Narita Boy

released on Mar 29, 2021

The retro-futuristic pixel game Explore and fight in a retro-futuristic world. Swim deep into a oneiric, poetic and unique experience across dimensional planes. The aesthetic of the game was inspired by retro pixel adventures (Castlevania, Another World, Double Dragon) with a modern touch (Superbrothers, Sword and Sorcery) and an 80s plot homage (Ready Player One, He-Man, The Last Starfighter), accompanied by the retro synth touch of the old glory days.


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Ótimo visual e música, porém gameplay enjoativa e com uma história q n prende

The aesthetics of the Digital Kingdom are sublime in every aspect, but the combat, even though it's quite good, has some major issues.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game. It's a visual masterpiece, with beautiful pixel art and colors, and extremely fluid animation. The story is also quite touching and kept me engaged the entire time. The gameplay is fluid and fun, and gets progressively more varied and interesting as your kit grows and more enemy types are introduced.

With that said, I do have a couple of gripes. The game can be a bit janky at times, just due to the nature of platforming and movement abilities, but it's not too much of an issue. I have more of an issue with the level design, as you will spend a good chunk of time in this game walking back and forth, and you don't walk very fast. Also, switching between colors isn't the most seamless transition, and the boss fights are kind of abrupt difficulty spikes. But, everything is manageable, and nothing dampened my experience enough to make me not like the game. I think it's definitely worth playing until the end.

Joguei pouquíssimo tempo, não me prendeu. Na primeira meia hora o jogo me fez ir e voltar de um lado pro outro sem muito motivo, encontrando NPCs que falavam demais, passando por plataforma chata e com controle de personagem ruim. Passei por alguns combates que foram divertidos, as animações e som de combate eram gostosos. Pelos reviews que vi, é um jogo com bastante combate, mas pelo menos no inicio foi muito pouco e muito chato.

Sights & Sounds
- The 80s are alive and well in Narita Boy. The music and visuals really hammer home that point
- The pixel art is gorgeous, particularly the backgrounds. The devastated sci-fi environments you traverse all feel distinct and storied, each with their own palette and fine details
- Unfortunately, there's a slightly annoying CRT filter over all that gorgeous artwork that plays into the 80s veneer while diminishing all the effort that clearly went into the art
- I really hope you like droning synth music, or else the soundtrack is going to wear on you. I found it appealing in that Stranger Things vein, but it may not appeal to all tastes. If you play to the end, at least, you get a fun J-Pop theme song to cap things off

Story & Vibes
- The story has a fairly interesting premise. The developer of a video game is attacked by the villain of his creation, causing him to lose his memories. It's up to the legendary Narita Boy to save the game world and restore his creator's memories
- As you play, you'll find shrines containing the memories of the creator, which will gradually explain the relationship between Narita Boy and the programmer who created him
- The narrative surrounding the in-game world isn't quite as interesting. You mostly just navigate from objective to objective as directed by the Motherboard. It's a little dull, but at least the gameplay is fun

Playability & Replayability
- Nariata Boy largely plays as a beat 'em up with puzzle platforming sections
- Despite starting the game with no combat capabilities at all, the combat soon becomes the focus of the gameplay and fortunately feels pretty good. The controls are tight, and your attacks feel weighty
- After getting the Technosword, you begin with a basic combo, charge attack, and "shotgun" attack that basically serves as a powerful horizontal ranged option
- You'll eventually get a jump attack and dive attack, but these are only helpful against certain mobs. Additionally, you'll find your basic combo, dodge, and jump can solve most combat
- Despite combat feeling good, you wind up fighting a lot of the same mobs over and over again. It can feel a little tedious at times. Luckily, you can get rechargable screen wipe attacks to speed things up, and boss fights inject some much needed variety. They're still button-mashy, but at least they require pattern memorization and careful dodging
- Platforming feels secondary to all the combat, and once you get used to the floaty jump, getting around isn't too hard. There's nothing that'll require more than a single attempt or two to get past
- The puzzles are also fairly simple. It boils down to symbol and color memorization

Overall Impressions & Performance
- The game comes so close to being good. The combat feels like it's so omnipresent simply to pad out the length of the game. Big waves of tanky enemies get boring after a bit. It took the shine off the otherwise fun combat. Similarly, the CRT monitor definitely detracted from the visuals. It would have made more sense if it disappeared when you were in the game world
- This was a really good Steam Deck title. It's well-suited for handheld play and ran very well

Final Verdict
- 7/10. In all, it's a good experience with some definite 80s style. It plays well and sounds good, but there are some annoying gameplay and visual aspects that diminish what could have been a better experience