raise awareness of saving arcade machines. Well it just so happens the game I am reviewing this week is all about this very special era of gaming and is even helping preserve our legacy arcade machines. While I’m all for progress, I also love the fact there are people out there working to protect these systems that helped fashion the very fabric of modern gaming. With the internet now seeping into every facet of our lives it is difficult to justify having physical media cluttering up our limited space, so arcade machines are now sadly on the endangered species list. At our house we are superfluous in modern games with all their fancy graphics, yet here was my son and me having the best time ever on a game I played as a kid. Some of my favourite systems were there such as the Simpsons Arcade machine and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Two years ago I took my son to the National Videogame Museum (Sheffield) in the UK and we had an absolute blast.
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